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The scorching Florida sunshine battered down on my bare shoulders.

If I didn't find some air conditioning soon, I was going to pass out and end up sprawled across the concrete pick-up platform next to the airport parking lot, where eventually some poor airport security officer might stumble upon my unconscious body and have the unfortunate duty of reviving me.

Okay, maybe I was being a little overdramatic.

But still, it was only a few minutes past three o'clock, and I was the only person who had been stupid enough to step out of the cool airport terminal and head to the parking lot, where temperatures had to be in the hundreds—or at least upper nineties.

I squinted down the road, searching for any sign of my aunt, Rachel. But I didn't even know what color car I was looking for, so I just stood there, in the scalding sun, feeling like an idiot. A wet, sticky idiot.

Would I ever stop sweating?

Maybe wearing jeans hadn't been the best idea. I wasn't good at planning ahead; when I boarded the plane in Alaska, I'd dressed like any normal person from Alaksa would. Well, that's not entirely true. No one was normal up in Alaska. My hometown—or, as most people knew it, the fourth coldest town in the United States—was populated, for the most part, by climatologists and university researchers and a handful of disillusioned activists who thought their mere presence could somehow halt the melting of the ice caps and save all the polar bears. So, not exactly normal. 

But I'd dressed like someone from Alaska would.

This meant a big sweater and a coat thick enough to shelter me from even the coldest winter winds. I didn't realize anything was wrong with my choice of outfit until I noticed that I was the only one on the airplane that wasn't wearing shorts. And while I was happy to strip off my sweaters and coat, leaving me in a spaghetti strapped undershirt, I didn't exactly feel like taking off my jeans and parading around in my panties.

Airport security wouldn't have appreciated that.

They'd already given me the evil eye when they heard the wheels on my suitcase screech against the terminal's linoleum flooring. As it turns out, lugging one tiny roller bag back and forth between my mom's house and my dad's apartment for seven years really wore down the metalwork. Go figure.

I'd started to really hate that abomination of a suitcase, what with its stuttering wheels and broken zippers. Not to mention, it was small and black, and had given me absolute hell to find at the baggage claim.

Right then, I decided that I was going to paint it neon green. Maybe with orange stripes. You know, so I could find it when I went back to Alaska. Rachel probably had plenty of paint; she was a freelance artist. My dad, a researcher who cared way too much about being precise and organized, had never liked to accept the fact that his younger sister was an artist. She moved from state to state whenever she felt like a change of scenery. She'd ended up in Florida when she dated an amusement park engineer named PhineasJones. But ever since Phineas left her to find himself—whatever that meant—in a remote Tibetan village of Buddhist monks, Rachel had been single and stuck in Holden.

After staring down at my suitcase for a minute or two, imagining it in different colors and trying to decide whether to go for stripes or polka-dots, I looked up—and I was practically blinded as I caught sight of the car barreling towards me.

It was a neon green Volkswagen Beetle.

My hands flew up to shield my eyes from the reflection of the sunlight off of the car's exterior. The Beetle, once I thought about it, would make a pretty good model for my suitcase renovations. How could you possibly miss something of that color? 

I watched through my fingers as the car drew closer and started to slow down in front of me. The front tire of the car rolled up onto the curb at my feet, and the neon green Volkswagen finally stopped.

A woman leaned through the open driver's window and smiled sheepishly. I only had to take one look at her to know who it was—the tangled brown hair and scattered freckles were so familiar from all the family pictures dad had strung up on the walls of his apartment. 

"I hit the curb, didn't I?" Rachel asked, peering down at the tire on the platform.

"Maybe a little," I said.

"Oh, shit," she hissed, then hurried to correct herself. "I mean—shoot."

"Aunt Rachel, I'm seventeen. I've heard it all."

Rachel looked up from the evidence of her horrible parking job and gave me a once-over. I figured I'd probably changed a lot since she'd last seen me. I was taller now, for sure, and I'd like to think I'd started to look less like a splotchy-faced, braces-clad adolescent and more like a worldly young woman with an expansive knowledge of curse words.

Rachel seemed to think I looked old enough, because she nodded and said, "Well, then, shit."

