What I Thought Was True(84)

I do as he tells me, and the kayak slowly turns, snagging briefly in the sea grass, then moving on.

We’re only a few bends in the inlet from the beach when the clouds finally break and fat raindrops begin scattering around us, plopping, into the water, splattering onto my shoulder. At first just a few and then the sky opens up and it’s a deluge, as though someone is pouring a giant version of one of Emory’s buckets onto the kayak. We both start paddling like crazy, but I’m trying to pull the paddle back and Cass is moving it forward, which stalls us till he again shifts his hand on mine, tightening his grip, says, “Like this,” dipping the paddle in the right direction, so we’re in sync at last.

Finally, we reach the beach and get out. Cass hauls and I shove and soon the kayak is at the door. He shouts, but I can’t hear him above the rain. He hooks his toes under the kayak, flipping it upside down so it won’t fill with water, then kicks the door open and pulls me inside the boathouse, yanking the door shut.

“I could have planned this a little better!” he shouts, over 291

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the barrage of rain pounding on the roof like drumsticks.

I could have pointed out that I knew it was going to rain.

Which I totally knew.

And ignored.

We’re both drenched. His hair’s plastered to his forehead and cool rivulets of water are snaking down my back. There are no lights in the boathouse; only two tiny windows and a dirty fly-specked skylight. Outside, all you can see is a gray wall of torrential water and, suddenly, a flicker of lightning.

“God’s flicking the light switch,” I say.

Cass shoves his hair out of his eyes and squints, assessing my craziness level. Which of course means I keep talking. “Grandpa Ben used to say that, when Nic and I were little and scared of storms and you know, hurricanes and stuff. Lightning was God flipping the switch and thunder was God bowling and . . .”

He’s now cocking his head, smiling at me bemusedly, as though I really am speaking a foreign language.

I trail off.

“Um,” I say. “Anyway. What are you thinking?”

“That I’ve gotten you wet and cold again.” Cass lifts the bottom of his T-shirt, squeezing water out of the hem, then pulls it entirely off. Sort of like detonating a weapon in the tiny, warm, confined space.

I shiver, glancing around the boathouse for something to dry us.

There are a few old tarpaulins piled in one corner, but they look mildewy and rough and smell musty and are probably full of earwigs and brown recluse spiders. There’s another flicker of lightning with a loud crack to follow, like a giant is splitting a 292

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huge stick over his knee. The rain seems to pause for an instant as though gathering strength, then an angry grumble of thunder rolls out.

“What d’you know?” Cass says, bending down and pulling something out from behind the Hoblitzells’ dinghy, named Miss Behavin’. He tosses it toward me. A pink towel, which lands neatly at my feet.

I pick it up. “You can’t get warm if you put the dry clothes on over wet ones,” I quote, wondering if he’ll remember say-ing that.

He grins at me. “As a wise man once said.”

“Man?”

“You’re questioning man? I was betting you’d go for wise.”

“Which would be more insulting?”

He picks up another towel and sets his fingers and thumb at the back of my neck, urging my head down, then starts rub-bing the towel through my hair to dry it.

He’s just drying my hair. With a towel. This should not feel so . . . amazing.

“Insulting each other, Gwen? Is that what we’re doing here?” His voice is low, so close to my ear.

I don’t know what we’re doing here.

Or maybe I do. He stops, dumps the towel to the ground, says gruffly, “I think you’re good.”

“Yes, totally.” I back up, pull my soaking T-shirt up over my bikini, drop it to the floor with a squelch. Cass freezes. The atmosphere inside the boathouse suddenly feels more electri-cally charged than the storm outside.

We’re only a few feet away from each other.

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“You’ve got, um—” He makes this gesture with both thumbs under his eyes, which I can’t interpret.

Another flash of lightning. A really loud rumble of thunder.

For a second, since he’s not moving, I wonder if I should act terrified of storms just for an excuse to throw myself at him, then I can’t believe what a lame thought that is.

He reaches out his thumb, very slowly, and brushes it under one of my eyes. I close them both, and the thumb smoothes under the other one. Both of us take a deep breath in, as though we’re about to speak, but words fail me. It’s Cass who talks.

“Mascara . . . uh . . . here.” Another graze of his thumb.

I step back, rub impatiently under both eyes with the pink towel. “Makeup. Ugh, I’m terrible with it. I mean, I can do it, but just the basics. Forget the eyelash curler, which is like some sort of medieval torture device anyway and . . . Maybe I should just give up completely on trying to be a girl.”

“That would be a shame. Here, you’re getting it all over. Let me.”

“I should at least have gotten . . . the . . . water . . . proof kind.” Now he has set his fingers on either side of my face, tangling in my wet hair, with the pads of his thumbs still pressing over my cheekbones.