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line, or that we would be seeing each other again soon, as in this morning .”
    He nodded. “You’ve got me. I didn’t intend to hide it from you. Once we started talking, I was having fun with you, and I didn’t want anything to ruin it.”
    That I understood. I’d felt the same way the countless times I’d thought, This boy is not a real pirate.
    “And I hoped we were heading for something really good. If we’d started dating, which honestly was what I assumed was going to happen after last night, the fact that we’d have to spend so much time standing right next to each other would have been good news.”
    “It’s still good news,” I assured him. “I just don’t want a boyfriend.”
    “I get it,” Will said.
    Ms. Nakamoto issued instructions through her microphone then, commanding all the drums to move our equipment so DeMarcus could place clarinet players in a curlicue where we’d been sitting. As we lugged our stuff five yards downfield and plopped on the forty-five, I pondered whether Will really did “get it,” as he’d said. My reasons for not wanting a boyfriend ran deep. Not even my closest friends completely got what I only half understood about myself.
    “Jesus. It’s. Hot!” Will took off his cap, poured bottled water over his head, slicked his fingers through his hair, and put his cap back on.
    “You’ll get used to it,” I assured him, munching a Pop-Tart.
    “By the time I get used to it, I’ll be gone.”
    This was true for a lot of the old people who thought they wanted to retire here. They came into the antiques shop to buy knickknacks for the cute cottage where they planned to live out their days. They told me it was a lot hotter in Florida than they’d imagined, and they asked if we were in the midst of an unusually hot spell. I told them no. When they reappeared a few weeks later to sell their knickknacks back to me, they admitted they were packing up and heading back to Cleveland. They weren’t as sick of five feet of snow each winter as they’d initially thought.
    But a high school senior couldn’t do what he chose, obviously, so Will’s words sounded bitter. I wondered again whether he was taking my no-boyfriend rule the wrong way: that is, personally.
    I teased him, which was my solution to every problem. “If you want to stay cool, getting rid of the Paul Bunyan beard might help.”
    He rasped one hand across his stubbly cheek. “I can’t find my razor.”
    “Your refrigerator and now your razor?” I poked out my bottom lip in sympathy. “We have razors in Florida, you know. And stores to buy them in. We’re not that weird.”
    “I didn’t want to be late this morning.” He glanced sideways at me. “To beat you in the challenge.”
    “Ohhhhh!” I sang. “That hurt.” It didn’t really, but he’d seemed so straight-laced in the bright light of morning that the jab did surprise me. “By the way, how did you memorize the drum cadence so quickly?” I’d arrived too late to hear him, but he must have played the challenge perfectly to pull ahead of me.
    “As soon as I knew I was moving here, I wrote ahead and asked Ms. Nakamoto to send me the music,” he explained. “I’d already planned to challenge you on the first day. I mean”—he corrected himself when I raised an eyebrow—“I’d planned to challenge the drum captain. I didn’t know it was you. Until last night.”
    Then he leaned over until his breath tickled my ear. By now just about all the boys in the band had pulled off their shirts, and some girls had too if they’d remembered to wear a bikini top or sports bra underneath. But I was very aware of Will’s bare chest in particular, and the way he’d set my skin on fire last night, as he whispered, “You let me beat you, didn’t you?”
    I gazed at him, neither confirming nor denying, and hoped that, behind my sunglasses, my eyes were as unreadable as his. I didn’t like to lie, but I wasn’t willing to admit this either.
    He