I laughed and leaned down to pick up my suitcase. But by the time I had managed to pop out the retractable handle, Rachel had jumped out of the driver's seat of the car and wrapped her thin, freckled arms around my neck so tightly I couldn't breathe.

"You're so tall, Waverly!" she exclaimed, "You were barely pushing four feet the last time I saw you. Look at you now!"

Rachel leaned back and beamed at me. We were both on the taller end of the female spectrum. But Rachel was in her thirties, and had learned how to carry herself. I, on the other hand, was seventeen and still a bit awkward. Okay, major understatement. The bruises that dotted up and down my shins could attest to my less-than-stellar coordination.

I would've made a joke about Rachel's height, but I wasn't good at the whole reunited-with-family thing. I didn't know if Rachel was going to be one of those pretend I'm your best friend guardians or not.

So I settled for a smile and nod—my fallback strategy for dealing with store clerks, teachers, and distant relatives.

"Well, come on, honey," Rachel said. She reached past me and grabbed the handle of my tiny black suitcase before I could tell her that my arms were working fine and I could carry it myself. Rachel turned to speak over her shoulder. "I've gotta get you moved in before dinner. I'd like to take you out to my favorite place, if that's okay with you."

I didn't want to eat out, especially if it meant having to be outside in the sweltering heat for even a second. And after being wedged in a tiny airplane seat for over four hours, I really wasn't in the mood to be around more people. Especially since if I heard even one wailing baby, I knew I would explode. But Rachel seemed excited to show me her favorite restaurant, so I decided to just go with it for the night and pray there weren't a lot of babies in Holden. I followed Rachel to her neon green Volkswagen. The air conditioning was on full blast.

It was heaven. Cold, cold heaven.

Rachel pulled away from the platform, the car jolting as we rolled back over the curb, and then started down the road.

Holden was right on the edge of the Atlantic Ocean. I had never seen the Atlantic Ocean before, so I couldn't help but roll down my window, lean out the side of the car, and crane my neck in the hopes of spotting the clear blue water as we drove past a wall of sand dunes that lined the road. The dunes eventually flattened into a gently sloped beach, and I found myself staring out at the blue-green ocean over a field of perfect white sand. I closed my eyes as the cold, salty air battered my face.

"What do you think?" Rachel asked.

"It's gorgeous," I said into the wind.

"You might want to get your head back in here, though," Rachel said, "We're about to hit the downtown traffic, and I'd hate to have to explain to your father how exactly you got decapitated within an hour of being in my care."

I almost laughed, but considering Rachel's earlier display of general lack of regard for curbs, maybe her remark was a little bit less of a joke and more of a serious warning. I took one more deep breath of salty air before I ducked back into the car.

The downtown area of Holden was small and looked like just about every beach town I had ever seen in movies. The shops were all painted different colors, vivid shades of red and orange and sky blue next to lime green, and trimmed with brilliant white around the windows and doors. I spotted an ice cream parlor and a bookstore. There was a long boardwalk along the white sand of the beach, where a few volleyball nets were set up. A pack of jet skis rested on the edge of the water, and out in the crystal blue ocean, there were a few surfers waiting patiently for the next big wave.

"So, do you think you'll stay inside and read all summer?" Rachel quipped.

"Probably," I said with a shrug. "What else am I going to do all day?"

Rachel laughed, thinking it was a joke.

But what else was I going to do? The kids from Holden had all known each other for a long time, since no one ever really moved to or away from Holden. It was an isolated bubble, and I was an obvious intruder. I was decidedly not tan, I didn't own a single pair of shorts, and I'd never set foot in a body of water that wasn't my bathtub.

The ocean was off-limits.

"Here we are!" Rachel announced, tugging me out of my anxieties.

Her house was larger than I'd expected for a single woman surviving on an artist's salary—two floors, wrap-around porch, decently sized front lawn. And here I'd been thinking I'd spend the summer in a beach shack with buckets of paint stacked into makeshift furniture. The house next door was nearly identical to Rachel's except, instead of a gaudy sunset orange, it was painted pale green.

"Do you want me to show you to your room?" Rachel asked as we climbed out of her car. "You can change and then we can go out to dinner."

