Summer's Kiss (The Boys of Ocean Beach 1)

I can swim, I can, but the fear of the dark ocean water sends me into a panic. There are sounds of a tussle on the dock, shouts a

nd punches. I’m too close to the boats and feel my back bang against the hull of a large craft. I reach out but feel nothing but slippery fiberglass. A splash rocks the water more and I bang against the boat. My name drifts over the water, “Summer?”

“Over here,” I call, but it’s dark and shadowy and all I can see is dark, limitless ocean. My breath catches and I twist, looking to make sure nothing is near me. It’s too dark to tell.

“Stop moving!” Justin yells. His voice bounces off the boat.

“I’m not moving!”

You’d think I would calm down the minute he reaches me, but I don’t. Instead I start crying. Tears of fear and anger. “I’m sorry,” I sob, accidentally taking in a gulp of sea water. I cough and sputter, choking as he drags me to the dock.

“Grab on to the edge,” he tells me. I do as I’m told but I don’t have the upper-body strength to pull myself up. “Okay, I’m going to push you up but you have to try to get on the dock, though.”

It takes a minute and Justin’s hands are all over my butt, heaving me out of the water, but Pete peers over the side with a relieved expression and yanks me out. Eventually we’re both lying on the dock. I’m soaked and the thin fabric of my dress clings to every inch of my body. Justin’s clothes are heavy and wet. We’ve both lost our shoes.

“You okay?” he asks.

“No.” My teeth chatter and I search for everyone else. They’re gone. All of them. Anita, Whit, Nick, and Mason. “Where are they?”

“Don’t worry about it,” Pete says with a dark look. “Everyone’s fine. Let’s get you dry.”

“Come on.” Justin stands and helps me off the dock. I follow him and Pete throws his arm around my shoulder as we walk around the side of the building, instead of back inside. There’s no sign of Mason or the others anywhere and I ignore the look we get from some people in the parking lot. When we get to the Jeep, he rummages around the back and hands me a dry, Ocean Beach Marina T-shirt. “Change into this.”

We’re in a dark part of the parking lot, near the trees. Pete turns around and guards me while I peel off my dress and toss it with a soggy thud over the edge of the Jeep and into the back.

I wait in the front seat as Justin does the same, stripping off his shirt and jeans. He’s slides in next to me only wearing boxer shorts. Pete leans in the window. “I’m going to catch up with the others. You two okay?”

“Just cold, thank you,” I say.

Justin nods and cranks the engine. We must look ridiculous, leaving the bar like two drowned rats. I say a quick prayer that we don’t get pulled over.

“I’m sorry I dragged you into all that,” I say on the way down the road.

“You didn’t drag me into anything,” he says over the wind. “You sure you’re okay?”

I’m still cold, shaking from the open-top Jeep, but my nerves from being in the water have finally settled. “The water scares me. It’s irrational. Plus it was dark and I couldn’t see anything.”

“I’m not just talking about the water, Summer.”

“Yes.” I stare into the dark, thinking over the entire night. The whole summer. Truths had been spoken on that deck.

We ride the rest of the way in tense silence. Something has shifted between us but I’m not sure what. Justin keeps to his side of the Jeep, his hands never coming to my side like they did on the way to the bar. The crease never leaves the center of his forehead.

He pulls into the campground, slowing the car into the gravel drive at out lot. The moment is heavy between us. I know he has a million questions. I owe him a few answers before I do what I know I have to.

“Mason was my teacher—an assistant in my class. We started seeing each other last fall—totally secret, incredibly risky.” I spill it all, revealing every moment from the notes passed in class to our first kiss in the supply closet. Justin’s hands clench on the wheel, tightening as the story unfolds, his knuckles white. His anger doesn’t stop me. He needs to understand so he can tell the others.

“I made a lot of mistakes. Mason was just one of them. You guys…you were not a mistake, but I can see clearer now. I’m not the girl you want in your life right now. A girl that carries baggage and drama in her past. A girl that is leaving in a few weeks, regardless. You guys have school. Careers. You’ve carefully planned your whole lives to get out of this place and I’m not going to be the one that holds you back.” His jaw tightens. “I feel myself falling for you, all of you, and that wasn’t the deal.”

“Summer…” he says, breaking his silence, but I don’t want to hear him. Not now. I can’t.

“I’m leaving and fixing the mess I made back home. I need to figure out how to proceed with Mason. I need to decide for good about France. I need closure and I can’t get that here.”

I open the door and he grabs my arm before I can get out. He drags me over the seat and kisses me; an intense one that I feel in every molecule of my body. When we part, he opens his mouth to say something but words fail him. I ease out of the car and walk to the door. If I thought leaving Mason was hard, this was worse. So much worse.

“I don’t want you to leave,” he says as I reach the door. I’m standing in his T-shirt and nothing else. “And the guys are going to lose their minds when they find out, but what you just spilled…that’s a lot to absorb.” His gaze is hard and his words slow, as if he’s pushing them out one by one. “The Boys of Ocean Beach will never forget you, and when you’re ready, we’ll be waiting for you.”

I quickly open the door before I change my mind. It doesn’t matter, Justin backs up and peels out of the driveway, widening the distance between us. I creep past my mother and crawl into bed and cry.