“They were nice,” Levi said once we were out the door.

“They are,” I said, smiling.

We were moving in the direction of the sun now. The warm rays were making me feel sticky with perspiration and I swiped at my forehead when I felt drops of sweat cling to my hairline.

“I can see your mom’s house from here,” said Levi. He raised his arm, pointing to the colorful row of houses lining the commercial pier.

Shading my eyes with the palm of my hand, I squinted into the sunburst glow of the horizon. The houses there were built by the first fishermen who inhabited Oar’s Rest and had been carefully renovated over the years by their descendants. In more recent years, the families had moved out, choosing to take their fishing fortunes and buy newer homes in the town itself. Most of the fishermen’s cottages were now rented out to tourists, many of them city slickers who wanted a taste of the humble, quiet life.

“I see it,” I said. The house was a mossy green, like the color of the algae infesting the submerged wooden beams in the pier. Mom’s favorite color.

We lapsed into silence. I kept waiting for him to duck into the shade of one of the restaurant awnings, but he continued walking at a leisurely pace. The sun glinted in his hair, each strand lit with a multidimensional golden shine.

“What?” He’d caught me staring.

“Uh, just…” I gestured to his hair. “You have Disney princess hair.” I could tell I’d surprised him from the slow smile that spread over his face. “Ugh, pretend I didn’t say that?”

“Why would I do a dumb thing like that? That’s pretty much the best compliment anyone’s ever given me.” A beat. “Plus, it means you were checking me out. Again.”

“That wasn’t—okay, it was.” I laughed. “You busted me. I have zero game. I’m an open book.”

We stopped walking. “Suits me,” he said. “When I told you I liked you, it was because I don’t want to spend the summer going back and forth on whether or not I should tell you. I don’t play games, and guessing games are the worst.”

I felt my rib cage shift in a fluttery plummet, all the way down to my stomach. “Then you’re the opposite of every guy I went to high school with.” A good thing, definitely.

“Good. I don’t do games. I do grown-up.” He flashed me the kind of smile that he probably threw around all the time like confetti. One part earnest, one part sweet. So deliciously genuine that my fingers itched to reach out and touch his face, make sure he was real. Because no one had smiled at me like that in a long time. Any wisecracks or flirtations withered in my throat. It felt wrong to tease after what he’d said.