Toward the end of the week I couldn't stand it anymore. I called Rachel and asked her what she'd done lately about getting Sean back. Unfortunately for her, or fortunately, depending on what you thought of Lori's plans (and I did not think very much of them), Rachel was not nearly as proactive as Lori. I could have told Rachel that Sean was patient and vengeful. If she didn't do something, the summer would end and he would go to college without ever asking her out again. He might even pine away for her, if he had room in his very small heart to do that, but it would be worth it to him if she felt bad about breaking up with him.

So I suggested that she have everyone over to her grandparents' place on the lake. She would see Sean and, G.o.d help her, win him back. I would see Lori.

Rachel's grandparents' house was far enough away that my parents and Lori's dad weren't likely to cruise by on the geriatric pontoon boat. It was close enough that we could all drive over there in the wakeboarding boat after business at the marina slowed down. It would look casual and spur-of-the-moment. It would not occur to Lori's dad that Lori and I could get in much trouble there, on the same lake as him, under the watchful eye of extremely old people.

And maybe, just maybe, Lori and I could slip away from McGillicuddy for a few minutes in private.

At least, that's what I figured. But Lori's dad was smarter than I thought. Even though he knew I would be there, he allowed Lori to go. But he made her go in her own boat with McGillicuddy, while I drove with Sean and Cameron.

That was okay. I wakeboarded the whole way over, which helped me get out some aggression. Cameron was driving. He kept trying to run me into sh.o.r.e or over big logs floating in the lake. If I were ten, I would have crashed. But I was sixteen, and I had his number. The lake was mine.

The girl was not. At Rachel's we swam, and we boarded, and we ate, and it would have been a lot of fun if I hadn't been watching Lori the whole time, trying to look like I wasn't watching her, wishing I could get her alone.

Rachel's grandmother already liked me. But she liked Sean more, because he complimented her on her peach cobbler (which was awesome, almost as good as my mom's, but it never would have occurred to me to compliment an old lady on her peach cobbler) and then insisted on helping her clean up the kitchen. He was really turning on the charm with her, but not with Rachel. Thus Rachel's grandmother would ask her a million times a day, Why don't you date that nice boy Sean? and Rachel would not want to admit that she had in fact broken up with Sean, and Sean had not asked her out again. I knew how Sean worked.

Late in the afternoon, the other guys went inside to watch the Braves game on TV with Rachel's granddad. I should have been there, and I would catch flak from them later for not being there. However, I was not going to miss a chance to get Lori alone. I lay with her, Rachel, and Tammy on the pier, catching the steeply angled rays of the sun.

Rachel let out a satisfied sigh. "I'm so glad Adam called me and told me to have y'all over." Lori looked over at Rachel. Lori had her shades on, but I could imagine the shocked look in her eyes.

Rachel wore shades too. However, she was sitting next to me, because we weren't banned from talking to each other, and we had no fear of McGillicuddy looking out the window and seeing us together. Behind her shades, she cut her dark eyes at me.

Lori didn't say a word. She turned and gazed out over the broad lake. But I knew she was wondering how deep my relationship with Rachel went behind the scenes. This moved me a long way toward letting go of my anger at Lori about Parker. Now she had some idea how I felt.

After a pause, she gestured offsh.o.r.e. "I am going to swim out to that island. Adam is going to swim out to that island also."

"I am?" I didn't like being told what to do. But of course I would have swum across the Atlantic to see her. I pulled off my T-shirt, the first time my chest had been bare in a week.

She did the smallest double take but quickly looked away from me again, toward the girls, and pretended to ignore me. "This is all purely for calisthenics, you understand."

"Of course," Rachel and Tammy said.

"So I do not want you to look around, see us missing, and sound the alarm that we have been eaten by bryozoa."

"Bryozoa eats plankton and microscopic stuff in the water," Rachel pointed out.

"Clearly you did not watch the same s.p.a.ce-alien movies I watched growing up." Lori pointed at Tammy. "And as for you, missy?"

"Yes?" Tammy asked drily. It sounded like she was almost as used to Lori's plans as I was.

"I can't trust my brother to keep his mouth shut about this," Lori said. "We have to make sure he doesn't see me."

"I have an idea," Tammy said in the halting speech and overenthusiastic delivery of someone reading from a cue card. "Why don't I entice your brother into a dark corner and make out with him to distract him?"

"That is a great idea," Lori said in the same tone.

Tammy stood and dashed up the dock toward the house. At least some people didn't have to be dragged into helping Lori with her plans.

"That leaves me with Sean," Rachel said doubtfully, but I could tell she was trying not to smile.

