Truth or Dare (15 page)

They wandered along the pier, watching the boats rock on the water. “This way,” he said, guiding her toward the end of the pier, where the docks housed the most extravagant yachts. She read some of the boats’ names as they walked.
Kissed by the Sun. Serenity Now. White Pearl.
When she was a little girl, she and her dad used to rechristen the boats with gross names like
I Pick My Toenails at Night
and
I Eat My Cereal with Ketchup
. She shook the memory away, refusing to let thoughts of her dad dampen this moment.

Guinness led her out onto one of the docks. Sydney looked up at him curiously. “Are you taking me out to sea, sailor?”

“You’ll see,” Guinness replied. He stopped at the foot of the dock, next to a long white yacht. “Welcome to the
Justice
,” he said. “My dad’s prized—and yet almost never used—yacht.” He flashed her a smile. “Just be careful on board. You know what everyone always says about Echo Bay. There’s a curse on beautiful girls when they’re out on the water.”

“It’s not Fall Festival yet, so I’m pretty sure I’m safe,” Sydney joked back.

She walked gingerly as they climbed on board. She’d never been on a yacht before. “Wow,” she murmured, looking around the deck. It was furnished nicer than any room in her apartment: lined with blue couches and teak tables, a long wooden bar at one end. “Not too shabby.”

“One of my dad’s many toys,” Guinness replied, leaning against the bar. “Bought solely so he could impress his girlfriends.”

“It’s a step up from my dad,” Sydney replied. “He just uses motel rooms.” She remembered the first time she and Guinness had traded stories about their dads, back at Sunrise. It had shocked her that someone as rich and successful and respected as Lanson Reed could be just as much of a scumbag as her dad. But Guinness had said the same thing about her dad: Matthew Morgan, Echo Bay’s resident firefighting hero. “Appearances never are what they seem, are they?” he’d remarked.

“Check this out,” Guinness told her. “My dad got the boat all tricked out.” He walked over to the back of the deck and pulled a cover off a huge hot tub.

“Wow,” Sydney said, pretending to shield her eyes. “I really do not want to picture your dad using that.”

Guinness laughed. “And look at these.” He pointed toward several tiny flashing lights in the wall. “An entire closed-circuit camera system, so the captain can monitor the deck, even when he’s down below in the engine room. Considering we don’t even have a captain, it’s pretty useless.” He smiled mischievously at Sydney. “Unless, of course, you’re in the mood to make some home videos….”

Sydney stuck her tongue out at him, making a funny face. “I’ll stick to behind the camera, thank you very much.”

“Worth a shot.” Putting his hand on her back, Guinness led her downstairs, past a huge bedroom with a fur rug and leopard-print pillows, and into a smaller room down the hall. This room was much plainer, with green bedding and a light wood dresser. There was something about the simplicity of it that Sydney liked, as if chaos weren’t allowed past the door.

Her phone dinged, and she pulled it out to find a new text from her mom.
At the BBQ! U on ur way?

Can’t make it, sorry!
Sydney replied. She refused to feel guilty as she tucked the phone back into her purse. If her mom wanted another go on the emotional seesaw that was her dad, fine. But Sydney didn’t have to come along for the ride.

“It’s nice in here,” Sydney said, looking around. The boat rocked a little under her feet, and she felt herself starting to adjust to the rhythm. “Peaceful.”

“I sleep here sometimes, when I need to escape.” Guinness sat down on the bed, and Sydney dropped down next to him. “Ever since my dad met his new trophy wife extraordinaire, this place has been all mine.”

“Uh, yeah,” she said, nudging him with her knee. “Can we talk about the fact that you have a new stepmom now—and a new
sister
?” She fiddled with the ring on her pointer finger, thinking about the way Tenley had looked at her last night, like she was a piece of garbage on the street. She couldn’t believe Guinness now shared a house with her. “I can’t believe you didn’t tell me Tenley is your stepsister. How is it? Are you surviving her?”

Guinness shrugged. “She’s all right. Lots of little cookie-cutter friends floating in and out. I can’t tell them apart half the time.”

“Invasion of the Tenley clones?” Sydney grimaced. “Sounds like a blast.”

“Oh yeah, it’s a fairy tale,” Guinness said.

“Does that make you the evil stepbrother?”

“What, not Prince Charming?” Guinness pretended to look offended.

