Page 90 of How to Hide in Plain Sight
“So, youdohave one in your suitcase.”
“A boy can dare to dream.”
I grinned. “What do we do now?”
His fingers were still inside me. They slid slowly out, teasing the bundle of nerves at the very top of my opening. “I have a few ideas.”
“Which are?”
He didn’t elaborate further. Instead, his head moved down, down, down, and before I knew what was happening, something soft and lush pressed into me, and I gasped, and stars prickled the edges of my vision, and I could say nothing more.
PART III
The BachelorParties
28
NOW
I WOKE THE MORNING BEFOREthe wedding to find my best friend beside me. For a moment, it felt as if the last three years had never happened—the graduation, the goodbye, the move, the mistakes, the distance I drove between us. It was as if I’d been given a second chance.
I pulled the comforter up to my chest and waited for the guilt to arrive. For the cruel voice, the me-but-not-me who pushed me to run away to New York in the first place. Who said,Cut them off, all of them, for their sakes. To protect them from who you really are.I waited, and I waited, and I waited, and while the guilt was there, while it still whispered to me that I was lying to Manuel, to myself, toeveryone—it was oddly quiet. As if someone had turned down a volume knob inside my head.
I must have fallen back asleep, because some time later Manuel woke me with two fresh cups of coffee. I accepted mine and sat up, wiggling until my back rested comfortably against the porch wall. He scooted in next to me. I laid my head on his shoulder and together we watched the sun rise.
—
WHEN WE GOT TO SUNNYSunday for breakfast, we found Mom flitting about the cabin, opening cabinets and talking to herself. “It’s fine! It’s perfect, actually! We don’tneedelectricity. Not really.”
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“The power is out,” she said, opening the bathroom door and slamming it shut.
“That happens,” said Clarence from his perch in the circle of couches, “when your private island draws power from a thirty-year-old submarine cable.” He, Caleb, and Taz were gluing dried flowers to folded ceremony programs. I grinned openly at the sight of my three adult brothers doing arts and crafts together.
“Yes,” said Mom. “But it doesn’t usually happen the day before your son’swedding, when you’re supposed to be getting everything on the island absolutelyperfect.”
“Mom, relax,” said Karma, laying a hand on her shoulder to still her frantic search for nothing. “This happens all the time. Remember last year, after the storm? It’ll come back on in an hour or two.”
“Exactly, exactly, exactly, exactly,” she said, twoexactlys past reasonable.
Manuel and I glanced at each other and suppressed a smile.
“You two seem awfully cheerful,” said Karma, raising an eyebrow.
Clarence stood from the couch and walked over. “You really do. Speaking of.” He poked Manuel. “We missed you in Tangled Blue last night. It’s just not the same without…”
I stepped on Clarence’s toes as hard as I could.
“Ow.”
“What happened?” asked Mom.
Clarence grinned. “Just stubbed my toe, Wendy. That’s all.”
I cracked open the fridge to grab coffee grounds but jumped when Mom yelled, “Stop!” and I slammed it shut, looking wildly about,afraid I’d just run her foot over with the door. But no. “Keep itclosed, Eliot. If the power doesn’t come back on, we need that cold air to last as long as possible. Every time you open the door, you let more out.”
I glanced at Manuel, who widened his eyes dramatically.
