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Chapter one
Allie
Fourteen Years Before
Ting. Ting. Ting. Ting.
Our four shot glasses come together making a faint tinkling sound before we tilt our heads back and down the contents. The liquid burns the breath from my throat and makes my eyes water like I’ve eaten a jalapeno whole. I blink the tears away.
Sarah whoops, Katie grimaces, while Logan and I just grin at each other. These are my new best friends since I moved to the school in Manhattan for my final years of high school. It’s always hard being the new kid, but not this time since Katie and Sarah on day one decided I belonged with them. They were right, we clicked and six months later, it feels like I’ve known them since prep which is how long they’ve been friends.
“Happy Birthday to me,” Logan shouts to the heavens. His deep voice rises above our higher-pitched ones and carries on the salty sea breeze out over the darkening ocean. Tonight is his sixteenth birthday party so he’s got every reason to be shouting jubilantly. Our pre-party sneaky drink might also have something to do with his unusual exuberance.
The four of us continue to stand in a small circle facing each other on the beach. Sarah, Katie, and Logan are the only real friends I’ve had in my fifteen years of life, and tonight’s party will be my first one since I was in pigtails jumping on bouncy castles and eating too much candy. I’m so excited I can barely contain the giggles from bubbling up and bursting out. I’ve had years of practice keeping my emotions tucked away from public view and with a hand to my gut I again tamp them down.
Logan is giving me one of his intense stares which he seems to do a lot. He’s told me before that he can’t quite figure me out and I’m okay with that. The mysterious girl sounds much better to me than the reality. I clear my thoughts of the past and with it, a thin veil of happiness slips back over my features. I’m just an ordinary teenager, I tell myself, having fun with my friends.
We’ve spent the afternoon making a bonfire and now that it’s all done there’s nothing left but to wait for his guests to arrive and maybe sneak in another vodka shot. The inspired idea for this beach party came from Katie. She’s Logan’s stepsister and being only a few months apart in age undoubtedly knows him better than anyone. Logan dislikes people making a fuss over him, he prefers to remain low-key. Even when he’s scoring the winning points in a basketball game or getting the top grades in mathematics, he seems embarrassed by the attention.
This party fits perfectly within the parameters of no fuss. Thirty or so friends for a casual bonfire beach party. The only fancy piece is that the food is catered which I’m sure everyone will appreciate.
Logan has his own set of friends, but on the weekends when he’s not playing sports, he will often hang out with us, studying or watching a movie. Sarah and I are boarding students which is how we first met, and we’re always grateful to spend time at Katie and Logan Carlson’s home, a huge two-story apartment in Midtown a couple of blocks from the Empire State Building. Basically, any time away from our small soulless dorm rooms is appreciated. They’re the size of a broom closet with about as much comfort and personality.
Once a month we’re invited to spend the weekend with the Carlson family at their beautiful beach house in Southampton. Sarah often jokes that it’s more a beach mansion than a mere house, and now as I look up at the massive wooden building nestled into the sand dunes, she’s probably right. It’s luxuriously big but having grown up in similar surroundings I don’t notice it so much.
Lights running the full width of the house illuminate the deck like a Christmas tree. Through the floor-to-ceiling glass doors, I can see the silhouettes of the caterers moving about in the kitchen. We’ve made the bonfire halfway down the wide sandy beach, between the path to the house and the water. Just far enough away from Mr. and Mrs. Carlson’s sight. I suspect they wouldn’t be too happy to see us drinking alcohol.
“Another one?” Sarah asks, already holding her hand out with the tiny empty glass between her thumb and forefinger. “Come on, girls,” she urges when Katie and I don’t raise our glasses quickly enough.
Logan looks down at our three faces, shrugs his shoulders, and with a smile pulling on his lips he pours another round of vodka shots. Again, our heads tilt back, and we drink it down. This time, the burn feels milder. A warm flush slowly creeps up my neck and over my cheeks.
