“She’s good, huh?” Chase murmurs in my ear, dropping his elbows onto my shoulders, lightly brushing a hand against my boob as if he knows watching Jasmine is turning me inside out, making me want to be touched.

That it’s making me want what being alone with him upstairs didn’t.

That I’m more attracted to Jasmine, to this girl who seems to hate me, than I am to my incredible boyfriend.

All at once, way too much crashes into place.

Chapter Fifteen

THEN

It was Declan’s idea to host a low country boil, to persuade my mom to finally eat some local cuisine. My mom grew up on Russian fare—pelmeni, pirozhki, borscht, and all manner of things made with potatoes, cabbage, and/or sour cream. She’ll eat fish eggs before she’ll eat a prawn that’s still got its head on. So, it’s been kind of a struggle for her spending the summer in an area dominated by seafood and barbecue. (Though she loves that the Outer Banks has somehow become a hot spot for Eastern European students to work for the summer. Getting to speak Russian to people who aren’t me or her parents has been the highlight of her summer, I think.) Naturally, Declan sees that as a challenge.

My mother is not amused.

And because he can’t ask my mother to plan a social event she’d rather die than attend, it’s up to me and Jasmine (and okay, hired staff) to get everything going.

“I wish you could see your hair right now!” Jasmine laughs as we struggle to weigh down the gingham-printed tablecloths against the breeze rolling off the Atlantic.

“You encouraged this hair!” I lift my hand self-consciously to my new blond curls. I’m still getting used to the way they dance in the breeze, so much lighter than the inches of mousy gold I left on the cutting room floor of the Seaside Salon. But between the way my new hair frames my face and the deep tan I’m getting out in the Carolina sun, my eyes pop blue-green more than ever, and I look healthy and happy and different.