“Alice, if George wakes up and there’s no Happy, he’s gonna totally lose it.”
“Is Happy the plastic dinosaur?” Brad asks. “’Cause that’s in the bathtub.”
“No, Happy is the stuffed beagle.” Jase rummages around under the couch for a minute, emerging with Happy, who has evidently led a long and eventful life. “I’ll just be a sec.” He walks by me, letting one palm rest for a moment in the small of my back.
“I mean it,” Alice says flatly once he’s gone. “You screw with him, you deal with me.”
She sounds fully capable of hiring a hit man if I make a wrong move. Yikes.
Opening the door to Alice’s car, an aged white VW Bug, Jase scoops up about fifty CDs from the passenger seat, then flips open the glove compartment to try to store them there. A lacy red bra falls out. “Jesus,” he says, shoving it hastily back in and burying it in CDs.
“Not yours, I take it,” I say.
“I really need to get my own car,” he says. “Want to go to the lake?”
Just as we start to pull out of the driveway, Mr. and Mrs. Garrett peel in and park, kissing like teenagers, her arms looped around his neck, his hands in her hair. Jase shakes his head as though a little embarrassed, but I stare at them.
“What’s it like?” I ask.
He’s backing up, his arm resting along the back of my seat.
“It?”
“Having happy parents. Together parents. Two parents.”
“You never had that?”
“Nope. I’ve never met my dad. I’m not even sure where he lives anymore.”
Jase frowns at me. “No child support?”
“Nope. My mom has a trust fund. I think he tried to get some sort of settlement, but ditching her when she was pregnant counted against him.”
“I’d hope,” Jase mutters. “I’m sorry, Samantha. Having together parents is all I know. It’s like home base. I can’t imagine not having that.”
I shrug, wondering why I do this with Jase. I’ve never had a problem keeping stuff private. Something about Jase’s quiet watchfulness just makes me talk.
It takes about fifteen minutes to get to the lake, which is on the far side of town. I haven’t been here often. I know it’s sort of a public school hangout—there’s some rite of passage where a lot of the seniors jump in fully clothed on the last day of school. I expect the lake to be crowded with parked cars with steamy windows, but no one else is in the lot when we pull in. Jase reaches into the back of the VW, pulls out a towel, then takes my hand and we walk through the trees to the shore. It’s much warmer than it was at the beach, no ocean breeze.
“Race you to the float?” he says, pointing to a shape dimly visible in the gathering dark. I shake off my jacket and yank off my sundress, my bathing suit still underneath, then start to run for the water.
The lake is cool and silky, the water softer than ocean water. The eel grass beneath my feet stops me for a moment, as I try not to think of trout and snapping turtles lurking below. Jase is already swimming fast and I hurry to catch up.
He beats me anyway and is standing on the float to pull me up when I get there.
I look around at the quiet water, the distant shore, and I shiver as his hand closes on mine.
“What am I doing here with you?” I ask.
“What?”
“I hardly know you. You could be some serial killer, luring me out to a deserted lake.”
Jase laughs and lies down on the dock on his back, folding his arms behind his head. “Nah, I’m not. And you can tell.”
“How can I tell?” I smile at him, lying down beside him, our hips nearly touching. “The whole happy-family-Mr.-Nice-Guy bit could be a cover.”
“No, because of instinct. You can tell who to trust. People can, just like animals. We don’t listen as well as they do, always, but it’s still there. That prickling feeling when something’s not right. That calm feeling when it is.” His voice is low and husky in the darkness.
“Jase?”
“Mmm-hmm?” He lifts up on one elbow, his face barely visible in the twilight.
“You have to kiss me,” I find myself saying.
“Yeah.” He leans closer. “I do.”
His lips, warm and soft, touch my forehead, then slide down my cheek, moving sideways to my mouth. His hand comes up to press the nape of my neck beneath my wet hair, just as mine slips to his back. His skin’s warm beneath the cool sheen of water, his muscles tight as he lies there, still balanced on one elbow. I curl in closer.
I’m not new to kissing. Or I thought I wasn’t, but it’s never been anything like this. I can’t get close enough. When Jase gently deepens the kiss, it feels right, no moment of startled hesitation like I’ve had before.