"I'm good to go now," I said.

Rachel's gaze dropped to my legs. Her nose scrunched.

"What?" I asked worriedly, wondering if one of those giant Florida mosquitoes I had heard legends about had attached itself to my leg. But there was nothing there when I looked down, swatting frantically.

"Are you sure you're okay in jeans?" Rachel asked.

"I don't have any shorts," I admitted.

"You didn't pack any shorts?"

"No. I don't own shorts."

Rachel's jaw dropped.

"Well, I guess you could try to fit into some of mine," she mumbled.

Rachel glanced down at herself skeptically. She was in her thirties, and I think that's about the time when women convince themselves that something must be wrong with their bodies, and that diet pills and skinny tummy tea are their only hope. I rolled my eyes and followed her inside the house, where I was finally met with some quality air conditioning that brought the room down to nice, Alaska-like temperatures.

I followed Rachel through the living room and upstairs.

"This'll be your room," Rachel said as she dragged my suitcase into the room at the end of the hall. It was empty except for a single bed, a small desk, a chest of drawers, and a solitary (and very kitschy) seashell digital clock.

"Is this all mine?" I asked.

"Yeah. Sorry it's so small—"

"It's perfect."

"Here. I've got a few boxes of my old clothes in the closet."

She rummaged, then held up a pair of khaki shorts next to some jean shorts for my approval.

"Which one?" she asked me.

I pointed to the jeans.

"I had some good times in these," Rachel said with a dreamy smile.

I accepted the shorts without asking for the story there. Rachel left me to change, closing the bedroom door behind her.

Rachel's shorts weren't too big—which was good, because accidentally flashing my underwear wouldn't exactly be the best first impression to make on the good people of Holden. Especially if they were all eating dinner. I walked back into the bathroom and stared at myself in the mirror for several seconds before groaning at how horrifically pink I was in comparison to Rachel. I didn't have a single tan line on my body. How could I walk through a town like Holden and not get stares?

It was like I had outsider tattooed on my forehead.

"Waverly? You almost ready?" Rachel's voice called from the living room.

No. I wasn't ready.

But I went down, anyway.

Rachel hooked her arm around mine and dragged me back to her neon vehicle. But before we could make it down the driveway, I heard a door click open. The sound was soft, but it echoed down the empty street. Rachel must not have been paying attention, but I looked up and searched for the source of the sound. My eyes landed on the pale green house next door, where the front door was pushed wide open.

A man who looked to be in his early fifties stepped out onto the front porch wearing khaki shorts and a white polo. He was followed by a woman with platinum blonde hair and five-inch heels. She looked pretty young. I frowned, trying to figure out how they might be related, when the guy in khaki shorts leaned over and kissed her right on the mouth.

Okay, so not his daughter.

The man was about to walk down the front steps of the porch when he spotted Rachel standing at the end of her driveway, beside her neon car.

"Good to see you, Rachel!" he called.

Rachel waved.

"Hey, George! Love your shoes, Chloe. You two going out?"

The blonde beside George grinned and nodded.

"He's taking me out for a surprise dinner!" she chirped, throwing her short, toothpick-thin arms around George's large stomach. I tried not to roll my eyes as I realized that they were one of those couples. You know, where the guy is old enough to be his girlfriend or wife's father, and the girl is probably only in it for the money. But then George and Chloe smiled at each other, and I felt bad about making assumptions. They both looked thrilled to be standing next to each other.

"How cute!" Rachel cooed, placing her hand to her chest.

"Isn't he?" Chloe asked, looking back up at George, who flushed pink. "Where are you headed off to?"

"I'm taking Waverly—oh! How rude of me. This is my niece Waverly! Waverly, this George Hamilton and his wife Chloe," Rachel informed me. "Like I was saying, I picked up Waverly at the airport about an hour ago. Now I'm taking her out to dinner out at Holden Point."

"That's where we were going!" George said.

"Why don't we all eat together?" Chloe suggested.

"Really?" Rachel asked, "We wouldn't want to barge in on your date."

"Oh, you're not barging at all. You know the saying, the more the merrier!" George said, looping his arm over Chloe's shoulder and grinning at us.

