The Islanders Read Online Free PDF Page B

I have in here is a towel. Bring me some clothes.”
    â€œWhat?” she asked, looking around at the room and not seeing anything that might be clothing.
    â€œIn my closet, on the hook. I think there’s a pair of sweatpants.”
    She found them, a gray pair with Harvard embroidered down the leg. She tapped on his bathroom door. “Here.”
    He opened the door a crack. A hand emerged and disappeared with the pants. Seconds later he came out, holding a wad of toilet paper to his right cheek.
    â€œI just wanted to make sure you were all right,” Zoey said lamely.
    â€œI’m not a Ken doll, if that’s what you wanted to know.”
    â€œYou know what I meant.”
    â€œSure,” he said breezily. “I’m bleeding profusely and I’m embarrassed. On the other hand, I had been feeling kind of sleepy and now I’m wide awake. Jeez, I just saw Psycho on TV last night. You know, butcher knives flashing in the shower? It’s amazing how high you can jump when you get that shot of adrenaline. Coach should have seen me.”
    He pulled the tissue away from his face.
    â€œI think you’ll live,” Zoey said.
    â€œI don’t know . . .”
    She put her arms around his broad bare shoulders, her hands barely meeting in back. “You want me to kiss it and make it better?”
    â€œActually, yes.”
    They ended up on his bed, making out. After a while they ended up lying together, Jake with his back against the wall, Zoey reclining against his chest, enjoying the rise and fall of his breathing, listening to the deep rumble of his laugh as they watched Jimmy Fallon together.
    At last, as she felt sleep closing in, Zoey got up, stretched, and headed for the sliding glass door. He followed her, peeringout at the night over her shoulder.
    â€œThanks for coming over,” he said.
    â€œI just wanted to, you know, make sure you’re okay,” she said.
    He smiled gently. “I am now, Zo. To tell you the truth, I was pretty keyed up before, but then, you always have been able to make me feel great, just by being around.”
    She nodded, touched by his emotional admission, so unusual for Jake. “You know what?” she asked. “You do the same for me.”
    He grinned mischievously. “You could spend the night . . .”
    Zoey shook her head tolerantly and sighed. “Good night, Jake.”
    Zoey woke and lay in bed, listening to the music of her clock radio and warming to the fading tendrils of a dream about Jake. It was eight o’clock, earlier than she had been getting up, but she was trying to get herself back on a school-year schedule. Once school started, she would have to be down at the dock by seven forty.
    As she closed her eyes again, a thought was prickling the back of her mind, demanding to be remembered. Oh, yeah. Lucas.
    She snapped off the radio and climbed out of bed, twistingher Boston Bruins T-shirt around so that the logo once again faced the right way. Her room had two windows, one on the side that gave a view of the house next door and, if she craned her neck, a sliver of the Cabrals’ deck.
    No sign of Lucas. Maybe he wasn’t even home. Maybe.
    She moved to the second deep, dormered window where she had a built-in desk. She leaned across the cluttered desk and drew aside the curtains. The house was perched at the dead end of Camden Street, giving her a view straight down the entire five-block length of the street.
    Gentle morning sunlight lit the brick and wood buildings on the left side of the street, leaving the other side in cool shadow. As usual, there was little traffic, only the occasional bicycle, the infrequent island car rattling to or from the ferry. Two blocks down, where Camden crossed the cobblestones of Exchange Street, the old woman who ran the antique store was sweeping the sidewalk in front of her building.
    Zoey drew her gaze away from the window and stared at the sides of the dormer. The