“Of course I have. What’s a Read-a-thon, anyway?”
“A fundraiser,” I say. “An all-night reading thing for the kids, with contests and prizes and that kind of thing. Basically an event to fund other events, because we don’t have any money. Waning Bay’s never done one, but I went to one as a kid, and it was a lot of fun. I’ve basically been working on this since I got here.”
His brow lifts. “And it’s at the end of summer?”
“Mid-August,” I confirm.
After a moment, he says, “Okay, here’s what we’re going to do. I’m going to be your tour guide.”
“I’m not doing acid with you, Miles,” I say.
“Good to know,” he replies, “but not the kind of tour guide I’m talking about. I’m going to show you around Waning Bay. We can go out on Sundays, when we both have work off. Starting next week. And then if, by the end of July, you still want to go play Golden Girls with your mom—”
“Do you even realize how cozy Golden Girls is?” I interject, reaching the giggly phase of being high. “If I could move to the set of Golden Girls, I would.”
“That’s what you say now,” Miles says, “but by the end of the summer, you’re going to be head over fucking heels for this place, Daphne. Just wait and see.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” I say.
“I’m serious,” he says.
“Oh, you’re serious?” I say. “You’re serious that you’re going to spend all summer ferrying a near–perfect stranger around so that she won’t move away?”
“You’re not a stranger.” He knocks his leg into mine. “You’re my serious, monogamous girlfriend, remember?”
I chortle, the high seeming to explode through my veins from the force of it.
His face remains deeply, painfully earnest. “I don’t want you to move away. I like you.”
“You like everyone,” I remind him. “I’m highly replaceable.”
He rolls his eyes. “You really think you have me figured out, don’t you?”
“Am I wrong?” I ask.
He holds my gaze, not quite smiling. We both flinch when his phone chimes in his pocket. He slides it out, his face lit as he reads the message onscreen, a divot etched between his brows.
“Everything okay?” I ask.
His teeth worry at his lower lip. “Petra.”
“Seriously?” I say. “You two still talk?”
“Not often.” He scratches his jaw.
I think about the tense call I overheard behind his bedroom door, wonder if it’s possible he was talking to her, and what Peter would make of that.
“Apparently Katya told her that we were together at Cherry Hill,” he says.
I shift uncomfortably. “And she messaged you about that?”
“She’s happy for us,” he says, voice quiet and flat.
“Well, that’s good,” I say. “Petra’s happiness has always been my utmost concern.”
He looks over at me, slowly starts to laugh.
The weed has my heart feeling like softened butter even while my stomach boils over with anger. At Petra and Peter both, not just on my behalf this time, but on Miles’s too. This ridiculously nice man who let me move into his place, no questions asked—didn’t even charge rent my first month—and comped my food tonight and bought me a milkshake and brought me to a beach I’d never been to and lent me his jacket.
Offered to parade me around all summer, just so I won’t move away.
After hanging out twice.
In general, I don’t put too much stock into a person’s charm, but I think he might be the rare real deal. A genuinely kind person who likes everyone and deserved better than a note on the counter and Petra’s room-sized closet cleared out.
I hold my hand out for his phone. He considers for a second, then plops it into my palm.
“Come here,” I say, opening the camera.
His eyebrows pinch in a bemused expression. “Come where?”
I move the remnants of our fries to my far side and pat the space between us.
“Oh, there?” he says. “One foot to my left?”
He doesn’t ask why, just holds my gaze and scoots until his side’s right up against me. “Here?”
My stomach flips at the closeness of his voice. “That’s good.”
