Float

Original Edition: Chapter Twenty-One

Blake and I dragged so much sand into the front seat of Jesse Fletcher's beat-up Jeep that the car could've been considered a mobile island nation. I felt guilty about the mess until Blake reminded me that Jesse had a collection of empty gum wrappers and used toothpicks in the glove box, so he had no right to complain about a little sand on the floor. Still, I couldn't help but feel like a certified asshole as I dusted little grains from the crease behind my knees.

"Where are we going again?" I asked as Blake pulled the car out of the lot by the beach.

"Only the best diner in Marlin Bay," he replied, tapping the steering wheel in time to the faint beat of the pop song playing on the radio. He paused at the edge of the lot and shot a grin at me, then hit the gas and took a sharp turn onto a cliff-side road.

"Do they have burgers?" I asked.

Blake nodded, still smiling.

"Milkshakes, too," he said.

I had to bite down on my tongue to keep from moaning.

"Drive faster, please," I told him.

I sunk back into the worn leather upholstery of my seat and closed my eyes, savoring the deep, rumbling sound of Blake's laughter. For a moment, while I'd been peeling off my wetsuit and Blake had been paddling back out to tell the others we were heading off for lunch, I'd been so worried about being alone with Blake in a car, with nothing but a few feet of air between us.

The last few times we'd been sitting side by side like this, I hadn't had sand in all my nooks and crannies and my hair wasn't matted with saltwater. And I probably hadn't smelled like seaweed, either. But even if I did reek of the ocean—and look borderline homeless—Blake didn't seem to notice.

Or maybe he did, and he was too nice to point it out.

We drove for two minutes before we passed a large sign made of driftwood painted with pastel blues and greens. Marlin Bay, it read in elegant white script.

The nice thing about Blake Hamilton is that he doesn't feel the need to fill the silence with mindless small talk. He was perfectly content to keep his hands on the wheel and his mouth shut while I rolled down my window and watched the small seaside town roll by. We passed a little white stucco chapel—where a small crowd of well-dressed churchgoers were just leaving the morning sermon—and a gas station that looked like it'd fallen straight out of a fifties movie.

Blake took a turn at a fork in the road, and we started down a street lined with little shops. Marlin Bay was so different from Holden; the town felt older and more sophisticated with its redbrick façades and black wrought iron railings on the second-floor balconies. Holden was a place for tourists and rich vacationers. Marlin Bay looked like the kind of place only locals and history enthusiasts would care to see.

"Where is this diner?" I asked, my eyes scanning the shops we drove past. I didn't recognize a single one of them; they were all family-owned and local. Not a McDonald's in sight.

"Last building on the right," Blake replied.

I craned my neck.

On the corner of the block, across the street from a small parking strip perched on the edge of the cliffs overlooking the ocean, sat a window-lined restaurant that looked like it'd dropped out of a small Midwestern town in the fifties. The exterior walls were brick and the awning over the front door was striped white and pale blue. Written on one of the awnings, in cursive script on a doily-shaped patch of orange, were the words Bayside Burgers. It was quaint, the type of place Aunt Rachel would've added to her Pinterest board in two seconds flat.