“Shouldn’t have what?” Toby asked, then saw what I was looking at. “Oh.”
“I know,” I said, trying not to stare, but then giving up on that immediately. Clark’s arms were muscular, his abs were defined, and his shoulders were much broader than I’d realized, now that they were out in the open and not hidden under one of his T-shirts. I was suddenly rethinking my clothes policy.
Clark and Tom walked up to our spot and tossed their boards down onto the sand, both of them talking fast, overlapping each other. “Not cool, man,” Tom said, brushing his wet hair back. “You can’t just knock someone into the water like that. I could have died.”
“How could you have died?” Clark asked, laughing.
“Lots of ways,” Tom said, “like if I’d inhaled water . . . or if there had been a jellyfish . . .” He trailed off, then turned to his girlfriend. “Palmer?”
“I’m with Clark. I think you were fine, babe.”
“It’s not my fault,” Clark said as he looked around, squinting. “I couldn’t see anything. It was an accident.”
“Sure,” Tom said, coming to sit next to Palmer. “Likely story.”
Clark headed toward me, still squinting, and I pulled his glasses out from where I’d been holding them for him in my beach bag.
“This way,” I called, holding up my hand. “Walk toward my voice.”
Clark made his way over, and I handed him his glasses as he sat down next to me. “So much better,” he said when he put them on. He smiled at me. “Like now I can see the most beautiful girl on the beach.”
I rolled my eyes behind my sunglasses. “Stop it,” I said, even though I didn’t want him to. It was the kind of thing I would have found beyond cheesy with any of my exes. But it was different coming from Clark. I leaned over to meet him for a quick kiss, feeling the sand on his arms and tasting the faint flavor of seawater on his lips.
“Sorry to interrupt,” Toby said, looking at me and Clark with her expression somewhere between annoyed and wistful.
“What’s up?” I asked, gesturing for her to pass me the bag of chips we were sharing.
“I was just wondering if Wyatt said anything about me.” Toby handed me the bag and looked back out to the water, where Wyatt was standing on his board, balancing on one foot for a moment before wobbling and falling off. It looked like he was doing paddleboard yoga, which seemed like a terrible idea all around. “Like, when you guys were . . . having guy talk?”
“Sorry,” Clark said. It hadn’t taken him long to pick up on her massive crush and Wyatt’s complete lack of interest.
“I think you need to move on,” Palmer said gently, and Tom, sitting behind her, nodded. “Because you’re awesome, and if Wyatt can’t see that, it’s his loss.”
“Maybe he just can’t see it yet,” Toby said, sitting up a little straighter. “It’s like this in all the movies. You can’t see what’s been right in front of you the whole time until it’s the right moment.”
I exchanged a look with Bri, who just shook her head quickly—telling me to let this go. “Maybe,” I said, but even I could hear it hadn’t been all that convincing.
“Wasn’t there a guy at the museum who liked you?” Tom asked. “Maybe he already can see what’s been in front of him. Like, maybe he’s already at the end of the movie.”
“But I don’t like him,” Toby pointed out, her voice slow and clear, like all of us just weren’t understanding this. She shook her head. “I swear to god, I’m—”
“You’re not cursed,” Bri said without even looking up.
“Who’s cursed?” I looked up and saw Wyatt, standing by Bri’s towel, holding his paddleboard and dripping wet.
“Nobody,” Toby said, giving me a look that I knew meant I shouldn’t say anything to contradict her. “Clark was just talking about his, um . . . dragon book.”
“Right,” Clark said quickly, with a nod. “That’s me. Dragons and curses. That’s what my books are all about.”
Wyatt nodded and then shook the water off his hands so that so that they dripped on Bri’s bare back. “Hey,” Bri said, looking around and then pushing herself up. “What’s going—” She scrambled to her feet. “Wyatt!”
“What?” he said, shaking more droplets on her. “Sure you don’t need to cool off?”
“I’m fine,” Bri said, laughing as she pushed him away.
I leaned over Clark and turned his wrist so that I could see his watch—it was black and chunky, you could apparently scuba dive with it, and it had taken me a little over a week to be able to tell time on it. “And I should get going,” I said with a sigh.
“Already?” Clark asked, and I nodded.
“Duty calls,” I said, then arched an eyebrow at him. “What do you say? Want to walk some dogs with me?”
“Seriously?” Bri asked, looking around at all of us. “I’m really the only one who thinks that sounds dirty?”
“I heard it this time,” Palmer said, nodding. She frowned at me. “Keep it clean, you guys. There are children here.”
“We’ll try,” Clark said, getting to his feet and—unfortunately—pulling on his T-shirt.
“Did you see my moves?” Wyatt asked Bri as he flopped down in the sand next to her, despite the fact that Toby had moved so far over on her towel to make space for him, she’d forced Tom onto the sand.
“By ‘moves,’ do you mean falls?” Bri asked. “Because those really were impressive.”
Wyatt laughed and made an obscene gesture at her, which Bri returned. “It’s because the water was too deep,” he said, pushing his wet hair back. “If we were in a pool, it would be different.” He looked around at us. “Any of you acquire a pool since last year?”
Tom shook his head, and Wyatt shrugged, like he was letting it go, when Clark said, sounding just a little bit nervous, “I’ve got a pool.”
Everyone looked over at him, eyes lighting up, and I felt my stomach sink. I tried silently to tell him to walk this idea back, pretend he thought they meant billiards, that it was under construction, anything. Because I knew my friends—they were pool-hungry maniacs with no sense of politeness at all when it came to using one.
“Really?” Toby asked, smiling at Clark, then glaring at me. “And why is this the first time we’re hearing about it?”
“It’s just . . .” Clark hesitated. “I mean, it’s not my house. It’s my responsibility for the summer, so I didn’t want anything to happen to it. . . .”
“Wait,” Wyatt said, raising an eyebrow. “You live there alone?”
“Yeah,” Clark said, and I fought the urge to bury my face in my hands.
“This,” Palmer said, grinning, “is awesome.”
“Thanks for the invite, brother,” Wyatt said, hitting Clark on the back as Tom winced in sympathy. “Party at Clark’s tonight?”
“Text us the address?” Bri asked, and I nodded, knowing there was no way to get him out of it now. I glanced at my phone and realized I really did need to get going—one of my dogs, Wendell, had a tendency to gnaw on doorframes when I was running late. I gathered up the rest of my things, pulling my sundress over my bikini and stepping into my flip-flops.
“So I’ll see you guys tonight,” Clark said, starting to leave, taking the beach bag from me and slinging it over his shoulder. “I’ll, um, get some snacks? Like chips, maybe?” He turned to me, and I nodded, reaching out my hand for his and giving it a squeeze as I realized that this was probably the first party he’d ever thrown. “And Toby?” She looked up at him from where she’d surreptitiously been putting on lip gloss. “For every curse, there’s a cure. You know that, right?” Wyatt looked over at him, frowning, and Clark added quickly, “It’s a thing in my books. You know, with the dragons.”