“Ha.” Sydney narrowed her eyes at him. “You’d need some serious Fairy Godmother magic for that.”

Guinness laughed. Reaching over, he pulled her onto his lap. “I’ve missed you, Syd,” he murmured into her hair. She caught a whiff of his cologne, earthy and familiar.

“You’ve got quite a way of showing it,” she said quietly. “All those phone calls and texts and e-mails…”

“Come on, Syd, I was busy.” He wrapped his arms around her waist, hugging her close. “With the wedding and the move…”

“Move?” Sydney eyed him suspiciously. “So does that mean you’re here to stay? No more New York?”

Guinness hugged her tighter. “No more New York,” he promised. “I’m done with being someone’s intern.”

Sydney wanted so badly to believe it was true—that he was here for real, that they might finally get the chance they deserved. “Why not Boston?” she asked quietly. With Lanson living in Echo Bay full-time, the Reeds’ Boston penthouse had to be completely free.

Guinness looked right at her, his eyes serious. “You’re not in Boston.” He lay down, bringing her with him. And then they were kissing again. It was different from behind the boathouse, though. Less urgent this time, more natural, her body tucking right into his the way it always had. “I’ve been wanting to do this for so long,” he whispered.

He’d said that the first time they’d kissed, too. She was out of Sunrise by then, and he’d invited her to Boston to shoot photos of the Christmas decorations on Newbury Street. It was a bitter-cold day, snow flaking in their hair and biting at their fingers, and finally they’d given up, ducking into a coffee shop for a respite. It was at their tiny table for two that he’d leaned over and kissed her—so suddenly it took her a second to catch up. They’d kissed for a long time, as red and green lights flickered outside and Christmas shoppers streamed in and out and the smell of coffee rose around them. When he said those words—
I’ve
been wanting to do that for so long, since the first time I saw you
—it was as if something inside of Sydney clicked into place and she realized: her, too.

Just like then, Sydney lost track of time as they made out on the bed, the whole world fading away until it was just Guinness, Guinness, Guinness. She’d never felt that way with anyone else—as if when they were together, everything else blackened, until they were the only specks of color left.

Guinness tugged off her shirt and Sydney let out a soft gasp as his hand trailed down her stomach. Slowly, his hands made their way to her jeans, fiddling with the button. For a second, she thought about letting him. She wanted to. She’d wanted to for a long time. But she knew once she went there, there was no turning back. “I’m starving,” she announced instead, gently pulling away. She sat up, eyeing the Pat-a-Pancake bag Guinness had deposited on the dresser. “Please tell me that’s for us.”

Guinness pulled himself up with a loud groan. For a second, Sydney thought he might be annoyed, but then he shook his head and laughed. “It’s for us,” he said, tapping her on the nose. He grabbed the bag as she put her tank top back on, spreading out the plastic to-go containers on the bed. “The sampler. Your favorite, right?”

Sydney grabbed a container, opening it to reveal a stack of mini S’mores-cakes—which were mini pancakes clapped over a gooey mess of melted chocolate and marshmallows. “My favorite,” she confirmed, popping a S’mores-cake into her mouth. Guinness opened another, this one holding mini PB&J Panc-wiches—sandwiches that used pancakes instead of bread—and soon they were trading containers and sharing bites, eating in comfortable silence.

“So I got these strange notes yesterday,” Sydney said between bites of a mini Grilled Cheese Panc-wich. She’d been waiting for the right
moment to bring the dares up, and she paused now, waiting to see how he would respond.

Guinness looked up. “Notes?”

“Yup, someone snuck one into my duffel bag at work,” she said, watching him carefully. She’d been so sure it was from him. But then he didn’t show up at the pier—and another note did. And suddenly she didn’t know what to think. “Here,” she said. She pulled the second dare out of her pocket and tossed it to him.

“ ‘I dare you to break into the boathouse—and light things up,’ ” Guinness read aloud. He cocked his head curiously. “You don’t know who this is from?”

“Well, at first I thought it was you,” she said, smiling playfully at him.

Guinness held his hands up in a
don’t-blame-me
gesture. “I’m more of a dare taker than a giver. But,” he added mischievously, “I say we do it.” His dark brown eyes glowed as they met hers. “Since when does Sydney Morgan back down from a dare?”

