“Yeah,” they both said.
We talked about our families. We talked about our friends.
We decided it was serendipity that we found one another when we did.
We agreed that choosing the perfect college was almost as much pressure as finding the perfect relationship. And sometimes it was impossible to have either. Ever. And the thought of that was seriously depressing.
Alice told us she was in no mood for relationship drama and really just wanted a puppy. She also admitted she was finally able to sleep soundly now that Izzy was in the hospital because she didn’t have to worry about waking up to an Izzy’s dead phone call.
Eventually, Alice and Val crashed and I lay on my side, holding Flopper and listening to Alice grind her teeth and Val mouth-breathe. I thought about that breathless, tingling ache I used to feel when I was under Seth’s blanket in the dark, pulling at his T-shirt, taking in his smell. It was pretty obvious why I’d stayed with him. But I felt so much more than I ever did with Seth just touching knees with Gordie. I wondered if he felt it, too, and what it would be like to be under Gordie’s blanket.
I needed air.
I lifted the tent flap and tried to unzip it quietly.
“What happened?” Val whispered, half asleep.
“Nothing. Going to the bathroom.”
I wandered toward the cluster of Turtle Trail tents surrounding the last of the sizzling bonfire cinders. The breeze felt great on my itchy legs. I pulled on my hoodie and shined the flashlight down on the sand, afraid a crab might pop up and bite my bare toes.
“What are you doing, Sadie?” Gordie half whispered from behind me.
I jumped. “Gordie! Why are you lurking around?”
“I can’t sleep. Jean is all sprawled out and there’s literally no room. Come on. Walk with me.”
We walked toward the open beach and the nearly full moon.
“Thanks for coming, by the way. It’s nice having non–Turtle Trail people here for one of these outings. The director isn’t exactly friend material, and Keith and those guys are always trying to get rid of me.”
“They’re probably sick of all the women flirting with you.”
“Yeah, right.”
“Seriously. You’re Mr. Popular at Speakeasy. The girls were flocking the other night.”
He laughed. “It’s the harmonica.”
We climbed up a mini sand dune and sat between tufts of sea grass. I pulled my knees up to my chest and rubbed coarse sand on my ankle bites. Gordie shined his flashlight in my face.
“Stop. You’re blinding me.” He turned it off and stretched out his legs. They were lean but strong and perfectly hairy, so different from Seth’s mass of fur.
“I can’t imagine what people from school would think if they discovered Gordie Harris and Sadie Sullivan on a deserted beach, huh?” Gordie said.
“They might not be that surprised. You know, I had a huge crush on you in middle school.” I felt strangely at ease confessing the secret that had once consumed middle-school me.
He smiled and flicked a bug off my leg. “I heard rumblings about that.”
“You did?”
“People told me you had a crush on me. I didn’t actually believe them. I assumed it was another asshole conspiracy to aggravate me, so I ignored them.”
“Wait.”
“What?” He leaned closer, trying to gauge my expression.
“Nothing. I don’t even know why I brought up middle school.” He knew I liked him and didn’t do anything about it. Clearly he wasn’t interested.
“So do you want to talk about that fireproof box you thought we should get for the diamonds?” I said, turning away from him.
He reached over and pulled my ponytail. “I liked you, too, dumbass.”
Middle-school Sadie would have died right there. She would have exploded, releasing giant balls of pent-up longing into the sea. Almost-senior, Shawn-Flynn-party-veteran, incident-survivor, recent-visitor-to-a-trap-house Sadie remained calm.
“Oh, really? Nice of you to let me know.”
He laughed. “Uh. I wanted to. Shay was not having it.”
“What do you mean?” My stomach flipped.
“It’s stupid now, but I saw Shay in CVS one night, a long time ago.”
“Okay. And?”
“I asked her if I should invite you to that ridiculous Valentine’s Day party at Parker’s house where you weren’t allowed to show up without a date. She literally turned around and ran away. So I took that as a no and said screw it.”
I squinted up at the moon, thinking hard about that party and whether I had gone and who with. It came back to me, how Shay and I were scrambling for dates. How Shay made me go with her neighbor’s dud friend because we were not going to miss that party. And the party sucked, because everybody felt beholden to the dates they had scraped up. And I only had eyes for Gordie Harris.
Why would Shay have done that to me?
“Well, this is awkward,” Gordie said.
I wanted to text her, to ask her what kind of friend did that? She never mentioned CVS.
I turned to face Gordie and took a breath. “I still feel it, you know?” I said quietly. I did. I still felt all the middle-school feelings. And I felt bigger, deeper, high-school-and-beyond feelings.
“You do?”
“I do.”
And then his lips were there, against my cheek, pressed on my neck. His lips were on my mouth. His tongue was in my mouth. His hand was on the back of my head. My hand was under his T-shirt, feeling the ripples of his back muscles, his chest muscles, pulling his shirt over his head.
Every hair on my body stood on end. Every skin cell woke up. We were practically naked before I could even remember where I was. It was that fast and that inevitable.
“Gordie! Gordie!” a voice called from down the beach.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake.” Gordie shot up and pulled on his clothes.
“Gordie, help me.” The woman’s frantic voice got louder. A dark figure hurried down the beach.
I yanked up my shorts and threw on my leprechaun T-shirt. I still felt a quiet buzzing inside.
“It’s Zoe.” Gordie grabbed my hand. I turned on the flashlight and tied my hoodie around my waist.
“We’re here, Zoe,” I called.
“What’s wrong, Zoe?” Gordie said, rushing ahead of me.
“I’m scared. Mom usually tickles my back at night. I can’t sleep without back tickles, and the ocean is too loud.”
Gordie took Zoe’s hand and led her toward the campsite.
“If I find you some milk, do you think you could sleep?” he said sweetly. “Come on, wipe your feet on the towel.”
“Do you want to sleep in my tent?” I said. Gordie’s head whipped around. I smiled and reached out to grab his arm. I pulled him close to me and whispered, “Oh. My. God. Gordie.” I kissed his earlobe and left him standing there.
I spent half the night tickling Zoe’s back while she held Flopper. I couldn’t stop thinking about what had happened on the beach.
And I couldn’t stop the fluttering.
TWENTY-TWO