"Besides, I want to hear about Waverly's trip," Chloe gushed.

"She just got in from Alaska," Rachel said.

George let out a low whistle and asked me, "How are you taking the change in temperature?"

"I'm managing."

That was a complete lie. I felt like I was about to pass out.

"She's a tough one," Rachel beamed at me.

"You don't say " George nodded, then turned to me. "What grade are you going into next year, Waverly?"

"I'll be a senior."

"Oh, you should meet Blake!" Chloe said.

Blake?

"Where is he tonight?" Rachel asked, "Are the kids having another beach bash?"

"I think so," George said, "but Blake is babysitting."

Chloe was about to open her mouth to add something, but was interrupted by a high-pitched giggle. George and Chloe turned in unison and watched as a toddler dressed in a pink overall waddled out onto the porch after them and made a break for it. The Hamiltons shot each other a look. Chloe caught the toddler before she could climb backwards down the porch steps and scooped her up, adjusting the pink bow in the child's wispy, white-blonde curls.

"Blake!" George hollered.

I glanced over at Rachel to see if she was concerned about the fact that this Blake guy was obviously one of the worst babysitters ever, but Rachel was just laughing as she rummaged through her purse in search of her car keys. When I looked back at the pale green house, there was another person standing on the front porch.

Blake.

As much as it makes me feel like a hormonal teenage girl to admit, he was more attractive than anything that had ever come out of Alaska. Even though I could only see his profile, the square jaw and thick brown hair were enough to get me. Not to mention, his eyes were so bright that I could tell they were blue even from where I stood beside Rachel's car.

"Could you at least try to keep an eye on Isabel?" George hissed at him.

"I already told you, I don't want to watch her," Blake replied casually, folding his arms over his chest and leaning back against the doorframe.

"Hand over your phone," Chloe commanded.

She transferred the toddler, Isabel, into one arm and, with her free hand, reached out for the phone in question. I was surprised by how authoritative Chloe could sound, especially since she was about six inches shorter than Blake was—even in her five-inch heels.

His eyes went wide as he looked down at Chloe's hand. "No way!"

"Blake," she snapped, "phone."

His hand twitched, as if he were about to reach for his phone.

"Now," Chloe's voice went an octave lower, and her dark eyes narrowed.

Blake let out a frustrated groan as he shoved his hand into the pocket of his shorts and pulled out his cell phone. He slapped it into Chloe's hand and rolled his eyes. Chloe smiled triumphantly before she handed off the phone to George. Then she turned back to Blake and held out Isabel. Blake reluctantly grabbed onto the child.

"Blake!" Isabel chirped in a happy baby gurgle, grabbing for his nose.

"You've got to be kidding me," he muttered, tilting his head back so she couldn't reach him. But Isabel was pretty persistent, and so instead she grabbed onto his chin and pulled herself up so she could smack him right on the bridge of his nose.

"Look at that! So sweet!" Rachel cooed.

Blake's eyes snapped over to where we stood.

"Oh, Blake!" Rachel said, as if she had just remembered something. "This is my niece, Waverly. She's visiting for the summer."

Blake looked at me.

His face flushed pink.

I was suddenly very aware of how impossibly stupid I had to look with jean shorts several sizes too big sagging around my waist. Blake's eyes narrowed, his mouth flattening into a tense line. He looked down at the toddler in his arms. Chloe thumped him across the shoulder, then hissed something at him I couldn't quite hear. Blake rolled his eyes and turned back to me, his expression pained.

"Nice to meet you," he forced out between clenched teeth.

I just nodded my head at him, too afraid to say anything. I was always quiet around strangers, especially ones with perfectly symmetrical faces, and I had never been good at making conversation with boys. I always ended up saying something stupid, or laughing too loudly at something that wasn't even funny.

But in my defense, Blake was glaring at me. And he had a pretty intimidating glare. Wouldn't you be afraid of a guy who looks like he wants to pulverize you into dust? And then stick that dust in a blender and turn it on puree mode? 

Yeah, I thought so.

"Alright, Blake. We're heading out to dinner with Rachel and Waverly," George said, turning