Four whole days and nothing from August. This is the longest we’ve gone without speaking since Des passed. And it hurts. My mom says he’ll come around, and Bentley says dudes need space sometimes. But I can’t get over how wrong I feel—like I’m missing my heart or my lungs, something so vital to my being that I can’t survive without it.
I glance out the living room window at the ladder leading to August’s room. But I’m not going over there, not after he kicked me out. So I pick up my phone and scroll through my texts with Leah, Amber, and Ella, looking for a distraction. But they all say some version of the same thing—everyone is lying low. It turns out those lawn surfers were actually rowdier than my story made them out to be and Justin’s mom’s garden was demolished (loudly), causing the police to be called and Justin’s parents to have to return from their weekend trip. Which in turn caused some of the group to have their parents suspend credit cards or driving privileges, Ella being one of them.
I sent a screenshot of the news to August, with an added Good thing we left when we did or my parents would have killed me. And also thank god Leah’s still talking to me, but he didn’t reply.
* * *
I give August’s house a pointed look in the glowing evening light and walk across my front yard toward Bentley’s driveway, where he leans against his old pickup truck, waiting. Bentley smiles, and my frustration with August breaks apart and scatters like a group of startled birds. I smile back.
“Man, you’re gorgeous,” Bentley says and opens his passenger door.
He offers me his hand and I accept it, getting a whiff of his yummy woodsy soap. I grab the skirt of my long dress—the cotton one that is arguably casual but also fits me like a glove—and slide into the passenger seat.
He goes around to his side, his smile graduating to a grin.
“What?” I say as he starts the engine.
“Nothing, I’m just . . . This is nice.”
I kick off my sandals and put my feet up on his dash. “Going for ice cream is always nice. It’s like the nicest of the activities.” I don’t know why I say it; I know he wasn’t talking about the ice cream.
He turns onto our sleepy street and heads for town, a five-minute drive past beach cottages to brick storefronts and the harbor. The wind blows my hair around my face, and I don’t try to pull it back. It’s one of those warm evenings where the humidity is low and the salt water permeates the air. I hang my arm out the window, my neon bracelets catching the remaining light.
“I love this town,” Bentley says as we pass the Surf Shack, and it affects me.
I’ve been hearing people say that phrase my entire life. The townies who have minimal ambition for college and even less for travel, who do their best to never leave. The tourists who loudly praise this place for all of forty-eight hours before they move on to their next romantic docking destination without looking back. I’ve always known I’m neither of those. Which is why my sudden problem with California is so confusing.
“Yeah,” is all I say.
Bentley pulls into a parking spot on Main Street in front of the art gallery. I take my feet down from the dash and slip them back into my sandals.
“You know, I’ve been thinking about what you said about Berkeley,” he says like he can hear my thoughts. “And I kinda looked it up? It seems like a really great school.”
“You did what?” I turn toward him, annoyed for a reason I can’t pinpoint.
“I just thought I could help you make a pros and cons list or something.”
“Maybe,” I say, cutting him off in the hopes that he’ll drop it. Talking about it makes it feel like a real problem, which I’ve been doing my best to pretend it isn’t. I open my door and slide out, closing it again before he can continue.
He joins me on the sidewalk. “You know, just to help you sort out how you feel about it,” he continues, like maybe I didn’t understand what he was getting at.
“What kind of ice cream are you going to get?” I attempt to step away from his truck.
But he doesn’t take the bait, and he doesn’t move.
“Okay,” he says. “Or not. Just thought I could help with the indecision.”
I tense. I don’t want him to see me as indecisive, and more than that, I’m afraid he’s right. “You wouldn’t understand.”
He freezes and I freeze, too. “What wouldn’t I understand?”
“You’ve never wanted to leave this place. You’re not . . .” I instantly know I shouldn’t have started that sentence, that the only way it could end is with something unkind. I study my sandals for a beat too long. “Honestly, it’s not a big deal.”
“But it is a big deal. To you,” he says so supportively that I almost believe we’re more than a summer fling.
“By that logic, wouldn’t it benefit you if I stayed here? You’d get to see more of me.”
He shakes his head, like I’ve completely missed the point. “I’d never want you to give up important opportunities because of me.”
Momentarily, I’m taken aback. And I make light of it again. “So I guess this is a bad time to tell you I’m just in it for the hookup?”
But he doesn’t laugh. He looks away.
“It was a joke.” I suddenly feel like we’ve switched places and I’m him in his kitchen on our first date, advocating a sense of humor in the most obtuse way.
“And just to clarify, I do have ambition. There’s a lot you don’t know about me.”
I wince. Hearing him respond to the insulting sentence I never finished makes me feel sick. “I didn’t mean that.”
He studies me.
“Seriously, I didn’t. You’re lots of things, Bentley Cavendish, and I have no doubt that ambitious is one of them. Would you accept an ice cream apology, maybe a little groveling?” I say, feeling lousy and leaning back against his truck door.
“Now you’re trying to hijack my date idea? No way.”
“I really am sorry,” I say, taking his warm palm in mine.
“No worries,” he replies, rubbing his thumb along the back of my hand.
“You should at least be a little mad.”
He cracks a smile. “You’ll just have to live with the guilt.”
I take a good look at Bentley, who not only went out of his way to look up my school but is also being way more gracious than I would if the situation were reversed. “You know what. I think you might be more than a good person; you might even be a great one.”
He places his hand on his heart. “You had doubts?”
“I mean, I’m starting to think that too-cool shtick you have going is just a big fat lie.” I tug on his hand a little, pulling him toward me, and he puts up no resistance.
“How dare you attack my reputation like that,” he replies with a small smile, so close that my body tingles with anticipation.
“I’m serious,” I reply. “You should let this Bentley out more. I really like him.”
“Really . . . as in totally infatuated?” he says, moving his hands to my waist. His woodsy scent fills my nose.
“Truth? Kinda, yeah.”
He breaks into a grin that makes my insides warm.
I lift my hands around his neck, tugging him toward me until his body is flush with mine. He bends to kiss me, and I feel his smile against my lips and the cool metal of his truck against my back. He gently bites my bottom lip, goose bumps forming on my arms and my breath shortening. And when he lifts his mouth from mine, I pull him back.
“Damn,” he says like he can’t believe I’m real.
I laugh, opening the passenger door behind me. He hoists me onto the seat, and I pull him in after me, because as much as I want ice cream, I want to kiss him more.