by getting back to that fantastic mouth of yours because it doesn’t look like anyone else is coming to this shindig. Were you kidding when you said you were going to invite some other people, because I can completely under—”
A clatter of tumbling stones corrects his assumption and makes me sit up fast, bashing my forehead against his.
“Ow!” We both cry out as Natalie takes her first step down the rocky embankment, exclaiming, “There you are!”
A beam of light hits squarely on me and Bennet, and I gasp. Bennet, intuiting what I need from him, practically launches himself from the blanket. He starts jabbing at the coals with a long stick. I wonder if Natalie noticed the two of us sitting so close together.
“How did you get down there alive?” Natalie asks. She’s followed by Rachel, Alli (who I can tell, even in the dark, has her eyes trained on Bennet), Bruce (whom I recognize from the gas station), and a second guy I don’t recognize at all. Elise hasn’t come, but then I guess, out of all of Natalie’s friends she seemed the least likely to bother. Or maybe she couldn’t get a sitter.
They all negotiate their way down. Alli is trying it crab-walk style. Rachel is leaping sure-footedly from rock to rock, landing on the balls of her feet, almost as if she were dancing. The beam of her flashlight makes crisscross swipes across the rocks.
“Hey,” I say, getting to my feet. “You made it. Bennet just got here, too.”
Natalie reaches the beach first, a yellow blanket looped over her arm. “This is righteous!” she says.
Then, in the glow of the campfire, I realize she’s suppressing a smile. She raises her eyebrows at me in a look that says smooooth. Natalie’s the only person I’ve ever met with sarcastic eyebrows.
“Meet Ryan,” Natalie says, gesturing to the guy I didn’t recognize. He’s prematurely balding with eyebrows that look like wings. She adds, “Rachel’s sometimes-boyfriend.”
Rachel jumps from the last rock down to the sand and swipes Natalie’s shoulder with an open hand. “But not tonight,” she says.
“Shit, Rach,” Ryan says with exasperation, “why did you invite me, then?”
“Give her a few minutes,” Alli says, giggling. “Her blood sugar’s low.”
“Nothing a few dozen s’mores won’t fix,” I suggest, pulling a bag of marshmallows out of the cooler and tossing them their way.
“Chocolate?” Rachel asks.
“Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups.” I toss her the package and add, “Trust me,” when she raises her eyebrows.
Rachel snags the bag out of the air while Alli lays out her blanket close to the campfire. The wind is picking up across the lake, and the flames lick wildly, first left, then right. Smoke swirls upward. Bruce and Ryan hesitate and dodge the smoke, not sure where to sit. Ryan obviously thought he’d be sitting by Rachel tonight, but she hasn’t left any room for him on her blanket.
“Here,” Bennet says, offering Ryan a seat on a two-foot stretch of log. Ryan sits down, looking grateful that he doesn’t have to sit in the sand. Bruce loads hot dogs and marshmallows onto roasting sticks.
Natalie comes to stand by me. “Nice beach,” she says. “I like what you’ve done with the place.”
“Thanks,” I say. “It’s actually my first time down here.”
“Is it true you almost drowned your first night here?” Bruce asks. “Alli was telling me about it. Glad to see you survived.”
“Only slightly humiliating,” I say, though I’d nearly forgotten. It already feels like a million years ago. “And I waited until my fourth night.”
“Little Bear hasn’t had a summer girl die in years,” Bruce says. He flips up his hoodie and hunches his shoulders against the cool lake air. “It’d be a shame if you were the one to break the survivors’ streak.”
Bennet looks irritated and mumbles something about how that’s “not funny.”
“The streak?” I whisper.
“Don’t listen to them,” Natalie says. “But listen to this. We need to get things started for Summer Fest.”
“March’s fish fry?” Bennet asks.
Natalie seems pleased that he’s been on the island long enough to know. She tips her finger in his direction, and I can tell Bennet is happy for the acknowledgment. Natalie adds, “And Kate’s twenty-first birthday.”
I make celebratory jazz hands as they all turn to look up at me.
“Rachel and Alli, you’re on music,” Natalie says.
“What about the band?” Alli asks. I wonder if her sugary sweet voice annoys anybody besides me.
“Kate talked me into dropping the band so we have money for other things. Give me whatever you want for