The next day we ventured out to a more public part of the beach, and the boys joined in a game of volleyball that Rachel and I decided to sit out. Volleyball had never been my sport, but it really wasn’t so bad when you were sitting on the side, watching. Especially when Noah looked even sexier than usual, what with the thin film of sweat on his broad shoulders, his dark hair flopping in his eyes, his abs…

He happened to glance over when I was staring at him through my gas-station sunglasses (which weren’t dark enough to hide the fact that I was checking him out). He winked.

“Oh my gosh, did you see that?” some girl squealed all of a sudden from behind me. “He totally just winked at me, right? I mean, that was so obvious, right? He totally winked at me.”

I looked at Rachel, who glanced back at the girl and raised her eyebrows at me.

“You should so get his number after,” another girl said. Rachel’s eyebrows went up even higher. I could see her holding back a laugh. “You have to. He was totally coming on to you.”

I turned round, and the two girls looked at me. They seemed at least two years older than me, probably in college. “What?” one of them snapped.

“He wasn’t winking at you. Just, you know, FYI.”

The girl snorted. “Sure. What, you think he was winking at you?” She looked me up and down with the corner of her lip curled up.

“Um, yeah,” I replied.

“Oh, sure,” her friend scoffed. “He was looking at you.”

“Well,” Rachel said, “considering she’s dating him, I’d say he definitely wasn’t winking at you.”

I could hear the girls muttering behind us before getting up and stalking off. I grinned at Rachel, nudging her.

“Who knew Miss Sunshine could be such a badass? Remind me to never get on the wrong side of you!”

That night, Lee took Rachel out to see a movie and go for dinner afterward. There was an art gallery opening in the next town over, so Matthew and June went there. Which left me and Noah alone in the beach house. I was swimming lengths in the pool when he came out and tapped me on the shoulder.

“Did you forget about the special surprise I had planned for you?”

Crap. I totally had.

“Uh…”

“I’m cooking dinner. Which, hopefully, I won’t burn.”

“You’re cooking dinner?”

“Sure I am. Everyone else is out, which means…we’ve got date night.”

The words date night were all I needed to get me out of the pool and into the shower.

I had no idea what to wear; my only pretty dress, the yellow one, was in the laundry. I had shorts and T-shirts, sure, but nothing I really wanted for a date, if we were going to call it that.