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better get going or risk getting stuck in the storm. All I could think about was whether Handel would try to kiss me. Or if the right moment arrived, whether I would try to kiss him.
    “I’ll walk you home,” he said.
    “You don’t have to—”
    “Of course I do.”
    “It’s not like it isn’t safe,” I said with a laugh, one that died in my mouth as the word “safe” strangled me a little, because I wasn’t sure if that was true anymore. Especially not with Patrick McCallen just down the other end of the beach.
    “I picked you up and I’ll drop you back,” Handel insisted, his voice light, a smile on his face that made me forget those dark thoughts, that made me swoon really.
    We made our way up the beach toward the wharf and the parking lot. We reached the sidewalk and I stopped under the light of a streetlamp to slip my feet into my flip-flops. When I looked up again, Handel’s eyes were on my waist. There was a sliver of exposed skin along my hips, between the hem of my top and the start of my jeans. A thin line of sand clung to it. Handel reached over and brushed it away, his fingertips sliding along my navel so quickly it was a whisper.
    Right then, big fat drops of rain plopped one by one on the ground around us.
    “We’d better hurry,” Handel said.
    We made our way down the street toward my house, dodging raindrops in the dark, neither of us with an umbrella. Thoughts of leaning just a little closer to Handel, close enough that our lips would touch, darted in and around me as we walked, a game of hide-and-seek among trees. I wondered if this crossed his mind, too, as the rain picked up, becoming a torrent, and we started to run, the two of us racing until we reached my yard.
    “This way,” I shouted over the din, going around to the porch at the back of my house, grabbing for the tiny metal knob of the screen door and opening it so we could rush inside.
    The two of us were soaked and panting from the run, my long hair wet and tangled, just like his. I started to laugh between big heaving breaths and so did Handel, the earlier, unpleasant part of the evening erased by all that intimate talk on the beach. I switched on a lamp. It was a murky dark green, made from an old jug, and the light from it was weak but enough to see the expression on Handel’s face. His eyes were different, bright and easy. Everything about him was different now, less weary and cautious. He looked younger.
    Then he noticed the picture frame on the table.
    My dad and me, just a year ago. He wore his uniform and was standing next to his police car. I was perched on the hood of it, knees up to my chin, a smile on my face, dark hair falling all around. A camera catching that split second when a girl suddenly becomes someone worth seeing.
    Handel picked it up. Studied it.
    I watched as the weariness in him returned.
    “You were close with your father,” he stated, the memory of my family gripped tight in his strong hand. “You must miss him. You must want the police to catch whoever killed him.”
    My mouth opened. Shut. Handel had startled me. Such boldness. Cut right to the heart of things. Of me. “I, um,” I stuttered. Stopped.
    He put the frame down, a soft
click
against the wood. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have pried.”
    I watched Handel. He wouldn’t look at me anymore. Looked everywhere but. Tension radiated off him, his shoulders, his neck. There was silence, things grown awkward and strange after so much ease. I wanted to fix it. I wanted the connection back. “I don’t know,” I said quickly. “Sometimes I hope they don’t catch anyone.”
    His eyes found me again. Slowly. There was something in them, but it was something I couldn’t quite read.
    “No?”
    I shook my head. The rain pounded harder on the roof of the porch, filling the gaps between words.
    Handel blinked. “It’s late. I should probably go.”
    “Okay,” I said. He was right. It was late. But I didn’t want him to leave. I didn’t want