“That seems kind of stupid. I’d—” Zara stopped speaking abruptly at the sound of movement just outside the porch. A slow smile curved her full lips.
“They’re here,” she whispered, her eyes shining in the darkness.
“Who’s here?” Tahi hissed when Zara rolled over to the floor on all fours.
“The guys. They went to a club over in Crescent Bay tonight. Eric said they’d stop by afterward.”
“But . . . how did they know you’d be out here on the porch?” Laila asked disbelievingly, watching in amazement as Zara stood and smoothed her long, tumbling hair, all the while peering out the windows into the darkness. Someone scratched a fingernail softly against one of the screens. Excited anxiety shivered down Laila’s spine at the furtive sound.
“Because I told them,” Zara whispered. “I told him we’d all be out here. That’s the reason I asked Baba if we could sleep on the porch tonight, dummies.” Zara leapt gazelle-like over Laila’s reclining form and rushed over to the screen door. Laila made out several tall male shadows in the moonlight. She and Tahi shared a look of openmouthed shock. Zara was by far the most daring of them all, but she’d never been quite this audacious before.
“She’s lost her mind,” Laila whispered.
“I was wondering why she wore makeup and her jewelry to bed,” Tahi muttered, before she too leapt up from her sleeping bag.
“Tahi,” Laila hissed, but apparently Zara’s madness was catching. She watched, frozen, as Tahi slipped out the screen door after Zara, her pale T-shirt gleaming in the moonlight. She heard the very muffled sound of a male voice over the sound of the waves on the distant beach.
Was Asher out there?
Her heartbeat started to hammer in her ears in the strained silence. She wasn’t sure how long she lay there in stunned amazement and mounting excitement, but suddenly, the screen door opened silently. Tahi came to kneel beside her. She whispered near her ear.
“Asher is up on the dune road. He refuses to come down to the beach.”
“Why?”
“Eric said he wanted to drive Rudy’s car after they left the club, and he brought them all here without telling them where they were going. Asher is furious. Rudy says he might calm down if you go up and talk to him.”
“But why is—”
“We’re all going to take a walk down the beach. The moonlight is really bright. You should just run up the dune and talk to Asher.”
“Tahi, we can’t. Ami Reda and Nadine are going to find out we’re gone.”
“Are you kidding? We’ll be even quieter gone than we were while we were talking all night, and they never hear that. You’re not going to leave Asher up there all alone, are you?”
Her cousin stood silently. Her lungs frozen, Laila watched Tahi silently slip out the screen door.
Chapter Eight
A few minutes later, she jogged up the dune, the sand feeling cool beneath her bare feet. Her heart chugged like an out-of-control locomotive in her chest. She wore only her sleeping attire: a pair of thin cotton shorts and a tank top.
She’d never done anything like this before. Sure, she, Zara and Tahi had come up with some pretty elaborate stories in order to sneak off to parties, or on a few memorable occasions, to attend concerts at the Palace in Auburn Hills to see performances by some of Laila’s favorite music idols.
But she’d never snuck out of the house in the middle of the night to meet up with a guy. Laila couldn’t imagine doing it for anyone other than him.
Why hadn’t he come down with the other guys?
She squinted above her and made out the top of the dune against the moonlit sky. The road was just several yards past it.
Asher is up there, somewhere.
Just thinking his name called to mind his gleaming light eyes, the intense expression on his handsome face, his hands coasting across her bare skin, his tall, strong body . . .
A stitch pierced her side, the result of her nervousness and erratic breathing. Tahi had said Asher was furious and didn’t want to come down to the cottage, like the other guys had. But why was he mad, precisely? Did he not want to come with the others because he’d decided he didn’t want to see her, and was irritated that Eric had stopped here?
The thought made her feet falter as she crested the top of the dune. Damn. Why hadn’t she thought of that possibility before she ran like a crazy woman through the night?