maybe I sold an ounce or two, but never to kids. Always over at the college, and the money went to my mom and groceries for the family. In my mind, I was a kind of drug-dealing Robin Hood. The first time I came here, it was because the judge gave me a choice: spend a summer camping with a bunch of aspiring criminals or spend a summer on a juvenile-detention work farm with a bunch of aspiring criminals. Camping sounded better, so I came here through this group called Outward Bound—heard of it?” I nod. “And I cleaned up the beaches and cleared trails, all the shit nobody else wanted to do. Man, I hated it. I fucking hated it.”
“So what changed?”
“My dad left for good right after I got home. I woke up one morning and he was gone. No explanation, at least nothing Mom would ever tell us. She’s always been good at making excuses for him while telling me what an asshole he is. I haven’t seen him since, which is honestly no great loss, but it’s made things harder for my sisters. My brother was serving his first tour in Afghanistan by then, but they were so young when it happened. Mackenzie and Lila were ten and nine, Ally was seven, and Channy was only five.”
I sit there beside him, thinking about fathers, his and mine.
“Did you know he was going to leave?”
He shakes his head and kind of grins at me. “See, the thing about my dad is that he doesn’t like to talk much. That includes not telling your wife when you’re going on a bender for a night or two, and not saying goodbye to your family when you plan to leave them forever.”
“So just like that?”
“Just like that.”
“No more floor,” I say. “It was yanked out from under you.”
He squints up at the moon, considering this. “Yeah. Except in my case, I don’t think there ever really was a floor.” He shifts, his arm brushing mine again, and I suddenly have a bird’s-eye view of the two of us, side by side on this vast beach, looking out over this vast ocean. “You know, all my life I knew my parents were shitty. I can’t imagine what it must be like to have the perfect family and then have it obliterated.”
I look at him and he looks at me, and in that moment I feel like he knows me better than anyone.
“Moonlight suits you, Captain.”
“ ‘Captain’?”
His eyes go to my hat.
I say, “It’s a fisherman’s cap.”
“ ‘Fisherman’ doesn’t have the same ring to it.”
“What happened to ‘Lady Blackwood’?”
“ ‘Captain’ is better.”
Our eyes stay locked. I say, “What do you do here? On the island?”
“I save reckless girls from drowning.”
He smiles.
I smile.
And then this red-lipped, short-haired island Claude takes a breath and, without overthinking or thinking at all, reaches out and traces the freckles on his arms—a faint sprinkling, faint remnants from another summer or maybe brand-new from this one.
He watches my face as I do, and then he takes my hand and slowly twines his fingers through mine. There’s another tattoo on the inside of one wrist: an anchor. And on the other: Joy. I feel this pang because Joy might be a girl he loves, but then I tell myself, Don’t think.
I say, “I want to kiss you now. I hope that’s okay.” The exact words I said to Wyatt before leaving Ohio.
His eyes start dancing and a smile lingers on his lips. “Okay.”
“Okay?”
He shrugs. “I mean, yeah. Why not?” He sounds all whatever, but his eyes are laughing.
I lean over and kiss him.
For a second I’m worried he’s not going to kiss me back.
But then his lips are on mine just as much as mine are on his, soft and searching, little sparks everywhere. There is a pinch on my ankle—the tiniest bug—but I barely feel it. I lean into him.
And then his hand is on my face and I like the feeling of it there, strong and warm and pulling me in, not pushing me away. I open my mouth and his tongue finds mine, and I’m tasting him and he tastes sweet and also dangerous, and I move in closer and he pulls me closer and I’m kissing him and he’s kissing me, and this isn’t any Claude I know. This is some girl with short hair who makes out with strange boys on strange beaches. And she likes it, this girl. She likes him. She’s not