Until We Meet Again Read Online Free PDF Page A

believe I know your parents.”
“Oh, of course not. They only invited you into their home
for a party, which is apparently in your honor. No, no reason
to bother knowing who they are.”
He scratches the back of his neck. “I didn’t mean—”
“Whatever.”
“Are your parents related to my Uncle Ned somehow?”
“Uncle Ned?”
Again, he looks surprised that I don’t know the who’s who of
Crest Harbor. “Ned Foster.”
“I suppose he’s another big-name, fancy person in this area
who I need to know and worship? I’m not that girl, okay? I
couldn’t care less about Ned Foster.”
Lawrence looks at me like I’m crazy. Shame ripples across my
face. This is what I get for letting my imagination run away
with me. For thinking this guy was somehow different. I start
to march up the beach.
“I’d better get back.”
“Wait.” He runs up after me. “I didn’t mean to offend you.
I’m just…very confused.”
“Well, I’m not. I had you pegged the minute I saw you.”
Before he has a chance to reply, I run the rest of the way up
the sand and through the bushes. Once I’m on the lawn again,
I slow down. But there are no footsteps rustling behind me.
I come to a full stop, hating my weakness, and glance back
toward the beach.
But Lawrence isn’t following me.
Chapter 3

Lawrence
he runs off, back to the party. Angry? Embarrassed? I
S
wish I could understand what just happened. I rush
after her through the brush, but she’s somehow managed to
dissolve into the crowd on the lawn.
“There you are, Lon!”
    Charles claps a hand on my back. His breath reeks of the
cheap hooch Uncle Ned had brought in from New York.
“There’s the birthday boy,” he slurs.
“Charles, did you see a girl come in from the beach?”
“You mean Fay?”
My words halt. It wouldn’t sound great that I’ve been out
on the beach alone with another girl. I cast my eyes around
the manic crowd. The jazz band jangles and crashes like some
crazy, delirious music box. Everywhere arms raise, glasses
glinting with frothy drinks in hand. A sea of bobbed hair,
dark and platinum alike, bounces and dances as if on its
own accord.
But I don’t see the strange girl from the beach anywhere.
Aware of Charles watching me, I nod vaguely. “Sure. Where
is Fay?”
“She’s over by the band. She was looking for you earlier. I
tried to get her to dance with me, but she wouldn’t have it. She
only has eyes for you, lover boy.”
I swat him away, grinning as I walk past, but the smile fades
the moment he’s out of view. A woman with a glittering headband and feather boa crashes into me, giggling, before she runs
off to join her friend. To the left, several swells are laughing it
up and slapping their knees. I want to go back to the beach. To
the soft, cool sand. The breezy quiet of the surf.
At the top of the patio, I scan once more for the girl. For
Cassandra. She should stand out pretty well. Her unique dress,
her hair, all long and golden brown.
“Looking for someone?”
Fay Cartwright’s voice curls up like a purring cat on my
shoulder. I turn and she’s standing beside me with that half
smile that suggests a dozen secrets. The dark lining around her
lashes brings out the hazel of her eyes in a sultry, sleepy way.
She always looks like she knows something I don’t want her
to know. For a moment, a flicker of fear lights in me that she
somehow spotted me on the beach talking with Cassandra.
She moves a little closer and her arm grazes mine. I can smell
the perfume she’s dabbed on her slender neck. Her raven hair
falls in a sharp angle against her cheek. The Cartwright family
is hardly a fixture in North Shore society—I’ve never even seen
her folks at any of these parties—but Fay’s beauty is enough for
most to overlook her new money.
“Big crowd tonight,” she murmurs.
“Ned shouldn’t have.”
“Sure he should. It’s not every day a boy turns eighteen.”
“Maybe so. But I would have been