Page 50 of Shut Up and Drive

“I’m aware of that, Fina. You don’t think I know how happy you are without me? I can read the writing on the wall. Congratulations on your amazing life.”

He yanks his arm out of my grasp and continues down the trail. By the time I can hear waves lapping on the shoreline, he’s ten steps ahead of me.

Blast him and his long legs.

“Would you please stop? I can’t keep up with you when you’re practically running,” I say, out of breath.

“Why are you chasing me, Fina? Just let me go, so I can wallow in self-pity before I have to put on a happy little façade for the next eight days. I promise I’ll be on my best behavior while we’re here and keep rule number four perfectly. No one will ever suspect that we have a past or that I have any feelings for you. Okay? Your secret’s safe.”

I stop dead in my tracks. His words hit me like a freight train. “Do youstillhave feelings for me, Thane?”

He runs a frustrated hand over his face. “If it’s not obvious, then I’m doing a horrible job of showing you.”

I’m stunned into silence. He steps far too close forcomfort, and static electricity hums and crackles between us. I want more than anything to touch him, to discharge the moment or to set the whole thing on fire, but I freeze. After a moment of chests heaving and hearts pounding, he turns and walks away.

Out of obligation to protect myself, I let him go.

Chapter 19

SUIT YOURSELF, SLIM

Sera

Early the next morning, I climb down from my squeaky bunk and search around with my cell phone flashlight for my flip flops. I slide silently under Thane’s bottom bunk to reach my left shoe, but when I worm my way back out, I come face to face with his wide-open eyes. I barely hold in a scream as he puts his finger to my lips.

“Hi,” he whispers.

“Good morning,” I whisper in reply.

“Is today the day?”

A grin stretches across my face and I nod. “Today is the day. You wanna go?”

“Always,” Thane says, throwing off his blanket and rolling out of bed.

“Should we wake the others?” I ask. “We don’t want to break Rule Number Three.”

“I’m going to invoke Rule Number One here and say,can I be selfish and just have it be us? For old time’s sake?” Thane asks.

I smile, because deep down, I always hated sharing our first-morning ritual with everyone else. Once they all caught on to what we were doing, more and more people joined in. It took something we did to be spontaneous and turned it into a family affair. Which is fine. But the years Thane and I did it by ourselves are some of my favorite.

“Of course, let’s go before everyone else wakes up.”

“You should probably leave the loudest shoes on the planet up here if you’re trying not to wake everyone,” Thane says, gesturing to my flip flops.

I look down at my feet. “Good thinking.”

We rush downstairs, quietly giggling, and slip out the back door just as the sun is coming up. The whole sky is lit up in sunshine, and the birds sing their happy morning songs high above us in the trees. The lake is still and silent. The waves lie asleep under a layer of thin glass sparkling like liquid gold. I take a deep breath in and let the scent of pine fill my memory bank with one of my favorite smells in the whole world.

Then, werun!

Thane gives me a three-second head start, but still manages to beat me to the end of the dock. He passes me and grabs my hand just as we launch ourselves into the cool, calm water—fully clothed in our pajamas. My oversized T-shirt immediately floats toward my head, and I pull down on the hem before I surface. Thane is treading water when I come up for air, and for a moment we are transported back to a time when we were us. He splashes me and I laugh as I wipe the water from my eyes. My stringy hairhangs in my eyes and drips lake water all over my face. But with Thane, I don’t worry about what I look like. I’m too busy living in the moment to be concerned with insecurities or the pressures of life. We are thirteen and fourteen years old again, without a care in the world—and we laugh like it.

I snag a rogue twig floating past and tickle Thane’s leg with it, and he screams like a girl because he thinks it’s a snake. Then, when he realizes what I’ve done, he dunks me under playfully. We laugh and splash, and try as I might, there’s no way I can get his six-foot-three body to go under the water. I swear he can almost reach the bottom now, but back then, it was a long way down for both of us.

I let myself belly-laugh long and loud, like it’s the medicine I need to be whole again. When a grumpy old fisherman scolds us for “scaring the fish,” we giggle under our breaths, but don’t get out of the water.

“I’ve missed this,” I say, picking a leaf from Thane’s hair.