I sat down next to him. Close, but not too close. "It's okay.

It's cool. I understand." And I did. Kind of. I'd had a couple of emotional freak-outs of my own lately.

"Thanks."

He looked sad, and somehow young, sitting, hugging his shins in the sand. My fingers itched to push his hair back from his face, but that seemed too intimate, so I didn't. He lifted his hands and his arm brushed mine. I got goose bumps everywhere. He rested his wrists on his knees, so his arms were straight, then placed his chin on his upper arm as he faced me. Suddenly I was very aware of how half-naked we both were-him in just a bathing suit, me in a tank top and shorts. I could smell the tangy scent of his sport sunscreen. There was a tiny grain of sand on his lower lip.

"I'm glad I bumped into you the other night," he said.

"Yeah?"

His face was so close I could see the bleached ends of his eyebrow hairs.

"Yeah."

He was going to kiss me. Did I want him to kiss me? If my pounding heart was any indication, I did. Jake's face flitted through my mind as my eyes fluttered closed. And then a whistle split the air. I looked over at Gray's house. Annie was waving both hands over her head on the deck, her backpack dropped on the floor next to her.

"Annie!" I jumped up, flinging sand all over Cooper's legs. My skin buzzed, and my lips hummed from the aborted kiss, but I didn't look back.

"Hey!" she shouted, racing down the stairs.

We ran to each other across the beach, and she flung her arms out to hug me, making a big kissy face like we were long-lost lovers. She wore a black T-shirt that hung off one shoulder, cutoff denim shorts, and hot pink leggings over black Converse. Her short, dark hair was pushed back with black-and-white checkered sunglasses.

"Okay, you weren't kidding. That place is, like, a museum," she said.

"I know, right?"

Then she looked past me at Cooper. He was just rising up from the sand, dusting off his torso, and the sun bounced off his tan, making him look like something out of a surfing movie. Damn. I could've just kissed that.

"Is that the hottie?" Annie whispered.

"Um . . . yeah," I said.

She grinned proudly. "Hey!" she shouted to him. "I'm Annie. Ally's better half."

Cooper loped over. "Not possible for her to have a better half."

Now Annie was really impressed. "You got any brothers?" she joked.

"Nope. But I have a single dad who's kind of cool when you can actually find him," he replied.

My heart sank as Annie and I exchanged a look.

"God. Sorry. I've got some kind of disease today that only affects my speech." He rubbed his hands together and looked Annie up and down. "I do have a sister, though."

Annie smirked. "Normally I don't swing that way, but if she looks anything like you . . ."

"Annie!"

Cooper laughed. "Well, I guess I should let you guys . . . girl-bond or whatever. I'll see you two around later?"

"Most definitely," Annie replied.

Cooper lifted a hand as he walked up the beach toward the house and the driveway beyond, where he'd parked the truck he shared with his sister. Annie and I both watched until he was out of sight.

"All right, he is way hotter than-"

I lifted a hand. "Don't say it. Don't say his name. We are living in a him-free zone right now," I said.

"That's very Zen of you," Annie said, sliding her sunglasses down over her eyes.

"It's a whole new Ally Ryan," I replied.

"Does the new Ally Ryan eat? Cuz I'm starved and from the look of that house, I'm guessing there's nothing fried, processed, or chocolate anywhere in it."

"You got that right," I said, walking backward up the beach. "Come on. I'll take you to Pinky's."

"And tell me all about Cooper?" she asked.

"And tell you all about Cooper," I promised.

As we walked around to the driveway where the car she'd borrowed from her mom for the weekend was parked, Annie told me about the goings-on at home. How David had gotten a job with a landscaper and was making buckets of cash. How Marshall had started going out with Celia Linklater and now thought he was a player. How she'd seen both Shannen and Chloe lurking around town, shopping alone, never together. I wondered if that was the gossip she'd been texting about the other day, and thought it couldn't possibly be. She'd said she had big gossip, and solo shopping was not big. So did she have something big about Jake? Something she was just not telling me because I'd told her not to mention him?

