water, rescuing Marco. He sweeps Jake from his feet and throws him farther, much farther than any human I’ve ever met is capable of throwing a person.
Dad steps into my sun, shading my face. “Holy . . . Did you see that?”
Kaylee and Delia clap and cheer. Marco’s eyes are huge, like perfectly round, perfectly green planets. Jake emerges, shaking his head and paddling in.
“Yeah. Um.”
“He’s a circus freak, isn’t he?” Helene says, perched on her elbows. “I’ve always thought so.”
Dad stumbles back, dropping to his bum on the dirt. “Yeah. Circus freak.”
Olivia doesn’t return until Delia’s slicing up her famous apple pie. By then Dad’s so sloshed, sprawled across a lounge chair, he hardly notices her presence. Still, she sits next to him, her pretty face tense.
“You all right, Liv?” Kay asks, dishing up the pie.
“Oh sure,” she says, tucking her phone into her pocket. “People are a disappointment sometimes, but it’s nothing a little sun can’t cure.”
“Liv?” Marco’s sitting in a beach chair under a covering of trees on the opposite side of the picnic area from Dad and Olivia. Clothed in a dry shirt, he’s been reading, lost in Ali’s journal for the last half hour, but now he stands and crosses the picnic area. “Liv? Olivia Holt?”
She sits up, startled. “I’m sorry, do I know you?”
“It’s Marco. Marco James. Benson Elementary.”
Her face softens, and she looks almost childlike. “Marco? Oh my gosh!” She jumps from her chair and embraces him, laughing and . . . Is she crying?
“How long has it been?” she asks.
“A lifetime, I think.”
She squeals again, and suddenly it’s not hard to believe she’s younger than she looks.
“I didn’t see that coming,” Jake whispers. Dad’s started to snore, so he’s brave and takes a seat next to me. “Did you?”
“Not in a million billion years,” Kaylee answers, gape-mouthed, apple pie stuck to her cheek.
Kicking up a cloud of dirt, Marco drags his chair over to Olivia’s and they talk. And talk. Somehow Marco doesn’t look so out of place next to her, and she looks substantially less like Cruella de Vil. Engaged in conversation with an old friend, her plastic smile’s been replaced with something genuine, something wholesome. I run a finger over the halo on my wrist, unsure how to reconcile my bipolar impressions of her and the halo’s strange warning.
I lose track of them after that. We eat pie and play cards. Delia is remarkably good at rummy and Canaan is not, which is kind of hilarious. Jake’s not any better. Tired of losing, he takes my hand and drags me down to the water.
I don’t complain.
13
Brielle
The sun’s low in the sky now. It’s cut a yellow boulevard across the lake. So beautiful, so clear. I can imagine stepping out onto it. I can imagine walking on water.
But when my toes touch the rippling current, my feet sink into mud.
“Let’s walk,” Jake says.
I’ve still got my ratty jean shorts on over my suit, and the smell of sunblock is everywhere. Jake’s chest is golden in the evening sun, his hair ruffled and loose. It’s like a vacation being with him like this.
“You’re staring at me,” he says.
I’d blush, but we’re so far past that. “I am.”
“That could make a lesser man feel uncomfortable.”
I laugh. “But not you?”
“Definitely not me. Please stare away. In fact”—he stops and steps in front of me—“let me return the favor.”
An impromptu stare-off. Awesome. I am so not going to lose.
Jake keeps his gaze on me, but he moves it from my eyes to my lips and then to the hair tucked behind my ear. It isn’t until he bites his lip and waggles his eyebrows that I realize just how hard he’s flirting, how hard he’s trying to win. A laugh bubbles in my stomach, but I shut it down and set to examining his face further. Not at all an unpleasant task.
Sweat curls the hair around his face. Some of it catches in his sideburns, in the scruff he’s not shaven. Other strands tangle in his long black lashes—lashes that send shadows spilling across his cheekbones. His lips are wet, that lower one still stuck between his teeth. I let my eyes trail to the hollow at his throat. And that’s when he grabs my shoulders and pulls me to him. That’s when his lips crush mine. Electrified little bugs crawl from my bare toes to the crown of my head. I close my eyes and press closer, the luckiest girl on the planet.