He leaned back on the wicker couch and stretched his legs out in front of us. I thought about running my fingers from his knee to his ankle. I felt my face blazing with frustration, embarrassment.

The sun bathed our porch in light. The boats in the harbor had all become visible in the morning light, the white sails, the wooden hulls, the tall masts with seagulls perched atop. The little red houseboat, the other little houseboats. Across the water on the cape, morning began. The citizens of that real place woke up and went out for jogs. On our island, morning began. Footsteps up above. Shower water.

“Lucas is awake,” I said. I stood up, but Cole caught my hand before I could walk away. My breath of surprise was so fast and sharp, so loud in that quiet intimacy of dawn, so like the breath of arousal that I flushed.

He pulled me onto the couch, onto his lap, onto his warm body, held me there for a minute as the sun came up entirely and the smell of salt rose off the bay into the brittle air, and the warm and dusty smell of his skin made me dizzy. We sat together breathing and being quiet. I felt the life that pulsed in him. Inside our clothes, inside our pockets, our bodies strained toward one another, and we heard Lucas’s footsteps on the stairs, and I stood up, blushing and confused.

Chapter 13

13

Anxiety beat in me all morning. A feverish pulse. I couldn’t stop thinking about his skin, so much heat just beneath the surface. My head ached. My throat felt dry. I could feel the shape of things between us, a specter rising in that lonely space, something that wasn’t him and wasn’t me but was a third entity, strong and cruel and radiant. Another front was moving in, and the air felt thick and still and heavy.

At lunchtime I sat in Jack’s with a notebook and made some lists. The first one was titled What To Do Now, but the only items on it were 1) find out more about Cole and 2) find out more about my mother.

Eddie was sitting at the bar, filling out a time sheet. I waved him over.

“I’m really sorry for snapping at you,” I said.

He sat down across from me. “I already told you. Think nothing of it,” he said. Then he looked at me in surprise. “Did something happen?” he said. “Why are you so—you look like you’re going to cry.”

“You know what I was remembering?” I said. “That time in fifth grade when the fire alarm went off at school, and we lined up outside and then just decided to go home. All of us, remember? We just walked home. The teachers and principal were so mad. No one thought to look for us at home.”