Under the Same Stars(53)
“Hey, Grace!” Marco waved. “Everett stationed somewhere else today?”
Ah, I realized as Marco wandered over to talk to her. Grace Barbour.
I’d forgotten how many kids from our town spent the summer on the Jersey Shore.
After I put on sunscreen, I tossed the Sun Bum to Connor. “You missed a spot,” I commented when he didn’t bother doing his back.
He sighed and handed over the sunscreen. “Will you? Please?”
“It would be an honor.” I smirked and squeezed some lotion into my palm, but hesitated before rubbing it in, as if I were afraid of Connor’s skin scorching my hands. My heart thudded once, twice, three times before I blinked and went to work.
“Mmm, that’s nice,” Connor murmured. “I didn’t realize I would also be getting a massage…”
Heat rushed to my cheeks, and I was glad Connor couldn’t see me. I hadn’t meant to give him a full-on massage. It was just—well, running my hands over his shoulder muscles felt good.
“We have to wait twenty minutes for it to soak in,” I said, swallowing hard. “Then we can go in the water.”
“That won’t be a problem,” he yawned for the umpteenth time as he unrolled his blue towel. “I’m gonna take a nap.”
“You do that.” I nodded, then wasted no time in taking a picture of him passed out to post on my Instagram story. I geotagged Stone Harbor.
Classic, Austin commented a minute later.
Meredith heart-eyed the photo and wrote: Beach days are the best days!
I liked her message before tucking my phone in my tote bag and pulling out a book. Marco did a double take when he returned to our setup. “A Gentleman in Moscow?” he asked. “You’re reading it?”
“I’m about to,” I said as he dropped down into the beach chair next to mine. “I’m not exactly dying to read Wuthering Heights for school, and you said this was good, so…”
Marco grinned. “Amor Towles did no prior research before writing it,” he said, eyes shining. “He’d never been to Russia and never took any Russian history courses in school. It was only after he finished the first draft that he visited Moscow. He moved into the Metropole Hotel to revise—” He grimaced. “Sorry, I’m nerding out.”
“A bit.” I fought a smile. “But as long as you don’t spoil anything, nerd away.”
“No guarantees,” Marco joked, and when he laughed, it was like the sun took the sound as its cue to shine brighter—the rays now sizzling against my skin. I watched Marco lean back in his chair and run a slow hand through his hair. “Swim after a few chapters?” he asked after cracking open his own book. “We’ll be hot by then.”
“I’m already hot,” I murmured as I skimmed the book’s dedication.
“I agree,” Marco said smoothly, and it wasn’t until he’d pulled out his own book and started reading that I suddenly wondered whether he agreed with me—that it was hot today—or if he was in agreement about something else. My pulse quickened.
I had to read A Gentleman in Moscow’s first page three times before it made any sense.
***
After dinner that night, it was time to make what the ?lvarez family called the “Pilgrimage.” Marco’s dad and cousins hopped on their bikes and sped off toward town, determined to reach Springer’s Homemade Ice Cream before the line grew out of control. “What would you two like?” Marco asked his mom before we followed on foot. She and her sister were relaxing with sangria on the screened-in porch. “Coffee? Maple walnut? Peanut butter cup?”
“We’ll split two scoops of maple walnut with marshmallow sauce.” Rose smiled and blew her son a kiss. “Please and thank you.”
Springer’s had been the most popular ice cream place on the Jersey Shore since Prohibition. Marco warned us that the line of people stretched down the block and turned the corner once the sun set, but it was mind-boggling to see it in real life. There were even aspiring musicians entertaining the crowd; the atmosphere felt like a block party. As we searched for Marco’s cousins, I took a video for Samira—the biggest ice cream lover I knew. It was only after I texted it to her that I remembered she and Austin used to spend a day in Stone Harbor to celebrate their anniversary every year. She’d once told me their first kiss had been after a game of miniature golf.
Oops, I thought, then shook the embarrassment away. It wasn’t like Samira was still in love with my brother. The last time we saw each other, she’d mentioned dating someone.
“Oh, jeez,” Connor said a few minutes after we found Marco’s family in line (if the people behind thought we were cutting, they didn’t say anything). He pulled his phone from his pocket, the screen reading: Lauren B.
“Lauren B?” Marco said, seemingly amused.
“I have four or five Laurens in my phone,” Connor said, and I bit the inside of my cheek when he let his girlfriend’s call go to voicemail. It’d have been terrible if I smiled.
“How’re things going with her?” Marco asked.
“Pretty well,” Connor said as we took a few steps forward in line. “She’s cute and funny, and obsessed with lacrosse. We never run out of stuff to talk about.” He laughed, as if remembering a joke Lauren had made the other day. “We have a lot of fun together.”