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chapter nine / sea shell sea shelf
A sleepless night plagued by tosses and turns between the olive silk sheets left Ilyshah Tūrei with yawns heightened to the hills and bags decorated under her eyes shaded by her aviators. Questions spiraled in her fishbowl mind just as the greenstone from the marsh did as it stared into her sunsick soul from the nightstand in demand for answers she couldn't give.
Guilt twisted in the pit of her gut like a dagger as she swiveled on the crimson leather lounger searing against her skin to face Sarah Cameron, clad in her gingham lemon bikini with Topper Thornton clung to her side as they headed towards Masonboro on his wakesetter. Secrets shared clinkers in the dark with Ilyshah most nights, but she didn't know how long she could keep the knowledge of her newly forged friendships with the Pogues away from Sarah.
On such a small island where word travels fast and with three people already in the know, she was on borrowed time until Sarah found out and worst of all—she couldn't lay her hands on a crystal ball to predict her reaction.
She leaned on her elbow to face her second secret keeper Spencer as he tanned underneath the burning North Carolinian sun when he need not to be, bronzed enough from his trip to Italy. In the middle of a chuckle at a joke he cracked about Topper's shit new haircut, she choked on her silence as the HMS Pogue passed them in the opposite direction.
Under their aviators she locked eyes with JJ intimately exposed to the daylight, trailing down his golden sunkissed skin ripped with a toned chest and shoulders enough to make any girl—No, no no. Snap out of it Ilyshah before you're pulled into the depths with no chance to break the salted surface.
Spencer followed her line of sight to the Pogues as they cruised by. His gaze lingered on one person in particular before he turned back to Ilyshah with an eyebrow raise because he knew just who she was staring at however silent communication around Sarah was the new way forward. "Hey, I keep forgetting to ask what color your dress is for midsummers. I want to match with you," he casually said as he reclinced backwards and rested his arm over his eyes.
"What are we now, twins? Why do you want to match with me?"
"Because you're coming with me?"
She screwed up her face in hilarity. "Coming with you as your date?"
"No Lysh, as my chaperone," Spencer quipped dryly to pass off the fact he forgot to ask in the first place, and chortled as she kicked his shin, "seriously though if you say no, ma will just set me up with some other girl and she won't be you," he continued as her lips quirked up in a sunny daze, "so please," he pleaded pathetically.