I look at Katie and her lips are squeezed tightly together like she’s just sucked on a wedge of lemon.
Sarah on the other hand seems to be suffering no aftereffects. “Logan, where exactly did you get a whole bottle of vodka?” she asks. “I need those connections.”
Logan laughs. “There’s got to be some advantage to having older brothers. Right, Katie?”
Katie nods so enthusiastically her long dark hair falls in a curtain over her face. She brushes it back over her shoulder and her dark-brown eyes sparkle, maybe from the effects of the alcohol or maybe a flicker of mischief. I’m still learning how to interpret all the nuances of the girls’ facial expressions.
But one glance at Sarah and I know she’s ready to party. She throws an arm around both Katie and my shoulders giving us one of her affectionate hugs. Sarah is our alpha. It was immediately obvious when I met her. Confidence oozes from every pore of her being. A ringleader of fun and sometimes a little trouble. Nothing too bad. Just enough naughtiness to make Katie and me happy followers.
We do an uncoordinated linked-arm jig that nearly has us falling on our butts and has Logan doubling over into a side-splitting belly laugh. With this kind of encouragement, our movements become more exaggerated and ridiculous. But our silly antics are interrupted by the shouts from a group of Logan’s friends who appear through the dunes between the beach and the house.
Logan is quickly distracted by the captain of the basketball team hurling a beach volleyball at his head. He easily catches it in one hand, further proof of his sporting prowess. It’s enough of a diversion for Sarah to nab the bottle of vodka from the grasp of his other hand, without so much as a word of complaint from him. Logan is soon swallowed up by the group of guys hooting and hollering like they’ve just scored the winning three-pointer against their archrivals.
The sea-spray air whipping in from the ocean soon rings with excitement as the party is finally underway. The guys move as a mob toward the bonfire which has a circle of heat emanating out across the sand already. Earlier, under Logan’s direction, we placed each piece of kindling carefully in the pit of dry sand, then he built the logs in the shape of a teepee around. It was all done so precisely that it made me smile; Logan is a numbers and science guy. I’m a little envious because I tend to be more of a chaotic, fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants kind of girl. If ever I needed an example that his approach to planning works better, I would only need to look at the way the golden flames are dancing in and around the stack of logs.
Logan dashes toward us, managing to briefly extricate himself from his friends. “Sarah, guard that vodka with your life,” he warns. With equal seriousness, she agrees.
Satisfied, he jogs back to his friends. I try not to watch the easy way he moves over the sand, but of course I do. Logan is a friend, but lately, it’s become increasingly difficult to not see him as something more.
Katie is well aware of her three stepbrothers’ impact on the opposite sex, and she does her best to ignore it. For my friend’s sake, I avoid ogling them. It’s easier done with her older brothers, Hunter and Blake, who have the same towering six-foot-five athletic build with similar good looks and an overabundance of confidence. However, Logan is another matter. I can’t stop my eyes from following him, watching the quiet, serious way he takes in every situation. He looks beyond the obvious, surface-level stuff. Always questioning and delving deeper. Sometimes I worry that he sees too much.
I’m still watching Logan laughing and joking with his friends when a group of girls arrive. A couple of their parents own properties a little further down the coast which is where they are staying for the weekend. The girls are nice enough, but a bit too giggly for my liking. I’m glad that I’ll be staying here with Katie and Sarah. Although it might get noisy with Logan and the guys camping in several large tents that have been pitched on the small strip of grass to the side of the deck. They are already shouting and have now moved further down the sand for an impromptu game of beach volleyball.
I suspect we might not have been the only ones who had a couple of sneaky shots.
It’s a cool clear night with a nearly full moon sending a shimmer across the dark calm ocean. The moon, bonfire, and several tiki torches dotted about the sand provide enough light for the partygoers. Two long wooden tables laden with food and cans of soda have been set up on either side of the sandy path. Music blasts out from a speaker and if the house wasn’t at an isolated end of the beach, the neighbors would already be complaining.
