“You know we did,” I lie, because I don’t know how to explain why we wouldn’t have. “Does that mean you’re thinking about it?”

“I am. Trying to work a few things out, but I’ll let y’all know.”

I’m surprised to find that the idea of Keisha coming to visit dislodges something in my chest and makes it a little easier to breathe. Seeing Keisha again would be like getting a piece of my summer back, connecting that part of me to current me in a way that seeing Jasmine only tears apart.

It’s been a long time since I’ve felt like myself, I realize. Maybe seeing Keisha will bring that back.

Maybe it’ll bring me and Jasmine back to normal too.

Whatever that is.

Chapter Sixteen

It’s an unusually slow morning at the Book and Bean, and I can’t drink any more failed latte art, so I do something I’ve been both itching to do and dreading.

I pick up the book I started writing this summer.

I’d tried to sit at my laptop in the beach house but typing on a computer made the attempt too real, so I’d bought a flamingo-patterned spiral notebook at some cheesy tourist shop, planted myself in a chaise by the pool, and wrote. But I didn’t get far. It was a silly, rambling story about a guy named Oliver and a girl named Jillian who meet on the beach in—where else—the Outer Banks and hit it off, only to learn they’re living in the same house for the summer. Unfortunately, after that initial “Oh no!” moment, I completely ran out of plot, so I put the notebook away and forgot about it.

But after talking to Keisha last night, it hits me—Oliver and Jillian aren’t alone in the house. They have roommates. At least two of them. As soon as that comes to me, those characters start to draw themselves in my brain, and I introduce Andrew, a lifeguard who has his pick of the ladies, and Nadia, because of course I had to write a Russian girl. Nadia’s working as a waitress and perpetually smells like fried shrimp, so much so that Jillian has to look twice to realize that with her impossibly long legs and white-blond hair, Nadia’s stunning.

My pen pauses on the page. Why would it matter that Nadia’s stunning when Oliver’s the love interest? Hmm, maybe Jillian’s jealous, nervous that Oliver will gravitate toward her instead? No, I don’t see Jillian as insecure, and I definitely don’t want some girl-hate scenario … I make sure they have a friendly encounter, and grin as I write Nadia breaking out into some Russian swears as she drops her coffee mug.