“Sorry,” Alex said when he stopped kissing her and looked away.

“Why are you apologizing?” Gemma asked.

“I don’t know.” He laughed. He shook his head and looked back at her, smiling at him. “I’m not sorry.”

“Me neither.”

Alex leaned in to kiss her again, but before he could, Brian yelled from the house behind them.

“Gemma!”

That was all it took to ruin the moment. Alex jumped away from Gemma like he’d been shocked.

Gemma got up more slowly than he had, offering him an apologetic smile. “Sorry.”

“Yeah, no, it’s okay.” Alex rubbed the back of his head and refused to even look in the direction of Gemma or her father.

“I’ll see you later?” Gemma asked.

“Yeah, yeah, of course.” He nodded quickly.

Gemma hurried back over to her house, where her father stood at the back door, holding it open. When she went inside, Brian stood outside for a minute longer, watching Alex as he awkwardly tried to fold the blanket.

“Dad!” Gemma shouted at him.

Brian waited a beat before coming in. He closed the back door behind him and locked it, then flipped off the outside light. When he came into the kitchen, Gemma was pacing and chewing her fingernails.

“You don’t have to check up on me, you know.”

“You went out fifteen minutes ago to take out the garbage.” Brian leaned against the counter. “I was simply making sure you hadn’t been kidnapped or attacked by rabid raccoons.”

“Well, I wasn’t.” Gemma stopped moving and took a deep breath.

“Do you want to tell me what was going on out there?”

Her eyes widened. “No!”

“Look, Gemma, I know you’re sixteen, and you’re going to start dating.” He shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “And Alex isn’t a bad kid, exactly. But he’s older, and you’re too young for certain things—”

“Dad, we just kissed. Okay?” Gemma’s face pinched with discomfort over discussing the topic with her father.

“So you’re … seeing him now?” Brian asked carefully.

“I don’t know.” She shrugged. “We just kissed.”

“And that’s all you should do,” Brian said. “He’s leaving in a couple months, and you’re too young to really commit to anything. Plus you have your swimming to focus on.”

“Dad, please,” Gemma said. “Let me figure this out on my own. Okay?”

“Okay,” he said reluctantly. “But if he touches you, I’ll kill him. And if he hurts you, I’ll kill him.”

“I know.”

“Does he know that?” Brian gestured toward Alex’s house next door. “Because I can go over and tell him that myself.”

“No, Dad!” Gemma held up her hands. “I’ve got it. Now, if you don’t mind, I’m going to go to bed so I can get up early tomorrow to swim.”

“Tomorrow’s Sunday. The pool’s closed.”

“I’ll go out to the bay. I skipped tonight, and I want to be in the water.”

Brian nodded, letting the conversation go, and Gemma hurried up to her room. The light shone from beneath Harper’s bedroom door, signaling she was still up, probably reading a book. Gemma snuck into her own room quietly, so as not to alert her sister.

From her bedroom window, Harper might have been able to see Gemma and Alex kiss, or she might’ve overheard Gemma and her dad talking about it. And the last thing Gemma wanted to do was rehash it with Harper, especially when she had no idea how she felt about it herself.

Gemma flopped back on the bed. Plastic stars were stuck to her ceiling, and only a couple of them still managed a dim glow. She stared at them, smiling because they reminded her of Alex.

Harper had been the one to put the stars up when Gemma had been eight and suffered from serious night terrors. Alex had helped, though, mapping out the constellations with as much accuracy as he could manage.

It was so weird thinking of him now. Gemma had been used to having him around as a nerdy friend of her sister’s. But now when she thought of him, her heart beat faster and a warm feeling grew from her belly.

Her lips still tingled from his kiss, and she wondered when she’d be able to kiss him again. She stayed up late, replaying their moments under the stars over and over in her head. When she finally fell asleep, she did so with a smile on her face.

The alarm next to her bed jolted her awake in the morning. The sun was just starting to rise, shining bright orange through her curtains. The snooze button was tempting, but she’d already missed a full day of swimming, so she really had to make up for it.

By the time Gemma was up and ready, the whole town of Capri was bathed in warm sunlight. Both Harper and her dad were still asleep, and she left them a note on the fridge reminding them she’d gone to Anthemusa Bay.

She blasted Lady Gaga on her iPod and hopped on her bike. It was still early, so the rest of the town was asleep. Gemma liked it better that way, when the streets weren’t filled to the brim with tourists.

The trip to the bay seemed to go more quickly than normal. Pedaling seemed easier. Gemma felt like she was floating on a cloud. One simple kiss from Alex had somehow made the whole world lighter.

Since she rode her bike, she couldn’t swim at the spot with the cypress trees like she usually did. Her bike couldn’t make it up the path, and there was no place for her to lock it up. Instead, she went down to the docks near where her father worked.