“I don’t understand.”
“Greg Grumbacher. That’s where he shot me.”
“You told me . . . I mean, I thought he shot your mom?”
I shake my head slowly. “My mom wasn’t supposed to be home. He followed me home that day because his plan was to kill me. He had a note to leave with my body. His reasoning was that my mom took away his kid in the divorce, so he was taking away hers.”
Porter stares at me.
“Mom lunged for the gun, so he missed most of my vital organs. I bled a lot. They had to sew up some stuff. My lung collapsed.
I was in the hospital for a couple of weeks.”
His shoulders sag. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know.”
“You’re the first person I’ve told. My classmates heard, but my mom put me in another school after it happened. Anyway, there you go. Told you I was screwed up,” I say, giving him a small smile.
He curls his hand around my waist, rubbing from the front scar to the back. “Thank you for telling me. For showing me.”
“Thanks for not making it weird. I don’t want it to be a big deal anymore, you know? That’s why I wanted to show you. Out here in the sun.”
“I get it,” he says. “I totally get it.”
I lean forward and press my lips against the sweet dip where his collarbones meet. He pushes back my hair with his palm and kisses me in the middle of my forehead, both eyelids, on the tip of my nose. Then he pulls me tight against him and folds me up in his arms. I breathe him into my lungs as deeply as I can, all his sun-burnished, warm goodness. Thank you, thank you, thank you, I try to tell him with my body. And from the way he’s holding me—like I’m a whole person, not a broken toy—I think he understands.
“Does this mean you want to stop our game now?” he murmurs after a time.
I tilt my head back to see his face. “Are you chickening out on me?”
He grins that slow and cocky grin of his and pushes me back until I’m an arm’s length away. “Both at the same time, on the count of three.”
“Not fair! I’ve got two pieces of clothing left.”
“I’ll close my eyes until you say I can open them. One, two . . .”
With a euphoric cry, I fumble with my bra strap and strip off my underwear. I did it!
“Holy shit, you’re beautiful,” he murmurs.
“Cheater.” I’m 100 percent naked. On a public beach. And more important, I don’t care, because Porter’s taken off his clothes too, and that’s far more interesting than any fleeting sense of modesty I have. Because he’s naked. And he’s gorgeous.
And he’s very excited about our mutual sans-clothing situation.
“Oh,” I say, looking down between us.
“I’m pretty proud of that,” he admits with a smile, urging my hand forward. When I touch him, he stands on tiptoes for a moment and looks like he might pass out, which makes me very excited about our mutual sans-clothing situation.
“Now I’m thinking about the back of the camper van,” I say.
He blows out a hard breath and pushes my hand away. “I think that’s a dicey idea. Maybe we should get dressed first. God, you’re so beautiful.”
“You mentioned that.”
“Let me look at you some more first. I need to memorize all of you for later. In case I never get to see this again. Shit. I can’t believe you talked me into . . .” His eyes are heavy-lidded. “This is either the best or worst idea I’ve ever agreed to. You’re killing me, Bailey Rydell.”
“I know you’ve got condoms in that first-aid kit.”
A wave crashes again the rock bridge.
“Bailey . . .”
“Porter.”
“It might be terrible. Trust me, I have experience in these matters.”
“It might not, though, right?”
Seagulls circle overhead, squawking.
“Are you sure?”
“I’m sure,” I say. I’ve been thinking about it a lot over the last few weeks. And I’ve made up my mind. “If you want to, with me, that is. I’m not trying to pressure you.”
He swears softly. “It’ll be a miracle if I can make it all the way back to the van. But if you change your mind, you can, you know? At any point. Even in the middle of it.”
But I don’t change my mind.
Not on the way to the van, or when we’re dumping his surfboard out to make room. And not when he’s asking me a dozen times if I’m sure, and trying to convince me otherwise by doing the fabulous thing he did to me in the museum with his fingers, which only makes me want him more. Not when we start, and he’s being careful and slow and deliberate, and I can’t bear to look at his face, but I don’t know where to look, so I’m looking between us, because I’m worried it will be messy, and that it’s going to hurt, and it does, but the pain is over fast, and then it’s just . . . so much more intense than I expected. But he’s going so slow, and then he says—
“Are you still okay?” in a husky, breathless voice.
Yes, I still am.
And I don’t change my mind in the middle of it, when it’s overwhelming, and he stops, because he’s afraid I want him to stop, but I’m okay—I’m so okay—and convince him to keep going.
And not after, when we’re clinging to each other like the world just fell apart and is slowly clicking back together, piece by piece, breath by breath . . . heartbeat by beautiful heartbeat.
I do not regret a single moment.
“What is this?” I ask some time later, tugging on something white that’s wedged in a crevice as we lie tangled together on an old blanket in the back of the van. In the back of my mind, I’m thinking that I know for sure I saw another condom in the first-aid kit, and I’m wondering how long I have to wait to bring this up without looking too eager. But I’m propped up on my elbows and Porter’s lazily running his fingers across my back, meandering down my butt and the back of my leg, and this feels pretty freaking good, so I guess I’m in no hurry.
The jagged object I shimmy out of the crevice is about an inch long and triangular, and it’s got a piece of silver fitted on one side, through which a silver jump ring is attached.
“Huh. I thought I lost that,” he says, pausing my sensual back scratch to take it from me. “That came out of my arm. Genuine great white tooth. It’s a lucky charm. Or a curse, whichever way you want to look at it. I had it on my key chain, but I was switching keys out and set it down. Must have rolled off the seat or something.”
“It’s huge,” I say.
“No way, that’s just a baby tooth. You saw the sharks at the aquarium. Great white was twice their size. And he was a teenager.”
I try to imagine the tooth implanted in Porter’s arm. “I know it’s a bad memory, but the tooth itself should be survivor’s pride, or something. A badge of honor.”
“You want to borrow it?”
“Me?”
“For your scooter keys. Might match your whole animal-print vibe.” He pauses. “I mean, if it’s too much, no big deal. I’m not trying to brand you, like you’re my girl or anything.”
Because if people see this, they’ll definitely know we’re dating each other. “Am I? Your girl, I mean.”
“I don’t know. Are you?” He offers the shark tooth in his open palm, hesitates, and closes his fingers around it. “If you are, you have to promise me something first.”