"Ally?" Gray said with a grin. He opened an arm out to me as if he wanted me to take his hand.

That was all I needed. I turned around, dropped my glass, and ran.

The flowers might not have been the best idea. For the past two hours they'd been sitting there on the passenger seat of my Jeep next to Faith's stupid coconut invite, taunting me. A few times I'd decided to toss them out the window, or give them to some tired-looking mom at a parkway rest stop and make her year. I mean, I'd decided it didn't matter whether Ally took me back. What mattered was being there for her. So wouldn't the flowers confuse things?

But no. Everyone liked to get flowers, right? At least, all girls. It was the kind of thing Chloe would know the answer to. If nothing had happened that night, if we had just gone on being friends and study partners, I could have called her and asked her. A couple of months ago, she wanted me and Ally to get together. She was, like, the only one who did.

And now . . . what would she think if she knew I was half an hour away from LBI? If she knew where I was going and why? Would she be mad? Jealous? Happy for me?

Did I even care?

I looked at the flowers again as I zoomed through the last tollbooth before exit sixty-three.

Screw it. I was going to give them to her. I loved the girl. Simple as that. It was time to stop fucking around.

Jenny picked up the phone on the first ring.

"Ally! Hey!"

"Where are you guys?" I blurted, wiping the back of my hand across my nose. Tears streamed down my face and my nostrils were so clogged I had to breathe through my mouth, but I did the best I could to sound like I was not crying.

"Actually, we're right up the beach from your place. Is someone having a party? Because it smells awesome."

I had been headed for the driveway-God knows why, since I didn't have a car-but instantly turned the corner and started up the plank walkway for the beach.

"Who's that?" I heard Cooper say in the background. My heart did a little pitter-patter, fluttery thing that made my stomach turn.

"It's Ally," she whispered.

He said something, but I couldn't make it out. I just hoped he wasn't telling her to tell me to kiss off.

"Where are you exactly?" I said as the wind off the water blew my hair back.

"We're up by that house I like," she said as a round of laughter erupted in the background. "The Applebottoms?"

The Applebys. "I'll be right there."

I shoved my phone in my pocket and turned left, headed up the beach. The wind seemed impossibly cold and I hugged my bare arms as hard as I could, wishing I was wearing anything other than the tank top and long, gauzy skirt I'd snagged on sale at B&B. I guess I wasn't as drunk as Annie had implied. If I was, I'd probably feel a lot warmer than I did right now.

"Ally! Wait up!"

The sound of Annie's voice only made me walk faster. I squinted, trying to make out the figures up the beach. Why was there no fire? Cooper and Dex always had a fire. I was just trudging past Gray's house when Annie caught up.

"Ally! Come on! Stop for a sec!" her hand fell on my arm, and I turned to face her.

"Why are you following me?" I snapped. "I thought I was some huge cliche unworthy of your friendship."

"I'm sorry, okay? I was just talking," she replied, lifting the hood of her sweatshirt over her hair. "I didn't know that-"

"My mother was about to get engaged?" I replied, wiping my eyes. "Yeah. Me neither."

"Are you okay?" she asked.

I laughed into the wind and looked out at the ocean. "No. Not even a little bit."

"Come on." She hooked her arm around mine and tugged. "We'll go get something to eat and you can vent all over me."

I suddenly saw myself ensconced in a booth at Chicken or the Egg, the twenty-four-hour diner at the other end of the island, plowing through a plate of pancakes and telling her everything I hadn't had a chance to tell her all summer. It actually sounded kind of nice.

But then I heard Cooper's voice in my mind, mocking me for being a whiner. Telling me everyone's life sucked and I was basically a big, fat baby. Suddenly I didn't want to give Annie the satisfaction of watching me blubber over carbs. She'd basically insulted the crap out of me ten seconds ago and now she wanted to hear my sob story? Why? So she could put it all in her book?

"Thanks anyway," I said. "I think I'm done whining."

Then I turned around and kept walking. Much to my chagrin, Annie fell into step with me.

"Then where are we going?" she asked.

"To meet Cooper," I said. We were passing by Hammond's house now, where his mom's old-school weather vane creaked in the wind, spinning around like a top.

"I thought you guys broke up."

"Not officially," I told her.

Right now all I wanted to do was find Cooper and prove to him that I was not a whiner. That I was not self-centered and a downer. I wanted to be the girl he'd thought I was. The fun, carefree bennie. I wanted this summer to have never happened.

Finally, a few dark, nebulous shapes came into view up the beach, past the Shale's modern, gray monstrosity of a mansion. They were standing in the sand right in front of Chloe's house. Jenny let out a whoop and came running toward me.

"Alleeeeee!"

She threw herself into my arms. I gave her a quick hug, but kept moving.

"Hi, Annie," she said.

"Hey." Annie sounded wary for some reason. Why did she have to come? The last thing I needed right now was a judgmental witness.

