Free Chasing Sunsets by Eva Marie Everson

dress, you know.”
    “I’d say.”
    I smiled at him before we turned to walk toward the grassy knoll rising above the beach where 2nd Street crossed in front of City Park. Behind us the voices of children and adults playing and laughing faded into the sound of gulls cawing. Steven and I were in a world of our own. We took slow steps, occasionally bumped shoulders, cast longing gazes, and then finally clasped our hands together. “So, what’ll it be?” he asked. “Just say the word and I’ll pick you up at your front door at 6:00. Otherwise, I’ll meet you at the end of the lane from your house.” He stopped walking, and I stopped with him. “Just promise me that tomorrow we’ll be watching the sunrise together.”
    I looked at him long and hard. “Dad will say no.”
    “Tell your mom you want to take some pictures, then. You’ve got your license, you can drive the car. I’ll meet you where Dad docks his boat.”
    I felt myself smiling long before my lips broke apart in a wide grin. “Okay, then.”
    Steven looked elated. “Really? Are you serious?” And then he laughed. “I’ll bring the coffee.”
    I wrinkled my nose. “Hot cocoa, please.”
    He pulled me to him, pressed his lips against mine for one salty sweet moment. “I’ll bring whatever you want.”
    “What shall I bring?” I asked, picturing us, blanket spread out on his father’s dock, legs dangling over the edge, feet grazing the water. A thermos of hot cocoa stood between us and napkins filled with . . . I didn’t know what . . .
    But Steven shook his head. “Nothing. I’ll bring it all.”
    “Okay.”
    We started walking again, over to the gazebo and then back to where he’d parked the red ’76 GMC 4-by-4 his father had allowed him to buy with the money he’d saved over the years of working on the boat. “How about tonight?” he asked. “Got plans for tonight?”
    I couldn’t help but giggle. After all the years I’d stared after him, Steven Granger finally knew I was alive. Really alive. And not just in the “kid sister” kind of way. Not as it had always been before when he treated me no differently than any other summer resident on the island.
    Not that I hadn’t worked hard to make sure it would happen too. After winter break on the island—the one where Steven hardly said hello to me—I joined one of the new women’s workout clubs near home, lost some excess girl-to-woman pounds, and firmed up my stomach muscles. A month before we were scheduled to come to Cedar Key for the summer, I’d talked Mom into a shopping spree at Dillard’s, which included the bathing suit and a stop at the Clinique counter where I was taught—at last—how to properly wear makeup. The salesgirl admitted it wouldn’t take much to accent my positives, telling me I was a natural beauty. Still, I’d come away with eyes shadowed in smoky shades and lips pouting with shimmery lip gloss.
    As usual upon arrival at our summer house, my sisters and I bounded up the stairs to get everything unpacked so we could get to the water as quickly as possible. And, as usual, I was the first to meet up with Dad by the shoreline. “Good gracious alive. Who is this young woman standing in front of me?” he asked, sizing me up and down.
    “Dad . . .”
    He stood from his chair, rubbed his chin in mock admiration and study, and said, “Now, I do believe my daughter, my little girl,” he said winking, “who rode all the way from Orlando with us ran up those stairs a few minutes ago. But I do not remember this young woman riding with us in the car.”
    “Dad!”
    His face grew stern then. “Seriously. What’s with all this? Do you need all this makeup and . . . do those shoes actually match your swimsuit?”
    I turned. If he were able to read my face—and I knew he could—he’d know that seeing Steven again was behind the transformation, and he’d have me in a gunnysack before I had a chance to protest. “I’ll meet you at the car,