The Unexpected Everything - Morgan Matson Page 0,98

one way I knew this, beyond a shadow of a doubt, was the fact that we were getting close to the three-week mark and I had no interest in seeing it end. It was pretty much the opposite, as a matter of fact—it was feeling like something was just getting started.

• • •

“And we’re doing groups this year,” Palmer said enthusiastically, as she pushed up the brim of her sun hat. “Chosen randomly. Which means, since there will be two of you, the challenges are going to be that much harder.”

We had been at the beach since nine, and by my count, Palmer had been talking about the summer scavenger hunt for at least forty-five minutes. She’d sent a group text at eight a.m., saying that it was the perfect beach day, she’d already staked out a spot, and we should join her and bring her an iced coffee. Somewhat miraculously, everyone else’s schedules had aligned—and I’d shifted some walks around to make mine work as well. We’d spread out on the patch of sand Palmer had been zealously guarding and now had a stretch of blankets and towels and snacks and magazines.

“Sounds good,” Toby said, her eyes fixed on the water in front of her. “Absolutely.”

“What are you looking at?” I asked, pushing my sunglasses up and trying to see what was in her sight line.

“What do you think?” Bri asked, shooting me a look. In the two weeks since Wyatt had come back to town, Toby’s crush seemed to be getting stronger by the day. She had calmed down enough that she was no longer acting strange around him, but she’d taken to spending much too much time on her hair every day and trying to devise increasingly complicated ways that they could be alone together. She was sending us long emoji missives about her feelings, and I don’t know if she was getting better at it or if I was just getting used to it, but I’d been able to accurately decipher a message yesterday that detailed her current emotional state, using mostly just dolphins, the weird gourd fruit, and clapping hands. She was so single-minded about this—about him—that I wasn’t sure anymore if her crush was really about Wyatt, the guy who had, by my count at the diner the night before, said only fourteen words. There was a piece of me that wondered—though I would never suggest this to her—if maybe she was just used to the idea that she was in love with Wyatt without stopping to see if it was still true and if he was really what she wanted.

“I’m just making sure nobody drowns,” Toby said, her eyes not straying from the water even when Palmer started to tickle her bare feet.

I looked out to the water and smiled. Clark, Tom, and Wyatt were all on stand-up paddleboards, but not a single one of them was paddling along placidly, like in the pictures hung up in the tiny building where you could rent kayaks, paddleboards, and boats. Instead, Clark and Tom were using their oars as jousting spears, trying to knock each other into the water. And Wyatt was paddling, but sitting down, with one leg over either side, like he’d really wanted a kayak and was doing his best to approximate one.

“Who rented those to them?” Bri asked, sounding baffled.

My phone beeped with a text, and I pushed my sunglasses up to get a better look at the screen, then fumbled the phone when I saw who it was from.

TOPHER

Hey—heard you were staying in town

You around this weekend?

Let me know. It’s been a while

I looked up from my phone, but Clark was still in the water, and none of my friends seemed have to notice I’d gotten a text. I read the message again, then started typing fast, holding my phone off to the side.

ME

Hey—I’m around

But kind of with someone now

TOPHER

Got it. Let me know when you’re free to hang again

ME

Sure. Yeah.

Will do.

I set the phone down, then turned it to silent and dropped it back in my bag, trying to figure out why this was bothering me. It wasn’t like it was that unexpected for Topher to text me—so why did it suddenly feel like another part of my life had intruded when I didn’t want it to? And I didn’t want to compare the two, but the proof of how different Clark and Topher were was right in front of me—in the very fact that Clark was hanging out