"And Cameron!" Lori reminded her. "Knock yourself out. Or... I guess you want to get rid of them. I know exactly how to make them forget you exist, if they haven't already with the Braves game on. Give them a bowl of Fritos and some dip. Always works for me."

"Wow, it's that easy? Thanks, Lori." Rachel got up and walked toward the house more slowly than Tammy had, watching the windows, undoubtedly hoping Sean would appear, looking for her. No such luck. I knew she held out hope Sean would throw her a bone, and I knew he wouldn't. I knew exactly how she felt.

"Race ya," Lori said. Before I could respond, she was gone. She splashed into the water and crawled at a good clip toward the tiny island three hundred yards from the dock.

I dove in after her, caught up with her in a few strokes, pa.s.sed her, turned over, and did the backstroke right in front of her, kicking up big splashes in her face just to p.i.s.s her off. I righted myself, treading water, looking for her.

She wasn't there.

"Sucker!" came from a long way off. I saw her wet blonde head halfway to the island already. She must have pa.s.sed me by swimming underwater. Now she sank under the surface again.

I swam as fast as I could after her. As I moved nearer to the island, I saw what a genius Lori was and how brilliant a choice the island was for a place to slip away from McGillicuddy. It was possibly even more masterful than my secret make-out hideout. Rachel's grandparents' house was at the end of their neighborhood. Beyond it, the sh.o.r.e stretched around endless bends of red mud cliffs and pine trees, with not a soul in sight. The island sat in front of those cliffs, at the edge of the busy river channel, but a DANGER sign indicating shallow water was stuck between the island and the bank, so boats wouldn't dare float through here. It was private. It was perfect.

I touched bottom and walked through the sand, stirring up bits of mica that glittered like stars in the water. Looking back toward Rachel's grandparents' house and their pier, I watched both disappear behind the trees on the island. Now Lori and I couldn't be seen unless somebody came looking for us.

Lori sat on the sandy, glittery beach of the island, directly in front of the DANGER sign, waiting for me. I waded toward her.

"Why have you been ignoring me all week?" she called. Her voice sounded annoyed. However, she sat leaning on one hand with her long legs folded gracefully, the warm lake lapping at them. With a small wardrobe malfunction of her pink bikini, she could have been a model in one of the issues of Playboy she used to steal from McGillicuddy to study what kind of girl Sean was into, so she could be more like her. In fact, I thought at first that she was teasing me by pretending to be that girl. But as I waded closer, I realized she really was annoyed, and she was seducing me by accident. h.e.l.l, I would have been turned on no matter how she sat.

"I haven't been ignoring you," I said. "I've been obeying my parents."

"There's a first time for everything, I guess." She squinted at me and put up one hand to shield her eyes. A shadow covered half her face. The sun was peeking around my back and blinding her.

I held my ground, squishing my toes in the glittering sand, and made small movements back and forth, just to bug her. The sun was hidden by my body. Then it hit her full force in the eyes. Then it went into hiding again.

She closed one eye. "I don't buy it. You've been avoiding me. You're still punishing me for going out with Parker. And that doesn't make any sense to me, because I sent McGillicuddy over to tell you the Parker thing did not work with my dad at all. McGillicuddy came back and said you just shrugged!" I shrugged again. "How could you and I have talked about it without somebody seeing us?"

"You managed our trip into the woods okay."

"And we got busted." Since her eyes were watering, I figured she'd had enough of my game with the sun. I sank down in the water in front of her and leaned back on my hands in the sand.

"I guess I've been expecting more out of Mr. Daredevil, Mr. Devil-May-Care." She sat up straight and looked me dead in the eye. "I'm so glad you finally called Rachel and arranged this excuse for us to see each other today."

She knew there was more to this, and she expected me to sing. Who did she think she was dealing with here, Cameron? I hoped I played this cool, but I did look away. I wanted to keep her on her toes, wondering if there was something going on between Rachel and me, so she'd be a little bit jealous. But she was my friend, and I felt guilty.

After eyeing me silently for a few more seconds, she finished, "Otherwise, I might not have been able to tell you what I did for you until it was too late for you to take advantage."

"Take advantage?" I looked pointedly at her cleavage. "What you did for me? It must involve underwear." As fast as one of my brothers, she shoved me. I lost my balance and fell backward into deeper water. She jumped on top of me and dunked me. Yes, I got dunked by a girl, but only because we had trained her well, and she had surprise on her side.

As soon as I realized what had happened, I grabbed her arms above me in the water and lifted her whole body onto my shoulders. She bit off a squeal-remembering at the last moment someone back at the house might hear her. I heaved her as far as I could from the island. By the time she swam all the way back again, water spilling from her long hair, I was sitting exactly where she'd been sitting on the beach before. I was king of this mountain.

