Once dressed, she returned to the window for a moment to look down, but the boy wasn’t there. She wandered downstairs and onto the porch of her uncle’s house. The sky was clear and blue and the day hot, though the breeze off the ocean cooled her skin. Not far up the beach, she noticed the crowds. Dozens of people lay under the baking sun, walked over the sand, soaked in the ocean. She looked south and saw a handful of people there as well.
A car engine sputtered into life, and Lindsay backed toward the door. The noise came from behind the house next door, and she imagined the two old guys were going out for a drive. She walked into the house through the den and dining room to the kitchen door. She opened it, but did not step outside. Instead, she leaned on the jamb, making sure she was hidden from the driver’s view.
She heard the car back out of the drive. Once she was certain it was far enough down the road, she poked her head out and saw the back of a long silver sedan. Sunlight glinted off its trunk as it rolled to the north. Satisfied that she could not be spotted, Lindsay walked onto the porch all the way to the rail.
On a whim, she walked to the side and looked over the rail down the length of the house to the window where she first saw the boy. From this angle, she couldn’t see anything.
Lindsay walked back inside and up the stairs. In her room, she went immediately to the window seat and pressed her face against the glass, looking down at the boy’s room.
And there he was.
He stood in the window. His head was lowered, looking at the band of sand separating his house from her uncle’s. Lindsay pulled the binoculars from under the green cushion and quickly put them to her eyes. It took way too long for her to adjust the lenses, but finally the boy came into focus.
Excited, she waited for him to look up from the sandy ground. When he did, her throat closed up tight and her heart raced.
He was hot. As she expected, he was only a little older than her. Seventeen, maybe eighteen. His black hair jutted in wild spikes from his head. His thin face, flawless and beautiful, wore a sad expression that made Lindsay’s heart flutter. His eyes were as blue as the sky. His frowning lips were full, and she suddenly wanted to kiss him, which was totally weird because she didn’t even know him. But she found herself thrilled by the wonderment of what his lips might taste like and feel like against her own.
Lindsay spun from the window, clutching the binoculars to her chest. What was she going to do now? It wasn’t like she could just go over to his house and say, “Hey, my parents dragged me out here from the city, and I got bored and was looking through my uncle’s binoculars and thought you were hot, so why don’t we date or something?”
She could sit in the window seat for a while and pretend to write on her laptop. He might see her, but then, he might not.
Her cell phone rang, yanking Lindsay from her thoughts. She checked the caller ID.
Kate.
“Perfect timing,” Lindsay said as she answered the phone.
“What? What’s going on?”
“Nine-one-one.”
“More scary umbrella men?”
“Noooo,” Lindsay said. “Jeez, live in the now. It’s male-related.”
“Beach hottie?”
“Way hottie. I mean, he’s staying in the house next door. I saw him through the window last night, and I thought he might be cute, but then I saw him again today, and he totally is. He’s at his window right now.”
“Is said hottie age-appropriate?” Kate asked.
“Duh.”
“Any sign of female interference?”
“What? Like a girlfriend? I don’t think so. The only other people I’ve seen at the house are a couple of old guys. I think they might be his parents.”
“Both of them? Like Rachel’s moms?”
“Pre-xactly like that. They’re both buff, full-on groomed, and wear matching outfits.”
“Sounds totally same-sex to me.”
“I know,” Lindsay said. “Progressive, right?”
“Do they really wear identical outfits? I mean, is it like they order from the same J. Crew catalogue or is it matching leather diapers or what?”
“Kate, come on.”
“Okay,” Kate said. “Is he still at the window?”
Lindsay leaned forward just enough to see the boy in the neighboring house. “Yes.”
“Well, what are you going to do?”
She thought about it for a moment and came up with a plan. It was simple and cool. It made her smile. “We’re going for a walk,” Lindsay said.
“I can’t,” Lindsay said, standing on the sand behind her uncle’s house.
“Well, I know I couldn’t, but you can,” Kate said. “You can do anything. Besides, it’s no crisis. You’re just talking on the phone, wandering around the yard. No big deal. You don’t even know he exists. It’s a total coincidence. Now, set to steppin’. I have a bazillion things to do before the party.”
“I’m so pissed I can’t be there.”
“I know,” Kate said. “It’s totally lame. There’s no way I can pull this off without you here. I mean, what if we run out of beer or something? Or what if Matt starts a fight? Crap. I should just cancel.”
“You can’t cancel. If you’re worried about the beer, just have Matt’s brother pick up a couple of extra cases. Put them in the bathroom off the kitchen, in the tub, and cover them with ice. As for Matt, he isn’t going to start a fight, because his mother threatened to yank him off the basketball team if he caused any more trouble. If he gets all weird, just remind him of that.”
“I will,” Kate said. “You’re right. Thanks.”
“No problem.”
“I promise I’ll take a ton of pictures and post them on my website. It’ll be kind of like being there.”
“Uh-huh.” And watching the Oscars on television was kind of like being Colin Farrell’s date. “Now, I’m about to make contact.”
Lindsay shook out her free hand to relieve a bit of stress. She rolled her head on her neck and then stepped onto the band of sand between the two houses. Though she tried to resist, she threw a quick glance at the boy’s window. Catching herself, she looked away quickly before she could even tell if he was there. Instead she looked down and noticed for the first time that her uncle’s house didn’t rest on the ground. It stood three feet above the sand on wooden supports. In the shadows under the house, tufts of tall grasses grew.
“That’s weird,” she said.
“What? Is he gross close-up?”
“No,” Lindsay said. “We’ve come to my uncle’s a bunch of times before, and I never noticed that his house is built up off the ground.”
“Yeah, fascinating,” Kate said, her voice thick with sarcasm. “Architecture is hot. What’s the boy doing?”
“I haven’t looked over there yet. Should I?”
“Yeah, but let me say something funny first. That way, he’ll see you smiling.”
“Okay.”
“On the count of three,” Kate said. “Ready? One, two…”
Lindsay began to turn, hoping the boy would still be in his window when she completed the turn.
“Three,” Kate said. “Michael Chandler.”
Lindsay broke into a wide smile at the mention of the name. Last year, Brett Underhill had dragged Kate into the boy’s locker room as a prank, and she’d seen more than a couple of the boys undressed, including Michael Chandler. Chandler was a big mean jock who liked to beat up the younger kids, and Kate got a full monty look at him. In her words, his unit was like a pencil eraser in a nest of black thread. But Michael Chandler wasn’t the point. The point was, Lindsay completed her turn with a huge grin on her face.