Sydney studied him for a second, trying to read his expression. He was keeping up the I-don’t-know-anything-about-it act pretty well, but the look of excitement on his face made her wonder. “All right,” she said, giving in. Whether he’d sent her the dare or not, she couldn’t resist the idea of spending more time with him. “Let’s do it.”

Guinness glanced at the porthole in the room. Ribbons of sunlight streamed in through it. “We should probably wait until nightfall,” he said thoughtfully, “to make it easier to break in.”

“Of course.” Sydney nodded solemnly. “But how are we possibly going to stay occupied until then?”

Guinness grabbed her wrists, pulling her down on top of him. “I think I’ve got an idea.”

When they finally left the yacht a few hours later, the sun had started to set. Slivers of pink light trickled across the horizon. The boathouse was locked up tight, but it only took Guinness a couple of minutes to break in. “How did you learn to do
that
?” Sydney whispered as they slipped inside.

“A magician never reveals his secrets,” he said slyly, pulling the door shut behind them. Without the light from outside, it was almost pitch black in the boathouse. Sydney shivered a little, wrapping her arms around herself.
Light things up.
An image flashed through her mind: flames eating away at the darkness. Her pulse began to race and she blinked, trying to make the image disappear.

She heard Guinness fumbling around, and then a lightbulb flickered on above. As her eyes adjusted to the light, she looked around. She’d only been in the boathouse a few times before, but always during the day, when there was a nonstop line of people streaming in and out. It was so much calmer in here without all the people, just tools and trinkets and boat pieces jammed into corners and onto shelves.

Across the room, Guinness was eyeing a pile of the white paper lanterns the Yacht Club sent up over the ocean every Fourth of July. “What about these, Syd? Think this is what you’re supposed to
light up
?”

“Looks like it,” she said, feeling her shoulders loosen up in relief. Lanterns; that was all. They gathered them up, bringing them outside. “So how do these work?” she asked.

When Guinness pulled a small matchbox out of his pocket, she took a step back in alarm. “That’s how you light them,” he explained quietly. He reached out to touch her arm. “You okay?”

Sydney nodded, keeping her eyes on the matchbox.
EB Golf & Country
, it read. Suddenly the lanterns didn’t seem so harmless after all. Guinness slid the box open, revealing a thin row of matches.
Instantly, she felt something kick alive inside of her. It had been a long time since she had seen a match up close.

Guinness pulled one out, its red tip glinting in the lamplight. She could do it, right now—she could take one. It would be so easy. She could already feel it in her hand, the heat licking at her fingers as the flame sizzled to life. Without stopping to think, she reached for it. Adrenaline coursed through her, making her feel pure, buzzing, alive.

“Whoa,” Guinness said, snatching the match back. “Not so fast.” Holding it out of her reach, he wrapped his other arm around her waist, pulling her to him. “If you’re going to play with matches, we do it together.” Normally Sydney hated when he talked to her like that, as if her past was any worse than his. But right now, with his breath on her neck and that match dangling tantalizingly above them, she barely even heard him.

Slowly, he brought the match back down and handed it to her, wrapping his hands around hers. “Ready?” he murmured. She nodded. As they struck the match together, fire bursting from its tip, she felt that strong rush, the one she would once have done anything to get.

One by one, they lit the lanterns, his hands wrapped tightly around hers. Soon, they’d lit all of them. As the lanterns heated up, they began to take to the air. Sydney tilted her head, watching them rise into the sky like shooting stars.

“Be honest,” she said to Guinness as they sat down. “Did you send me those notes or not?”

Guinness laughed. “I wish I had. But I’m not that clever, Blue.”

Sydney leaned back on her elbows, watching the light from the lanterns splinter across the water. Maybe the notes really had been from Tenley and Caitlin. Or maybe Guinness still wasn’t telling the truth; he would go that far to reconnect with her, just to cling stubbornly to the mystique of it. Right then, she didn’t really care. She was too happy to be there with him.

For a while they were quiet, watching the lanterns float along. “I wonder if this is what the ghost lights look like,” Guinness said after a while.

Sydney looked over at him in surprise. “You know about the ghost lights?” She’d been trying to capture them for so long that sometimes she forgot that they didn’t belong just to her.

“I don’t think you could spend two days in this town and not know about them. The lights, the curse… Echo Bay’s claim to fame, right?” Guinness knocked his knee into hers. “So do you believe in any of it?”