Unexpected excitement floods my chest and thumps against Ario’s recorder. I turn to find Marcos watching me like a dog watches someone eat. His waterlogged shirt sticks like peanut butter to his torso, exposing a strip of brown, lightly furry skin above his hips. The torchlight traces a golden outline along his curves as he heaves shallow, nervous breaths. I struggle not to stare—it’s been a complicated enough day as it is. I can’t mess around with a boy who thinks we’re supposed to end up with girlfriends, no matter how kissable he may be.

Or how wonderfully heavy he’d feel on top of me…

“What do you mean, you don’t want to be good?” I ask.

“You don’t know what I mean?” he asks. My heartbeat slows to a crawl.

“You can’t say it?” Marcos’s watery eyes pick apart my resolve piece by piece. “Say it.”

“The Reverend’s dad was a reverend, then he became one. My dad’s a reverend too. I can’t do this anymore. My chest…” Wincing, Marcos grips his soggy shirt.

“Are you okay?” I ask, advancing.

“It hurts. I pray before I go to sleep, and I pray that sleep will do it. I’ll wake up different. But when I wake up, my chest still hurts. I’m still here. I’m still me.” Marcos’s throat closes, and all that comes next are squeaks. I close the gap between us until the redwood-tall boy looms far above me. Wiping back tears, he narrows his eyes. “I’ve been here seven months. It hasn’t been fun, but things were calm. Things were bad, but they made sense. Then you came, and in one stupid day, everything gets scary and worse and nothing makes sense anymore.”

I can’t believe it. Somehow, I managed to make the kindest boy in the universe glower at me like I’m roadside trash. Everyone on this island is either dead or running for their lives because of me. I just want Marcos to look at me again the way he looked at me this morning—smiling, with a toothbrush sticking goofily out of his mouth.

“I’m sorry,” I say, defeated.

“You should be,” he says. But his expression softens as his warm paw lands softly on the base of my neck. Electricity snaps the spot where he touches. My neck jerks and my eyes want to wince at his touch, but I order them to stay put. I don’t want to startle Marcos—I don’t want to stop what’s going to happen. What needs to happen. His fingers slide up my neck, through my sopping hair. My legs weaken, but he holds me in a firm, careful grip. “You little criminal.”

He lowers himself on me, and my lips welcome his.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

CM ± MC

No one can touch us.