Samir looked at her. “So?”
“So it’s not like you’re trying to solve the climate crisis or something. What do you need that much focus for?”
Samir’s gaze turned stony. “You wouldn’t understand.” He walked around the tiny observation deck, as if to put as much space between them as possible, and pretended to reread the placard about the beacon.
Pinky crossed her arms. “And why not? Because I don’t have any worthwhile goals like you do?”
Samir looked at her over the top of the beacon. “Frankly? Yeah. I see you with all these resources and parents who would support you no matter what you want to do, and all you’re interested in is”—he waved his hand at her—“getting to the top of the lighthouse. Whatever your latest madcap scheme is. Honestly, it’s pretty irresponsible.”
“Ha!” Pinky hadn’t meant to exclaim so loud; it echoed around the deck. “Okay, number one: Only people as old as this lighthouse say things like ‘madcap scheme.’ And number two: You don’t know anything about me! You see my hair and my eyebrow ring and my willingness to think for myself and suddenly you’re an excellent judge of who I am?”
“Are you denying that you’re immature and irresponsible?”
“Yes!” Pinky couldn’t believe he’d even ask her that.
“Okay, fine.” Samir reached a hand over and covered the placard next to him. “How many times have you come to this exact spot?”
Pinky frowned, not sure where this was going. “Um… like, twenty or thirty times?”
“Mm-hmm. So tell me what the flash pattern is for this beacon.”
“What?”
He smiled, a smug, annoying thing that made Pinky want to throw him off the observation deck. “What’s the flash pattern for this beacon? How many seconds on and how many off?”
Pinky tugged at her bun, aggravated, and took a few steps toward him (secretly hoping to catch sight of the placard’s writing between the gaps in Samir’s fingers). “What the hell does that have to do with anything?”
He narrowed his eyes while adjusting his fingers so she couldn’t see anything. Damn. “I’m just trying to prove that, for all your outrage, you’re still completely ignorant about the world around you. You can’t even tell me something as basic as the flash pattern for this beacon you’ve visited dozens of times. Does that seem mature or responsible?”
Pinky took another step forward, calculating her next move but keeping her voice casual. “Okay, first, that is a completely stupid thing to test. And second, you got to study it, so it’s not fair that you’re—ha!” She launched herself at Samir, grabbing his hand with both of hers, trying to pry his fingers off the placard.
They wrestled, but his fingers were clamped on there like they were fused to the metal or something. Dammit. She hadn’t expected him to be so strong. “What is your problem?” he yelled, trying to block her with his body. “Let go of my hand!”
“I will not!” Pinky yelled back, her bun coming loose, her frizzy hair all over Samir’s face and her own. “What’s your problem? Can’t you see you’re being totally unreasonable?”
“Me? You’re the one who just attacked me for no reason!” He grabbed her by the shoulder with his free hand, not pushing but not letting her get any closer to the placard, and she grabbed his upper arms, intending to pull him away.
Except that she found her fingertips flexing on the hard muscle of his biceps under the skin of her palms and fingers. She gazed into his eyes, only a few inches away from her own, realizing his pupils had little flecks of red mixed in with the deep brown. A vague, distant part of her brain registered that they’d stopped struggling with each other and were just… standing there, closer together than was socially acceptable. And still Pinky stood there, touching him and staring at him because she couldn’t think of a single thing to say. Not one single thing.
He looked at her with those eyes, those strange, beautiful, weird, nice eyes. And then he cleared his throat and blinked, and the freaky-ass spell was broken.
Releasing his arms, Pinky took a hurried step away from him, banging her heel against the wall of the observation deck, pain flaring in that spot and embarrassment flaring everywhere else.
“Are you okay?” Samir asked, concerned.
“Fine,” she said, even though her heel was freaking throbbing like a heartbeat. “Totally fine.” She tucked her hair behind her ear and let her eyes slide casually across the placard. “One second on and three seconds off, by the way,” she added, in the most dignified tone she could manage. “That’s the beacon flash pattern. I knew it all along; I just… temporarily forgot.”
And with that, she turned and clomped down the stairs.
Samir
Samir watched her go for a long second, her footsteps clanging, fading the farther she got.
What… the… hell had just happened? One second she’d been quoting Thoreau at him, and the next she’d launched herself at him like some kind of human cannonball, and then… then she was in his arms, gazing into his eyes. And he was gazing right back into hers, if he were being totally honest. Her eyes were like midnight, almost black, but not quite, and it must’ve been the heat or something because he found himself getting really confused and kind of almost enjoying the weight of her on him, the way her hands felt on his arms, small and warm…
He blew out a breath on the empty observation deck and rubbed the back of his neck, looking out at the sea again. A few seagulls circled the lighthouse, their mouths open like they were laughing at him. Obviously, he’d lost his mind because it was way, way too hot for him. He was a Cali boy, not used to this kind of weird East Coast heat.
“Are you building another observation deck up there or what?” Pinky’s voice came floating up to him, crabby and sarcastic.
Narrowing his eyes, Samir scoffed. Yeah, definitely just the heat. He could never ever find someone like Pinky Kumar even vaguely attractive. “So sorry to make you wait, my liege,” he called back down, equally sarcastic, and began the climb down.
Pinky
“Lots of sunscreen,” her dad was saying, one morning a couple of days after the lighthouse trip.
Pinky blinked up at him through the steam emanating from her coffee cup. “Say what?” she mumbled. God, why did people insist on talking to her before ten a.m.?
Samir was, of course, bright-eyed and chowing down on his blueberry pancakes. Which he’d probably helped make. Dolly was out on the deck with her parents, all of them drinking chai together on the rocking chairs, smiling like they were in a commercial for a Realtor.
“We’re going paddleboating today,” her mom said, walking in wearing a linen top, white capris, and pearls. She made a beeline for the coffee maker. Pinky’s caffeine addiction was a genetic gift. “Didn’t Dad tell you?”
“No,” she said, glaring at her dad.
“Actually, he did,” Samir said merrily. “But I think you were mostly asleep.”
Pinky’s dad chuckled. “Story of my life. But what do you think, Samir? You don’t get seasick, do you?”