Free Heat of the Moment by Lauren Barnholdt Page A

thrilled. I think about how I would feel if the roles were reversed and I found out a girl paid for Derrick’s ice cream. Or, even worse, that Derrick paid for a girl’s ice cream.
    â€œOh, relax,” Beckett says as he pushes his way through the throng of people and back out onto the street. “It doesn’t mean anything. It was three dollars.”
    â€œThanks. I haven’t eaten anything all day. Well, besides the package of cookies on the plane.” I take a lick of ice cream, closing my eyes in pleasure as the sweet creaminess hits my taste buds.
    â€œThat doesn’t count.”
    â€œOf course it doesn’t,” I say, satisfied. Derrick and I always fight about that—whether you can say you haven’teaten all day if you’ve technically eaten something. I say you can, as long as you haven’t had a whole meal. Derrick says you can’t, because snacks are still food. Which technically I guess is right, but—
    Wait a minute. Why am I thinking about disagreements Derrick and I have had? And why am I comparing him to Beckett? That unsettled feeling comes back into my stomach.
    â€œAre we almost there?” I ask, suddenly anxious to bring this whole excursion to an end. This is really not how I should be spending my first day of vacation.
    â€œYes.”
    We fall into silence as we walk down the street, licking our ice-cream cones and dodging people on the sidewalk. The streets are busy, filled with families leaving the beach, people heading out for an early dinner, and older couples poking into the souvenir shops. When we’ve passed all the restaurants and bars and gotten to the end of the road, Beckett leads me across one of the main streets and into a tiny parking lot. There’s a small sandy path at the end of it, and I follow Beckett as he starts toward it.
    â€œWhere are we going?” I ask.
    And then I look up from my ice cream. The beach comes into full view in front of me and almost takes my breath away. That’s how beautiful it is. This is not like the kind of beaches they have in the Northeast, like the rocky ones onCape Cod or in Maine. Here, the sand is pure and smooth and white, and it slides over my flip-flops and in between my toes, cool and perfect. The birds that swoop and slide in front of the bright-blue sky are exotic-looking, different from the gulls that populate the beaches back home. The ocean sparkles in the distance, the water a deep aqua, the sun shining as it bounces off the waves.
    â€œWow,” I say. “It’s gorgeous.” I’ve never been much of a beach person, but now, suddenly, I want to stay here. I want to lay out my towel and take a nap with the sun shining down on me. I want to spread out trashy magazines and lather myself with sunscreen and walk along the water so I can taste the salt in the air.
    â€œIt is,” Beckett agrees.
    We both just stand there for a moment, taking in the scene.
    â€œSo is there, like, a restaurant or something on this beach?” I ask as we start walking again. I picture Derrick sitting out on a deck somewhere, eating crab cakes and French fries, his face already starting to get red from the sun. Derrick loves eating outside. Usually I’m not a fan—the wind always blows your napkins around and bugs end up in your food—but for this view, it would be worth it.
    â€œI’m not sure,” Beckett says.
    He’s walking faster now, navigating through the throng of people who have set up their towels on the sand. Whichdoesn’t really make sense. Why would he be heading toward the water? If Derrick is at some restaurant around here, shouldn’t we be walking down the beach, toward where he might be?
    â€œYou’re not sure if there’s a restaurant, or you’re not sure where it is?”
    â€œI’m not sure if there is one. Or where it is.” He turns around and grins at me, and then keeps walking.
    I frown and then pick