Cinderella Steals Home by Carly Syms Page B

all the way.  
    Doan and I stare at it for a few beats, then look at each other before bursting out laughing.  
    "I don't even know why this is funny," he says, and I try to nod in-between heaves of my shoulders. "It really isn't."  
    He's holding onto the railing of the ladder for support with one hand and pressing his fingers into the corner of his eyes with the other to keep the tears from leaking out. I'm just standing on deck, my shoulders shaking, no sound coming out of my mouth.  
    When Doan gets a hold of himself, he looks at me. "Is that really how you laugh?" he asks. "Or were you just faking it?"  
    I try to pull myself together. "No," I say. "Usually when things are super funny to me, I laugh so hard that I don't make any noise. Like that."  
    He stares at me, the teasing glimmer suddenly fading from his eyes, and a strange, unreadable smile forming across his lips. I feel uncomfortable under the intensity of his gaze.  
    "That," he says simply, "might be the strangest thing I have ever heard."  
    There's no malice, no rudeness, in his voice, and I'm surprised, mostly because I agree with him.
    "Yeah, it's pretty weird."  
    "But it's cute. Definitely cute."  
    Doan breaks our eye contact and reaches down into the water to pick up the cooler as my heart slams against my chest at those simple words. Damn him.  
    He passes the box to me a second time and I grip it harder now and manage to get it on board without meeting his eyes. I set it down just off to the side of the ladder and watch as he climbs aboard.  
    "We're just waiting on a few more people and then we can head out," he says. "I'll put this stuff in the fridge below deck. You can come see it if you want."  
    I don't say anything as I follow him down a narrow set of stairs and into a cramped kitchen. There's a single-burner stove, sink and microwave immediately to my left and a wide, tan leather wrap-around couch fills the rest of the small space.  
    "This is the galley," he says. He stops in front of a small mini fridge, the kind you expect to see in college dorm rooms, and kneels down, setting the cooler on the floor next to him. "Have a seat."  
    I wander -- okay, it takes me all of two steps -- over to the couch and sit on the section closest to the fridge. I watch as Doan carefully lifts the lid of the cooler to make sure lake water doesn't come sloshing out, but my eyes widen when I take in the rows and rows of beer cans inside.  
    I guess I'm not really sure what I expected when my 21-year-old brother asked me to hang out with him and his college friends on the Fourth of July, but somehow, drinking beer never crossed my mind.  
    I don't know why I thought Justin, of all people, would pack a cooler full of Diet Coke and Sprite to bring to Doan, of all people, but here we are.  
    When I look up at him, I see Doan staring back at me with an intense expression on his face, almost as if he'd known to watch for my reaction and didn't want to miss it.  
    I blink twice, trying to keep my face blank and relaxed.  
    Beer.  
    It isn't really a big deal at all -- even if I'm 18 years old and have still never taken a sip.  
    Plenty of people drink, and they do it all the time, and they turned out okay. But I still know it doesn't always happen that way. All of my friends back in Pennsylvania do it. I just -- I don't know. I guess I was always afraid that I'd be that person, the one who couldn't handle it, that something bad would happen to me the first time I drank. So I didn't.
    But between my brother and Doan, I have a hard time imagining that I'll be able to avoid it here for long.
    And I know Justin won't let anything terrible happen to me if I try.
    "You good, Holls?"  
    I snap out of my thoughts and look at Doan, trying to paint a carefree smile on my face. "Fine. I'm fine."  
    He raises an eyebrow like he doesn't believe me, but says nothing as he starts placing beer cans inside the small fridge.  
    "So," he says, "I hope you have