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“Jesus, Sal, you can’t say stuff like that on here!”
“Were you finished? You didn’t say ‘over.’ Over.”
“You know what? When you’re done with the D and D, you can also go to Mrs. Franklin’s house. She lost Muffins again. Over, over, freaking over!”
“You son of a bitch! You know that cat hates me. Over.”
“This is positively fascinating.” Danny laughs as she snuggles back into her chair on my deck. “It’s like listening to a Summersweet Island soap opera.”
“It’s fun, right? The last—I mean… some people think it’s weird I like to make a fire and sit out here listening to the island police scanner. Nothing much exciting really happens on Summersweet, but listening to Sal argue with dispatch is always a good time.”
I almost said the last girl I brought out here for a fire and to listen to the scanner told me I was a “fucking weirdo,” to be exact. And boring. Another first date gone wrong. Except this isn’t a date. This is just two friends hanging out after dinner.
“Why do you even have a police scanner?”
Grabbing another log from the pile next to my chair, I lean forward and toss it into the fire pit when Danny shivers and pulls the blanket she brought out here around her more securely.
“I used to be an auxiliary sheriff’s deputy for the island.”
She smiles at me as she shakes her head. “Of course you were. I justknewyou were the type of guy who helped grandmothers cross the street and rescued kittens out of trees.”
I laugh, resting my elbows on my knees to get closer to the fire. Now that the sun has gone down, it’s a little chilly outside.
“Are you sure you’re okay staying out here? We can go inside if you’re too cold.”
“Nope. It’s absolutely perfect,” Danny reassures me. I look back over my shoulder to see her resting her head on the back of the chair next to mine and happily staring out at the view. “This is my favorite thing to look at.”
As the new piece of wood catches fire and the flames grow, I can perfectly make out her face in the glow from the fire. “Mine too.”
Danny’s eyes meet mine, and I quickly look away and back at the crackling fire before she realizes I wasn’t talking about the ocean.
“Anyway, the deputy thing was just a volunteer job I had for a few summers during our busy tourist season,” I finish explaining to her. “I mostly just broke up fights between people who had too much to drink. And I only rescuedonekitten out of a tree, thank you very much. That’s why I now have a scar up by my hairline. She tried to rip my face off to show her appreciation.”
Danny leans forward in her chair until she’s right next to me, and our shoulders are almost touching. “Let me see.”
I laugh as she turns on the flashlight of her phone and holds it up as I turn to face her. Pulling my hair off my forehead, I dip my chin and lean closer to her. “See? Right there.”
“Oh, you poor baby.”
My entire body freezes, and I stop breathing when I feel the tips of her fingers gently brush against the spot I’m pointing to. My chin tips up, and our eyes meet. She’s leaning so close I can smell the Bit-O-Honey candy she popped into her mouth a few minutes ago, and I lick my lips, wanting another taste of her so badly I can’t think straight. Neither one of us moves, and my heart starts thumping in my chest when her eyes flicker down to my mouth.
There’s no way she wants me to kiss her, right?
The video on my phone I’ve probably watched fifty times so far flashes through my head. And the one part I kept rewinding to watch again and again was when we pulled apart, and her eyes stayed glued to my mouth. Just like she’s doing right now. Like she wants to kiss me again. I thought I saw her do the same thing last night when I was making tea, and she told me I looked good in glasses. But then she thought better of it and changed it to smart, and I figured I was just imagining things.
The quietest of throaty moans comes out of Danny as she continues staring at my mouth, and I know damn well I didn’t imaginethat. Her hand slowly slips away with our faces still inches apart, her fingertips brushing against my temple as it goes, until my heart is beating a mile a minute.
The scanner crackles to life where it’s resting on the arm of my chair. “There wasn’t anyone at the pier, Sal, and now my goddamn sundae is melted! Over.”
Danny quickly jerks her hand away and leans back in her own chair, while I try to calm my racing heart and remember how to breathe normally again. The moment is immediately broken like it never even happened when she starts chatting again.
“So, youusedto be an auxiliary deputy. Why do you still have the scanner?” she asks.
Knowing I probably reallyamimagining things, because I’m an idiot, I lean back in my chair as well and stare at the fire.
“Um, because I never gave the scanner back when I quit, and they never asked for it back, so I kind of stole it.” I smile sheepishly at her. “I know it will come back to bite me one of these days. The only other time I stole anything was my dad’s credit card for accidental porn, and I was grounded for a month… and scarred forever.”
Danny laughs, and I look over at her. There’s something different about her today. I felt it as soon as I walked in the door after bowling practice, and she was dancing around the kitchen to music she had playing on her phone while she finished up dinner.