I kept walking toward the guys. Cooper, Dex, and Stoner were all there. Thankfully, Jessie was not. Cooper took a sip of beer and eyed me as I approached.

"Hey, guys," I said, lifting a hand.

I really hoped that it was dark enough to keep them from telling I'd been crying.

"What's up, Al?" Dex said.

"Hi, Cooper," I said tentatively.

"Hey." He looked away briefly. "Been a while."

Yeah, well, you kind of ripped me to shreds the last time I saw you, I thought but didn't say.

"So what are you doing here?" he asked.

I took a deep breath and walked up to him, so close our toes touched in the sand. My skin tingled with warmth, just being close to him again. "I wanted to tell you I'm over the drama. My family, the Cresties, all that crap. You were right. At the beginning of the summer I did just want to have fun. And I still do."

To prove it, I took the beer out of his hand and took a long swig. I felt both seriously cool and completely gross at the same time, but it had the desired affect. Cooper slowly smiled and my whole body tingled.

"Yeah?" he said, reaching one arm around me.

"Yeah," I said.

He leaned down and planted a kiss on my lips. When he pulled back again, there was a spark of something dangerous in his eyes and my heart thumped nervously.

"So prove it."

I smiled and took a step back. "How?"

"We're gonna break into this house right here," he said, pointing up at Chloe's. "That should be superfun."

"Ally, no."

My stomach was in knots as Annie pulled me away from the others, but I managed a casual laugh. I didn't want Cooper to think I was going to chicken out-that I might let my buzzkill friend talk me out of it.

"What's the big deal? It's not like they're actually going to take anything," I whispered to her, glancing over my shoulder.

No one seemed to be in a huge rush. Cooper and Dex were chugging beers while Stoner tried to open a package of jerky for Jen. I shivered violently against the wind and hugged myself, hard.

"How do you know that?" she asked.

"Because! I won't let them." I took a sip of the beer I'd stolen from Cooper, trying to look like this whole thing wasn't bothering me, too. "You should come with us. You hate Chloe. This is the perfect chance to get back at her."

Annie crossed her arms over her chest and raised her eyebrows. "How, exactly?" she asked dubiously.

"You can . . . I don' t know . . . go into her room and mess things up," I improvised. "Or snoop! Maybe she has a diary in there or something."

I took another slug of beer, holding my wind-whipped hair back from my face with my free hand.

"Right. Right. Because everyone keeps their innermost thoughts recorded in a diary that they leave at a house they only go to for two months out of the year," Annie said, glancing up at the darkened windows. "If they go there at all."

"God. Where do you get off?" I said. The sarcasm and put-downs were getting old fast. "This from the girl who spends her entire life stalking innocent people and recording their every move."

Annie's jaw dropped. "Since when are they innocent people? Have they totally brainwashed you?"

"I'm not the one who's brainwashed. You're brainwashed!" I shouted. "You think every single person who lives on the crest is evil, no matter what! Well, guess what! It looks like I'm gonna be living there soon again, Annie! So I guess now I'm too cool to be friends with you."

"Oh my God. You are so far off the deep end," Annie said through her teeth.

"Whatever. Why don't you just go away already? I don't remember asking you to come along."

Behind me, the guys reacted to my diss with a loud chorus of "oh!" Annie's face burned red. I felt suddenly hot and guilty and wanted to take it back, but why? She'd insulted me first.

"Wow. I really hate you when you're drunk," Annie said, her eyes narrowed into angry slits, her arms crossed over her chest. The guys shouted again. Dex even slapped his knee. My face was on fire.

"Yeah? Cuz I really hate you when you're all self-righteous and know-it-all," I retorted. "Oh, wait! That's all the time!"

Annie's face completely fell. She glanced at the others uncertainly as they basically cackled in her face. A thump of regret hit my chest hard, but I didn't take it back. I was too furious, too embarrassed, too far gone.

"I'm outta here," Annie said, her mouth a tight line. "At this point, I think I'd rather hang out with Faith anyway."

My eyes stung with tears. The guys didn't know it, but that was actually the biggest insult yet. Annie turned and walked away, her feet spraying up sand in her wake. This night simply could not get any worse. I chugged the rest of the beer and threw the bottle in the sand. Suddenly my stomach swooped and I felt like I was about to lose my dinner all over the beach, but I managed to hold it back with a few deep breaths.

Okay. So maybe I was drunker than I'd thought.

"All right, are we doing this or what?" Dex asked, clapping his hands together.

"You really staying?" Cooper asked, moseying up behind me and slipping his arms around my waist.

"I can do better than that," I told him. I turned around and covered my mouth to keep from burping in his face. I swallowed hard, then spoke. "I know the security code to kill the alarm and open the door. No breaking in needed."

Cooper's head flinched back in surprise and then he grinned a grin that flipped my heart. "This is gonna be epic."

He turned around, slinging his arm over my shoulders. "My girl knows the code!"

"Shut up!" Dex shouted.

"Omigod! Let's go!" Jenny said, running for the stairs.