She walked up the beach until she stood directly over me. The water from her hair streamed into my eyes. "You are going to be so sorry when you find out what I did for you."

"I doubt it." I laughed. "It felt pretty good to throw you."

"Parker knew all along that my dad saw through him, but he failed to inform me of this. So I got some payback." I wiped the water out of my eyes and moved a few feet to one side, out of range of her dripping body. "I definitely do not want to hear about your payback with Parker."

"Yes, you do." She followed me, stood over me again, and wrung out her hair on my head. "You know, his grandparents' yacht club puts on the Fourth of July fireworks display."

Now I had an inkling of what she was getting at. I couldn't help smiling as I put both hands over my head to shield myself from the water. "And?"

"And you're going to help."

The splashing had stopped. I looked cautiously up at her. "I am?"

She was standing where I'd stood before. With the sun brushing the tops of the trees onsh.o.r.e directly behind her, I could see her only in silhouette, but I could tell by the movement of her hair that she nodded.

An explosion went off in my heart, followed by a few smaller percussions like a Roman candle. Lori was driving me batty with her plans, but it wasn't every girl who would go out of her way to get you what you wanted most in the world, besides her. Especially when it involved explosives. I breathed, "I love fireworks."

"I know!" She jumped up and down with excitement, and the silhouette of her hair bounced in long wet clumps. "But I understand you didn't want to hear this, and then you threw me into the deep water for no good reason, which hurt my feelings, so I'll call Parker and tell him no thanks." I reached for the center of her silhouette to grab her wrist. Instead I grabbed cloth, which gave as I tugged on it. The waistband of her bikini.

"Hey." She sounded a lot less outraged than she should have. I was the one embarra.s.sed.

"I can't see you." I rose on my knees until my head was out of the sunlight and I could see her grinning down at me. Then I grabbed her wrist and pulled her down on top of me.

"Which is really sad," she grunted as she fell, "because Parker was excited by the idea. He's afraid of fireworks. The yacht club hires a professional company to put on the show, but Parker's grandparents make him help every year. It's almost enough to make him give up his annual summer trip down from Birmingham." With one hand I made a ponytail out of her wet hair and directed her lips toward mine. I kissed her.

"Mmph." She struggled to move her lips away from mine. "It would have been perfect if you'd done Parker the favor of taking that ch.o.r.e off his hands. Oh well." While she was talking, talking, talking, I wrestled her down onto the beach and put some of my weight on top of her so she would shut up, and I kissed her again.

This time it worked. I heard her sigh through her nose. I felt her relax under me. Not many girls would engineer a chance for me to set off explosives, and not many girls would enjoy kissing me on this beach. I thought it was nice, but I'd kissed enough girls to predict what they'd be complaining about at this point. The sand was somewhat muddy. Bugs buzzed in the forest surrounding us and might come out to get us at any second. Boats groaned in the river on the other side of the island. They could come roaring around the side of the island without warning and wreck on the DANGER sign. Even Rachel, who put up with a lot, tended to be jumpy about these sorts of things.

Only Lori viewed them like I did, as part of every summer afternoon. She opened her mouth for mine and traced her short fingernails down my back. This made me shudder, like it always did. I wanted to be strong and unaffected every time we touched each other, but the truth was, Lori could do things to me. The only way to keep the upper hand was to do things back to her. I kissed her until she forgot about tracing her fingernails on my back. I worked my way up to her ear. Her arms went limp in the sand.

A motorboat came closer and closer. The sound stayed on the other side of the island. We lay still together, listening to it reach the peak of its volume, then fade as it went on its way downriver. But the spell was broken. I thought we had a few minutes until McGillicuddy would notice we were gone, but not so many that we could risk getting into it again and losing track of time, which we clearly had a problem with.

She looked up at me-not into my eyes, but at my chin-and seemed fascinated with rubbing her thumb on my stubble. "It makes a crispy noise," she said.

"Admit you like it."

"It hurts." She rubbed her own red cheek. Luckily we'd come over here in the boats, and if her dad asked her about it, she could claim windburn. She pushed my chest, and I let her sit up. Then she looked out across the water toward where the dock and the house would be if we could see through the island, but she put one hand on my thigh. On the inside of my thigh, slowly moving up. This told me she was thinking the same thing I was thinking: We probably should be wrapping this up, but we weren't done with each other.

We should skinny-dip. That's what would happen if this were a movie. But I'd never actually known anyone who'd skinny-dipped, or admitted to it. I probably would have done it with my brothers at some point in our lives, except Lori was always around.

