“Wait here,” Isaac says, smiling at our playful exchange and he opens the door and climbs out.

Nathan and the others are stopped behind us.

When I notice that all of the guys are getting out and me, Zia, Daisy and Hannah are still sitting in our seats like good little girls, I decide to get out too. Isaac notices me walking toward them and I see how quickly his eyes move between me and the oncoming freeway traffic. A diesel zooms by, practically blowing my hair right off my scalp. I decide to move even farther away from the road and take my chances in the sloped grass instead.

“No telling what’s wrong with it,” Sebastian says over the freeway noise as I walk up. “And can’t really work on it out here.”

Isaac immediately takes a hold of me. I can tell how nervous he is that I’m standing out here with rude drivers not getting in the far lane when they pass us.

“I’ll have to call a tow truck,” Harry says, whipping out his phone. “We’re only about twenty minutes away from my sister’s anyway.”

“You and Daisy can ride the rest of the way with us,” Isaac says.

We camp out for thirty minutes on the side of the freeway until the tow truck arrives and hoists Harry’s car onto the bed. Harry looks kind of sad as he watches the guy secure chains on the wheels, but I don’t mess with him about it anymore. He really does love that car. Calls her Darla, but I swore an oath never to tell anyone that secret, including Daisy.

“I’m sure Isaac won’t mind if we borrow his Jeep in Portland,” Daisy says from the back seat behind Isaac. She softly hits the back of Isaac’s seat and says, “Will you, my favorite and most charitable brother?”

Isaac sighs, giving in. “No, I don’t care,” he says, putting the Jeep into gear as we pull away, “as long as Adria and I don’t need it.”

“Of course,” Daisy agrees. She scoots across the back seat and gets in Harry’s lap. He kisses her on the nose.

I hear shouting from behind the Jeep and notice Zia’s white-blond head poking out the back window, pumping her fist in the air as we speed away. I just shake my head and laugh quietly to myself.

15

TWENTY MINUTES LATER AND we’re pulling into the private drive of a little blue house perched on a grassy landscape just feet from sand and ocean water. We pile out of the vehicles, but before anyone bothers to grab any bags, we run to check out the scenery. The wind is brisk coming off the ocean. The white sand beach stretches far out in a horseshoe shape, dotted by other private beach houses, all of them spaced fifty yards or so apart. I see a long winding sand-covered trail flanked by tall wind-brushed grass leading toward the ocean. Big sweeping trees sit on both sides of the house, one with a hanging three-seated swing swaying from its massive branches

Seagulls circle and dive overhead with high-pitched calls. The water lapping the shore sounds calm despite the brisk wind that keeps pushing stray hair that escaped from my ponytail into my mouth.

The sun is high in the sky and as I step up and away from the cover of one tree, I put my hand above my eyes to shield them as I peer out at the ocean.

“Crap—I forgot my sunglasses,” I say as Isaac comes up behind me. “I knew I’d forget something.”

Catching me off-guard, Isaac lifts me into the air and slings me over his shoulder. I scream, beating him against his back with my fists, but I know there’s no way I’m hitting him hard enough to hurt him. I can’t hit him hard enough to hurt him. He holds me there, his iron-grip hands fastened to my upper thighs.

“Put me down, or—”

“You’ll what?” Isaac laughs. “You’ll continue to pat me on the back with your flimsy little hands?” He spins me around once and I stop hitting him so that I can hold onto his sides instead.

“Isaac!” I try to kick my way free, but I can barely move my legs a centimeter his grip is so tight. “I’ve got to pee!” I scream, and in two seconds flat I feel his grip loosen and my body slides down the front of his easily.

My smirk widens and I maneuver myself behind him and jump onto his back, wrapping my legs around his waist, my hands draped over his shoulders. I move my mouth real close to his ear and say, “Or I’ll use my wicked intellectual skills to trick you into putting me down since my flimsy little hands won’t work.” I press my lips against the side of his face. His grip tightens.

“I’d rather be tricked than peed on,” he says, grinning.

“Tow truck’s here!” Harry says from the driveway.

Still straddling Isaac from behind, he walks with me back to the cars where the tow truck is backing its way in. Harry stands behind it, guiding it to the far side of the driveway so that it’s out of the way of the other cars. Seconds later, another car pulls in and a slim, brown-haired girl gets out holding four large pizza boxes. Harry hugs his sister and takes the pizza boxes from her and passes them to Sebastian before going back to deal with the tow truck that’s now letting his precious Darla out of her chains.

Megan, Harry’s sister, can’t be older than twenty-five. And I can definitely see the resemblance as we all hang out on the large deck outside overlooking the ocean. Like Harry, Megan is tall, with dark, dark eyebrows and when she smiles I notice that one corner of her mouth lifts a little higher than the other, exactly like Harry’s does.

All of the guys are literally stuffing their faces with pizza. Daisy, Zia and I eat with a little less savagery, and Hannah (she doesn’t talk much) declines food altogether.