"Okay. How do we get to this Pinky's?" Annie asked as she pulled out of the driveway.

"Just hit the Boulevard and make a left. We'll get there eventually."

"I like it. Very chill. Maybe I could get used to the vibe down here," she said.

I spent the entire drive obsessing about Jake, opening my mouth to ask her about him, then clamming up again and forcing myself to stay quiet. Yeah. That was my vibe all right. Very chill.

Daily Field Journal of Annie Johnston Sunday, July 4.

Location: Take a Dip ice cream, under the awning out back.

Cover: None. I came here to say hi to Ally and get some rum raisin, but what I just saw, I had to write down.

Observations: 4:55 p.m.: Subject Hammond Ross talking to Ally Ryan behind the counter at Take a Dip ice cream. Uniform: light blue Take a Dip T-shirt, baggy shorts, sneakers. Subject Hammond is talking. She's cracking up laughing. The phone rings. Ally goes to get it. Subject Hammond checks his hair in the reflective side of a napkin dispenser while her back is turned. She hangs up. Subject Hammond puts the napkin dispenser down and wipes his palms on the back of his shorts. He puts his smile back on. They turn to look at the door and I duck out of view, my back to the wall.

5:02 p.m.: I feel safe to look again. Ally is at the sink washing something. Subject Hammond LEANS IN TO SMELL HER!

(Assessment: Holy crap. Hammond is in love with Ally.)

"So then Todd is hanging . . . upside down, from the edge of the high dive and he's just screaming . . . 'I didn't want to go in head first! I didn't want to go in head first!' And I'm like"-Hammond cupped his hands around his mouth-"'You shoulda thought of that before you flipped over, dude!'"

I held my stomach as I laughed, practically doubled over behind the counter at Take a Dip. It was the Fourth of July, and it was pouring outside. Fat raindrops battered the plate-glass windows and every car that zipped by sprayed a wall of water on the roadside sign advertising two-for-one single cones. The fluorescent lights inside the shop made everything look dingy, from the unpolished chrome on the milk shake blenders to the film over the top of the dipping chocolate. We'd had one customer in the last hour, and our shift manager, Deb, had long since retired to the back room with her cell phone. When she'd gone, I had silently cursed her for leaving me alone with Hammond. But now . . . I was actually having fun.

"So what happened?" I asked.

"He fell," Hammond said matter-of-factly, toying with one of the ice-cream scoops in its bucket. "And he so didn't want to fall on his head, he flipped over and landed on his stomach. It was the belly flop heard round the world."

"Oh God. That must've hurt," I said, biting my bottom lip.

"His stomach was red for hours. We took a picture of it," Hammond confirmed with a nod. "I'm sure someone has it somewhere."

I smiled, feeling all fuzzy and nostalgic. It was kind of nice to hear the stories of things that had happened while I was off living with my grandmother in Baltimore. Nice, but also odd. I'd always known that life had gone on without me, but it was weird to hear how easily and normally it had gone on without me.

Hammond crossed his arms over his chest, his feet planted wide in that self-assured stance of his. He was so much better looking when he wasn't being a jerk. Already he'd gotten a tan, which made his blond hair look lighter, and he'd wisely chosen a light blue T-shirt that brought out the blue in his eyes. His had forty colorful scoops of ice cream on it, the flavor's name beneath each scoop, and read TRY 'EM ALL! across the top. We looked at each other for a long moment, as the refrigerator sputtered and roared into another cooling cycle behind him. Suddenly I had this vivid memory of him clutching the front of my T-shirt around my stomach right before we kissed that night a million years ago, because he didn't know what to do with his hands. I quickly turned away and leaned against the counter, blowing out a loud, theatrical sigh.

God I hoped he couldn't tell what I was thinking. I almost never thought about that night. So why was it coming up now?

"So are you gonna do Backslappers again in the fall? Because if you are, maybe you could be mine this time," Hammond said. He leaned down next to me, our elbows almost touching.

"I don't know." I'd only joined last year because I'd still been nursing that childish dream of getting back with my friends. But now everything was different. I'd had enough Crestie drama, and the soccer team and Backslappers were just littered with it.

