Farrah grabs the phone. “Let me see that.” She returns to the text. “That’s not an invite.”
“Sure it is.” Mina reclaims the phone. “And I should know.”
“Maybe.” Farrah snatches it again. “But maybe not.”
Before they give me whiplash, I hold up my palm. “Wait.” I hesitate. Am I really about to ask them for dating advice? There is no part of that thought that feels possible to me. I take a breath. “So, what do I do?”
“You go,” Mina says. “But let him find you.”
Farrah fluffs my hair. “And if he’s with another girl, find one of those alabaster boys and kiss him on his milky-white lips!”
Another girl? Nate could be hanging with another girl? With a group of girls? With his lifeguard buddies? “I-I-I don’t know. Maybe I shouldn’t—”
“Farrah?” Mina reaches for my elbow.
“Just say when.” Farrah latches on to my other wrist.
I back up, which only pulls them forward. “What are you—”
“When,” Mina says.
Farrah’s long bangs falling across her winking eye is the last thing I see.
20
Ptah! I lift my head and spit out sand. Tiny grains trickle down my V-neck.
Mina and Farrah apped me to the beach.
I’m lying on my stomach at the unpopulated end, facing the ocean. In front of me, the two of them twiddle their fingers.
“Oh,” Mina says, “we came by to say a quick ‘hi.’ So you knew we weren’t lying about wanting to come to dinner.”
Farrah gasps, but I laugh. “At least not this time, I say.”
“Touché, Sister.” Mina gives me a wry smile. “But we do have to decline your mom’s invite.”
Farrah changes her black headband to silver. “That anemic boy asked us out.”
Us?
Mina dabs gloss first on her own, then on Farrah’s lips. “And Azra?” she says, puckering. “Zar sisters always kiss and tell. Text us your details and we’ll text you ours.”
Ours? Really?
They disappear and I make a mental note to delete all incoming texts from Mina.
I prop myself up onto my elbows and wipe my face. My heart’s pounding from apping but also from a feeling in my gut that, for once, Farrah was right. Nate wasn’t inviting me. I was simply too invested to think clearly.
Flopping back down, I lie with my cheek on the sand and listen to the gentle break of the waves. Hypnotized by the sounds of the surf, at first I think Nate crouching down next to me is a mirage.
“Azra?”
But mirages don’t speak. Right?
“I was waiting for a text that you were coming,” he says. “We must have missed each other at the entrance somehow.”
So Nate’s text was an invitation. I should have known better than to doubt Mina’s well-honed expertise.
I scramble to sit up and discreetly brush grains of sand off my new cleavage, but Nate’s too close for me or my new cleavage to be anywhere near discreet.
Looking into his dark caramel eyes, I call on the confidence of my red bra. “Yeah, strange. Must have slipped right by you.” I push my hair behind my ears. “Anyway, sorry about not responding. I wasn’t sure until the last minute. I’ve got a family thing tonight.”
“Oh, I didn’t mean to pull you away.”
“You didn’t. My family thing is why I’m here and not there.”
He laughs. Nate actually laughs at my joke.
“It’s getting dark.” I realize I have no idea how long I’ve been here. Mina and Farrah neglected to app my phone along with me, and I never wear a watch.
Nate looks at the darkening sky. “I know people come here for the sun and all, but I love it at night.”
And with that, my fleeting worry that I’m late for dinner goes out with the tide because I couldn’t agree more. The deserted beach at night, lit only by the moon and the stars … magic couldn’t do any better.
“Me too.” I tilt my head at the rolling surf. “It’s like a private screening. All this, just for me.”
Nate starts to stand. “And here I am interrupting. Sorry, do you want me to go?”
“No,” I say too loudly. “I mean, I think there’s maybe one more seat at this showing.” I am the definition of looks being deceiving. No matter how sexy the bra and being Jinn may make me, my brain cannot keep up.
Maybe Nate’s a fan of corny, because he sits on the sand so close to me that our shoulders touch. He then fills me in on the beach gossip I’ve missed. Ranger Teddy busted a group of football players from our school who weren’t even trying to disguise the beers in their hands. Chelsea, desperate to deepen her tan, refused to put on sunscreen and her body is now as red as her lipstick. A stopped-up toilet overflowed, and the bathroom attendant quit rather than clean it up.
“Oh, and the best part,” Nate says as he lays his hand on my knee. Even through the thick denim, his warmth penetrates, flushing my body with a heat ten times stronger than apping.
He arches his back. “I saved someone.”
“You … you what?” Though not even this can make me forget about his hand on my knee.
“Rescued from the clutches of death,” Nate says dramatically. “Okay, well, not exactly, but this guy was swimming really far out and got a wicked cramp.” His grin is both self-deprecating and proud. “I reached him before anyone else.”
I’m not surprised, which I say before I think maybe I shouldn’t. He already knows I’ve watched him running. I need to be careful not to cross into stalker territory. But Nate’s genuinely taken aback. He seems touched by my compliment.
It’s gotten late, and though I don’t want to, somehow the decision is made to head back.
I sweep the sand off my jeans and bend to pick up my shoes. In a single smooth motion, Nate plucks my sandals off the ground with one hand, rights himself, and slides his other hand into mine.