That was exactly my problem now. I would have given anything to see her naked, but that would mean she'd see me naked, too. I might have been the impulsive one in my family, but even I had my limits.

"Want to get naked?" she asked.

"No," I said instantly. After I'd thought for a second, I realized my first answer was the right answer for once. No, I did not.

"Me neither," she said.

I sighed with relief, then tried to turn it into some kind of offended gasp. "Why'd you ask, then?"

"You seem h.e.l.l-bent on putting the last nail in the coffin," she said. "Nothing would get us in more trouble than being caught naked."

"We wouldn't get caught."

"How can you say that?" She threw her wet arms wide in exasperation. Drops of water followed her fingertips, glinting in the sun. "We get caught every time we're together."

I clamped my hand over her mouth and whispered, "That's because you're yelling."

She pulled my hand away and cupped it in both of hers. She studied it, squeezed it, ran her fingers up and down my fingers. Then she looked at me and said, "I've missed you."

I let my head sink until my lips touched her hands, but my eyes never left her green eyes. Love hurt. Honesty made it hurt worse, and I could hardly stand it.

I scooted away from her in the sand and gazed at a few white clouds, purple on their undersides in the late afternoon, in the brilliant blue sky. "This is only happening because of twenty-first-century society," I said. "Two hundred years ago, your dad would be glad to hand you over to me."

"Would he, now." She pushed me until I lay down on my back in the sand.

I thought she would kiss me again. If she did, I wasn't sure I'd let her. It would be ridiculous and uncharacteristic of me to turn down a make-out session from her-not to mention reckless, since the way things were going, I might never get another chance. But the more we kissed, the harder I fell, and the more it hurt.

She only laid her head on my chest, her damp hair spilling onto the sand around us.

I put one hand in her hair and slowly stroked. "Yes, he would let me have you, because I would be the best hunter in the forest. I would keep you clothed and fed and safe. I would be quite the catch. Your dad would be so happy. He'd throw in a cow and a couple of chickens to sweeten the deal."

"You may be right! The early eighteen hundreds were the heyday of the sixteen-year-old male with ADHD." She smoothed her hand down my belly. "The world was your oyster."

"d.a.m.n straight." I really was feeling like the world was my oyster that afternoon. In the back of my mind I always knew it wasn't, but a beautiful blonde lay on my chest, and it was easy to pretend she wouldn't be s.n.a.t.c.hed away from me again before the afternoon was over.

"You would not have to do trig." She stroked higher, wrapped her finger around one of my chest hairs, and tugged gently.

"I would not have to do trig," I agreed. "Could you please be more careful with my chest hairs? I don't have many."

"So sorry." Her hand slid lower again, which I liked a lot better anyway. "In the eighteen hundreds, I would have run away with you." I sat up on my elbows to look at her in surprise. "You would?"

She sat up too. "Yes." She nodded with certainty. "And you would die in a saloon fight and leave me with ten children and one on the way and a crop in the field."

"I would do no such thing."

"Yeah, you would never have made it that far. You would have died of infection one of the times you broke your arm." Her hand moved to my upper arm and ma.s.saged the scar where that bone had come out. Her hand moved down and lingered on the scar on my forearm. Her fingers even tickled across the position of the break that had been only a greenstick fracture, with no bone sticking out. She knew my body almost as well as I did.

"Maybe we should stay in this century and work it out," I murmured.

"No, I want to go back to two-hundred years ago, to the dysentery and the head lice. It's so s.e.xy!" She got on her hands and knees and crawled forward until her bikini top was in my line of sight. I'd thought when we first got to the island that she was seducing me by accident. I didn't think so anymore.

"Stop it," I protested. As if.

"Say something else s.e.xy," she purred.

"Louisiana Purchase."

She threw back her head and laughed. "And you got a D in history last semester? That mean teacher just didn't understand you." But Lori did, and she knew exactly what to say to make me feel like the smartest guy in the world. Or maybe she didn't know. Maybe she just did it. Fascinated, I reached out and touched a wisp of her white-blonde hair that had blown across her bottom lip.

Her laughter stopped, and her smile faded. She said huskily, "You're only three weeks older than I am, but when you do something like that, you seem years older." I do? I wanted to ask. This was news to me. Great news. I held her gaze like I had been aware of this already, and I rubbed my thumb gently across her lip like I'd done it on purpose all along.

"You seem so much more experienced than I am," she said, "to make such a simple move so s.e.xy." She closed her eyes and leaned forward.

I stroked her face lightly as she put herself into my hand like a cat that wanted to be petted (unlike my mother's cat, which did not want to be touched at all), but I wasn't watching her face anymore. I was watching her bikini top and trying not to explode.