"Well, Chloe is not an option, and I don't know what's up with Shannen," Hammond said. "Maybe we could-"

His elbow nudged mine. I stood up straight and backed away, hands in the back pockets of my jeans.

"I don't know," I said quickly. "I might try out for the play instead."

His face screwed up as he turned to face me. "The play?"

"Yeah. I used to be into that stuff, remember?" I said. "In Baltimore I actually had a good role one year. I just-"

At that moment, the door to the shop opened, and my phone rang. It was like the powers that be were giving me a double save. A middle-aged guy shook the hood off his head as he ushered two little kids in colorful rain jackets through the door. I pulled my phone out and my heart skipped a nervous, excited beat.

"It's my dad."

Time to put the plan in motion.

Deb emerged from the back room. "Hi-eeee!" she said to the dad and his kids. She was one of those people who found any way possible to make most one-syllable words into two. "What can we get for you?"

My phone rang again.

"It's okay," Hammond said to me. "We got this."

"If you're going to take a call, please take it in ba-ack!" Deb sang, her blond curls bouncing around her head as she tilted it toward the door.

"Thanks, guys."

I ducked through the door into the dim stillness of the back room, which was so tiny I had to slide sideways to get between the stacked boxes of plastic bowls and the ripped vinyl back of the desk chair. I stood beneath the open window, leaned into the side of the ancient water fountain, and hit talk. I felt hot all over from the weirdness with Hammond, so I took a breath and told myself it was nothing. Just old feelings stirred up by boredom and the proximity of Hammond's body to mine.

"Hi, Dad."

"Hey, kiddo! How's it going? Is it raining as hard there as it is here?"

I looked up at the window and all I saw was gray. "Yeah. It's pretty bad. So . . . you got my message?"

"Sure did," he said. "Sorry I couldn't pick up. I had class last night."

"That's okay," I replied. I traced an arc on the concrete floor with the toe of my sneaker, thinking about Gray's parting comment the other night. "So . . . what's up? I mean, is there a plan or . . . ?"

"Yes! Yes," he said. "There is a plan. And there is something you can do."

I stood at attention. "Really? What?"

"Do you think you could get your mother to drive you into the city next Saturday afternoon?"

My brow knit. How the hell was I supposed to do that? "Um . . ."

"I was thinking you could tell her you want to meet up with friends or something," he said.

Was he not acquainted with my mother? She would never let me wander around New York City alone with friends for the day. Then an idea hit me and I blinked. Unless . . .

"Actually, I signed up for the humanities elective next year and they did strongly suggest we visit some museums this summer," I told him.

"Perfect!" he crowed. "Tell her you need to go to the MoMA. That's right in the neighborhood I need you to be."

"Why? What are you gonna do?" I asked, feeling breathless. I turned toward the back door, away from the shop, as if Hammond and Deb could possibly hear me through the steel door over the whir of the freezers and the banging of the rain.

"I'm going to re-create our first date," he said. "She's going to love it. There's no way she's going to be able to ignore me after this."

I grinned. Their first date. It was exactly the kind of romantic gesture my mother lived for. I felt proud of my dad for thinking of it. And kind of ridiculously happy. He did still know her. He did still love her. And he was willing to go the extra mile to show her.

"Okay. I'll tell her about the museum and let you know what she says," I told him.

"Thanks, bud. What would I do without you?"

My heart constricted and I bit my tongue to keep from blurting the first thing that came to mind. Namely, You seemed to manage it just fine for the past couple of years. Now was not the time to get all obnoxious on him. He had a plan. He was executing the plan. That was all that mattered.

I heard some muffled laughter through the door, and checked the grainy security screen on the desk. Cooper, Dex, Jenny, and another guy I recognized from the beach-nicknamed Stoner-had just come in. Dex was tearing through the T-shirt cabinet, unfolding all the shirts, holding them up against his chest and wagging his shoulders around as he modeled them. I rolled my eyes.

"Dad. I'm at work and I gotta go."