“If you’re going to be working on that car here,” Megan says to Harry, “make sure you put an oil pan and a blanket or something under it this time. I don’t want that stuff leaving black stains all over the sand.”

“Fine, Meg,” Harry says with his mouth full. “Where’s that guy you were dating—Phillip, I think? The one with the killer pinup tat?” Harry swallows his food and takes another bite bigger than the last; the corners of his mouth are red with pizza sauce. He looks at all of us sitting around the wrought-iron patio table and adds, “My sister said she’d never date a guy with tattoos. Never.” He smiles triumphantly.

“Harry’s trying to get rid of me,” Megan says to us, taking a little bite of pizza herself. “Hasn’t seen me in a month and is already tired of my company.”

We’re all smiling, listening to their innocent banter.

“Hey!” Harry says to Megan and then looks back at all of us. “She’s just trying to make you feel bad for her. Don’t fall for it. She’s not as innocent as she looks.”

“I’m on her side already,” says Zia on Harry’s right.

“Me too,” I say. “Harry can be shady sometimes, especially when he wants something.”

“Uh huh,” Daisy says with her mouth full too. She points a finger and adds, “He thinks that charming smile and sad eyes of his are failsafe, but he has got it all wrong.”

Harry’s eyes get bigger and bigger as everyone gangs up on him. He turns to Sebastian, the one person at the table other than his sister who’s known him longer than anyone.

“Come on, man,” he says, palms up, “back me up here!”

The table gets quiet and all eyes are on Sebastian.

“It’s her house,” Sebastian finally says, shrugs his shoulders and goes back to his pizza.

The table erupts with laughter, even from poor, abandoned Harry.

“I’ll be gone before any of you get back tonight,” Megan says, wiping her mouth with a paper towel. She takes a sip of soda and sets the can back on the table. “And Harry, you know my rules. Break them and I’ll tell Mom and I’ll never trust you alone in my house again. Got it?”

Harry winks and makes a clicking noise with his tongue. “Got it.”

I’m wondering what the rules are, but I’m pretty sure it’s basic obvious stuff like no wild parties, no drugs or alcohol and no sex in the house. Stuff like that. Wild parties are iffy, because if we did have any sort of party, it would just be amongst ourselves, so it wouldn’t really be ‘wild’. Drugs and alcohol are no issue because as far as I know, no one here has any bad habits like that. Not sure about Nathan’s girlfriend, Hannah, but somehow I doubt she does either. She’s afraid of peperoni.

Sex in the house? Well, that’s another story.

I’m the only virgin here (again, I’m not sure about Hannah, but being Nathan’s girlfriend, I highly doubt it), and put a house full of couples like us alone in a beach house away from chaperones and there’s a 99.9% chance that someone’s going to be hav**g s*x.

I look over at Isaac sitting next to me and just imagine it for a brief moment. Oh my god. Maybe I shouldn’t do that….

Isaac smiles at me and I feel his hand move across my inner thigh. It’s nothing sexual. He does that all the time when we sit next to each other, but with the imagery still hanging on the edges of my mind, the touch only intensifies the details. I cross my legs instinctively as chills attack me all over and his hand has no choice but to pull away. I feel Isaac smiling at me from the side, maybe wondering what caused me to do that, but my face is burning so hot I can’t turn around fully to look back at him. I feel his lips touch my jawline just below my ear and my already raised temperature goes up another two degrees.

We spend the next hour dragging our bags in from the cars and checking out the rest of the house. There are three bedrooms, but Megan stresses that hers is off-limits, so that leaves two for all of us to choose from. Harry and Daisy get the one he always stays in when he visits, and Nathan, being the oldest, gets the other room for him and Hannah. That leaves Isaac and I to snatch up the full walkout basement and Zia and Sebastian get the den area with a roll-out couch bed.

By mid-afternoon we head into Portland’s Downtown District and leave the Jeeps parked in a public parking lot. We missed the Old Port Festival by a week, but Harry insists that there’s still plenty to do when the weather’s as nice as it is. On the way downtown, I’ve never seen so many fishing vessels and sailboats. And even though we missed the festival, once we make it into the Old Port District perched on the water’s edge, I see there is no shortage of people walking the cobblestone streets with vendors and shops and restaurants teeming with business and a lot of tourists. By four o’clock, my feet are killing me from walking around so much. We visited just about everything that wasn’t boring, but inevitably it was unanimously decided that the girls must break off from the guys because they want to check out the Harley Davidsons at a small motorcycle show nearby, and we of course, do not.

Kissing Isaac goodbye, even just for a little while I think will always feel like I’m kissing him goodbye forever.

“We’ll meet back up at Deering Oaks Park,” Isaac says, standing underneath a small white awning settled between two copper-colored signs. “Cell phone?” he looks at me quizzically.

I reach into the leather purse he bought for me not long ago and dig around for my phone. “Yes, Daddy, I have my cell phone,” I say, holding it up to prove it and my grin just gets bigger.