Total pages in book: 127
Estimated words: 123435 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 617(@200wpm)___ 494(@250wpm)___ 411(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 123435 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 617(@200wpm)___ 494(@250wpm)___ 411(@300wpm)
I snicker. My eyes remain on Cassie, who’s laughing at something Gen said.
“Gen really likes your girl,” Evan remarks, following my gaze. “And Gen hates most people.”
“It’s hard not to like Cassie,” I admit.
Cooper’s brows jerk up. Then he chuckles. “Interesting.”
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“You sound like my mother. She was just grilling me about Cass.”
“I mean, you’re acting very boyfriendly,” Evan pipes up, sounding amused. “So if that’s not the path you want to take,” he warns, “you should probably course correct right about now.”
I take a swig of beer. “Boyfriendly how?”
“Every time I turn around you’re holding her hand.”
“So?”
“You never held Alana’s hand,” Cooper points out.
“Alana would bite a dude’s dick off before she let him hold her hand.”
“Did you even try?” challenges Evan.
I pause. “No.”
“Why not?” His smug smirk tells me he already knows the answer to that.
And he’s right. I never felt that sort of tenderness toward Alana. We both kept an emotional distance because we knew it was never going anywhere.
But there’s no distance with Cassie. She’s always within my reach. She melts into me when I come to her. She doesn’t keep me at arm’s length. Doesn’t play games. I’m happy when I’m with her. And as I think about all the ways she and I just fit, that question once again surfaces in the forefront of my mind.
Why does it have to end?
CHAPTER 28
CASSIE
“This is it. What we’ve trained our entire lives for. And by entire lives I mean the last two days. And by trained I mean we randomly decided who would compete in what event. I mean, I didn’t train—did you?” Zale glances around the huddle.
“I swam some laps in my pool,” I tell them. “Does that count?”
“Now that’s dedication to the team,” Mackenzie teases.
“The Beacon is forever indebted to you,” Genevieve says solemnly.
I snicker. I had a lot of fun with my teammates this weekend, and I’m sad to see it end. Alas, only one event remains in the twentieth-annual Avalon Beach Games: the water balloon toss.
It’s been a frustrating day thus far for Team Beacon. We didn’t place in either of the obstacle course heats this morning. Team Yacht Club won both, which had Tate strutting around like a self-righteous peacock. We also lost out on third place in the bucket relay to those damn firefighters. We made up for it by placing third in the three-legged race, thanks to Mackenzie and Zale. Unfortunately, “the stupid twins because they have the same stupid size legs,” as Mackenzie had poetically framed it, won that race to give Team Hartley three points.
As it stands now for Mac and Gen’s side bet, their boyfriends are beating us by one measly point. In the scope of the actual competition, I think our teams are vying for third place overall. But since my teammates are more concerned with their side hustle, they proceed to torture my brain with a bunch of math that makes no sense.
“All right,” Mac is saying. “They’re up by one, so that means we need to place third in order to tie—”
“What’s the tiebreaker?” Zale interjects.
“No idea. We didn’t anticipate a tie. We’ll have to come up with something. But if we place second, that becomes moot, because then we get two points and we win. First place, we get three points and we win. But—we only win if they don’t place.”
“Wait, what if they place third and we place first?” Gen points out. She squints as she does some mental math. “Then they get one point, which puts them up by two. But we get three points, which puts us up by one. We win.”
“Right. But … damn it, if we win and they come in second, we tie again. So—”
“Stop,” I wail, covering my ears. “I can’t listen to this anymore.”
“For real,” Zale moans, his face scrunched in sheer pain. “This is too complicated. You sound like my brothers droning on about their dumbass fantasy football standings, trying to figure out if they made the playoffs.”
“All right, everyone!” Debra Dooley yells into her microphone. I swear, she brought that thing from home. None of the other volunteers have mics. “We’re about to start!”
A few yards away, Evan calls out to his fiancée. “Hey, Fred, what size should I order your French maid costume in?”
“In your dreams,” Gen shoots back.
“Every night,” he promises.
Mackenzie’s gaze travels to Cooper, and she cocks her head at him. “Well? I’m waiting. Where’s your smartass comment?”
Cooper smirks. “I don’t heckle the downtrodden.”
“Heckle this,” she retorts, flipping him the bird.
I smother a laugh. It’s funny seeing each of them interact. Gen and Evan are chemistry personified, every word exchanged practically oozing sex. Cooper and Mac are more adversarial, yet when they look at each other, their connection is unmistakable.
I look over at Tate, remembering the way he held my hand last night at the bonfire. His fingers laced through mine feels so natural, and I wonder how on earth I’m going to say goodbye to him in two weeks. My flight to Boston leaves three days after the Beacon’s reopening, and a part of me is already thinking, well, I do get a week off for midterms in October. And I do get Thanksgiving off. And Christmas. New Year’s.