“Eva . . .” I don’t know what else to say, so I don’t even try. But I do reach out and touch her hair, gliding my hand over her curls. She looks down and all I see are tear-dolloped lashes and cheeks, a kind of sad beauty that makes my chest hurt.
We lie there for a while, breathing quietly in the dark. I love this almost as much as talking—?just being.
“You smell like peanut butter,” I finally say.
She laughs softly and wipes at her eyes. “Probably because I feasted on some Peter Pan on the way over here.”
“That sounds kind of dirty.”
“I meant it to.”
I smile at that, then push back the covers. Lying here with her is pure bliss, but the longer we lie here, the more likely we are to talk about things we’ve both had enough of for now.
“Let’s go,” I say, handing over her glasses and pushing the window up.
“Where?”
“The lighthouse.”
Eva smiles and slips on her glasses.
“I’ll meet you by the wall,” I say. “I’ve got to grab the key.”
“You promise?” Eva asks, one leg out the window. “You’re not just trying to get rid of me, are you?”
She’s smiling, so I start to crack a joke, but there’s a sliver of uncertainty in her tone.
“I promise. Bring the peanut butter.”
She grins before disappearing out the window.
It doesn’t really matter who we are during the day. These nights—?they’re ours. We’re not Grace Glasser or Eva Brighton. Just Grace and Eva. Two girls who need to feel young and free, need to feel like girls. Need to scream from the top of a lighthouse and eat peanut butter out of a jar and swear and accidentally brush up against each other and giggle about it.
So that’s what we do.
Chapter Twenty
FOR THE NEXT TWO WEEKS, EVA AND I FALL INTO A PATTERN. The days pass in a blur of serving onion rings and Emmy’s famous Better Than Sex pie—?yeah, that’s what it’s called on the menu, although all the little old ladies of Cape Katie call it BTS—?practicing for hours and hours at the Book Nook in the afternoons, and trying not to think about anything beyond the next sunset. My audition still feels so unreal, but as we move into the beginning of July, my stomach coils into knots every time I sit down to the piano.
Eva and I don’t talk much during the day. We work together, circling each other like acquaintances, communicating the status of ketchup bottles and fresh coffee. Twice, Mom came in for lunch. She fawned over me for about three damn seconds before smacking a kiss to my forehead and disappearing with Eva into a corner booth on Eva’s meal break. Once, they even left for the half-hour, meandering down the beach with their shoes hooked on their fingers.
I try not to think about what they’re talking about, what Eva is getting from all this. I try not to think about what Luca said about Eva getting hurt, about me getting hurt all the time.
Meanwhile, Luca and Emmy watch Mom and Eva’s interactions with narrowed eyes and tight smiles, panic brimming just under the surface. Actual panic, like Maggie’s going to swipe Eva right out from under their noses and go into hiding. It pisses me the hell off. And it worries the hell out of me. I can’t decide which emotion is stronger.
Still, I say nothing. Share nothing. Act like it’s no big deal.
But then at night, everything changes. We start at the lighthouse, eating peanut butter and laughing into the black air. Then we usually go on a bike ride or a walk on the beach. There’s a secretive quality to doing all of these things under the moonlight and stars that makes it exciting, makes it special. We talk about everything and everyone except our mothers.
Sometimes we dance around them, hinting at these two women—?one dead, one alive, both lost—?but we never quite land on them. Under the dark sky, we’re two motherless girls.
We’re whoever we want to be.
And apparently, who we want to be is friends who snuggle in bed until dawn, when Eva sneaks back to the Michaelsons’ before Emmy wakes up. Because every night, after our moonlighting, we’ve ended up back in my bedroom.
In my bed.
Under the sheets.
Legs entwined, backs pressed against chests, arms slung over waists, but never, ever more than that, and Eva’s always gone by the time I wake up.
So, as usual, on the morning of July fourth, I open my eyes to an empty bed and a tightly closed window. Also, as usual, I go through the previous night in my head—?more specifically, the minutes right before we fell asleep, when I couldn’t tell where my body stopped and hers started—?and wonder if the whole thing was a dream, some hallucination brought on by acute stress or acute exhaustion or acute what-the-fuckery that has been a staple in my life for the last fifteen years.
But there’s a little concave dent on the right side of my queen-size pillow. An Eva-shaped impression. And I know without a doubt that I fell asleep with her chin resting on top of my head, my back pressed against her stomach.
In the pale morning light, I stare at the ceiling. The dopey smile on my face slowly fades as my thoughts burgeon, because in all honesty, this whole thing Eva and I are doing is more than a little confusing. Every night our bodies wrap each other up, secrets are whispered, breath is shared—?it’s like the world’s longest make-out session without ever actually kissing.
I’ve been here before—?that weird zone after a hookup where you’re feeling each other out to see if it was just a one-time thing or has relationship potential. Except it’s always been the guy feeling things out, with me on the other end pretty much avoiding him. Eva’s certainly not avoiding me, but she’s not doing anything to confirm that what happened in the tree was more than a casual kiss to her. Maybe she just wanted to check her first kiss off her never-have-I-ever list.
So many times, I’ve wanted to just grab her and press my mouth against hers, dispel all these damn doubts. A few nights I got so bold as to brush my lips across the back of her neck, but she didn’t acknowledge it. Didn’t turn in my arms to kiss me. Once, she released a contented sigh, but that’s it, and the doubts continue to drive me nuts.