Page 54 of The Perfect People

Hannah could feel it coming.

This was the night. Something was going to happen. She was almost sure that Chris would try to kiss her tonight.

There wouldn’t be a better time. They were ambling along the beach after a big group dinner. Once the meal was done, everyone else had headed to an outdoor market to do some window shopping. The two of them had said they’d catch up later and decided to take a leisurely stroll where the wet and dry sand merged together.

It was dark out now, with only the moon to guide their path. The crowds had long since abandoned the beach, leaving only a few late-evening wanderers like themselves and a few surfers catching some late-night waves. At some point, Hannah felt her fingers brush Chris’s and then they were holding hands.

The fluttering butterflies in her belly reappeared suddenly and she swallowed hard, hoping to contain them. She’d done more than hold hands with other boys in the past, but not since her life was ripped apart by the slaughter of her adoptive parents two years ago. For a long time, she hadn’t even entertained the possibility that she could feel this way again. But the last few days with Chris had changed that.

“What’s going to happen in the fall?” he asked, raising the unspoken subject that had hovered over the otherwise magical weekend.

As they’d teeter-tottered on the edge of romantic moments, in the back of Hannah’s head, and apparently Chris’s too, had been curiosity about what it might lead to, if anything at all. Oddly, it was hearing him pose the question aloud that clarified the answer, in that moment, for her.

“In the fall, which basically means in a few days,” she said, “you’ll go off to RISD to wow them with your incredible talent with a paintbrush. I start at UC-Irvine in two weeks, and I’ll see how that goes. Beyond that, who knows? I say we play things by ear and not get too stressed. But don’t you think we ought to have something tangible tonotget stressed about?”

“What do you mean?” he asked.

She turned to face him. Because they were the same height, five foot nine, she could look directly into his sky-blue eyes. The butterflies were everywhere now, careening off each other as they flapped their tiny wings, threatening to burst out of her. She decided to let them.

“I mean this,” she said, leaning in and brushing her lips gently against his.

His eyes grew wide in startled delight.

“What’s the point of worrying about what happens next if we don’t do anything now, Chris?” she asked, before moving in again, now with more confidence.

This time, when her lips met his, he reciprocated enthusiastically. He cupped her cheeks in his hands, and she ran her fingers through his hair as they lowered the protective barriers that had been holding them back until now.

They lingered like that, silhouetted in the moonlight, lips locked, torsos clutched tight together, bare feet cold in the frothy surf that bubbled up to cover their toes, for what felt like forever. At least, that is, until the gang of surfers waiting to catch a wave just down the beach caught sight of them and began to engage in some extremely suggestive heckling.

“Maybe we should get out of here,” Chris suggested with a goofy smile.

“I think that’s a good idea,” Hannah agreed. “Those guys sound a little rowdy.”

They turned and headed back up toward the drier sand, away from the water and toward the shortcut path that led back to the market and their beach house. In the distance, Hannah caught a glimpse of a far-off figure next to a dune near the path.

In the dim light it was hard to be sure, but she thought it looked a lot like the gangly guy she’d noticed staring at her earlier. A cloud passed over the moon and she squinted to get a better look. But by the time the cloud had moved on and she had a clear view again, the figure was gone.

“Let’s take the long way,” she said suddenly.

“Why?” he asked, perplexed as they put on their shoes. “If we take the path, we can avoid the catcalls and save five minutes getting back.”

Hannah didn’t want to sound paranoid by mentioning what would sound like a Slender Man sighting in the dunes. But there was no way she was walking along a darkened path with terrible sight lines right near where she was pretty sure she’d just seen the guy who’d been staring at her creepily just yesterday.

“Personal experience,” she said, deciding to keep it vague. “You just never know who might be hiding back there waiting to take advantage of two unsuspecting teenagers. I’d rather deal with the obnoxious surfers I can see rather than the potential knife-wielding meth-head I can’t.”

Chris studied her, unsure whether to laugh or be horrified.

“Okay—dark but fair,” he said. “Let’s take the long way.”

They walked about halfway up the beach, far enough away from the water to avoid hearing the surfers amid the crashing waves. But their position still allowed decent distance from the dunes so that they would have fair warning should someone leap out and come running in their direction.

Chris talked giddily about what activities the rest of the weekend might hold but Hannah was only half-listening. Her senses were on high alert as she listened for any unusual sound and kept her eyes moving, scanning for unexpected movement. They were nearing the point where the beach met up with the boardwalk and overhead lighting would offer the moon some help. Just then both their phones buzzed.

“Who is it?” Hannah asked, not taking her eyes off the dunes.

“Patrice,” Chris said. “Everyone’s sick of window shopping. They’re going for gelato at that spot near the greasy spoon joint we saw earlier today and want to know if we’re in. Are we?”

“I think so,” Hannah said. “We can get some more solo time later, but I think some gelato and late-summer evening group merriment sounds nice right about now.”

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