From the two-time Sydney Taylor Honor author comes another sweet Nantucket-set summer romance, perfect for fans of Rachel Lynn Solomon and K.L. Walther.
Intrigued? Well read on to discover the synopsis and an excerpt from Hannah Reynolds’s Summer Nights and Meteorites, which is out May 21st 2024.
Jordan Edelman’s messy dating days are over. After a few too many broken hearts, and a father who worries a bit too much, she’s sworn off boys—at least for the summer. And since she’ll be tagging along on her father’s research trip to Nantucket, she doesn’t think it’ll be too hard to stick to her resolution.
But hooking up with the cute boy on the ferry doesn’t count, right? At least, not until that cute boy turns out to be Ethan Barbanel. As in, her father’s longtime research assistant Ethan Barbanel, the boy Jordan has hated from afar for years. And to make matters worse, Jordan might actually be falling for him.
As if that didn’t complicate her life enough, Jordan’s new summer job with a local astronomer turns up a centuries-old mystery surrounding Gibson’s Comet—and as she dives into her research, what she learns just might put her growing relationship with Ethan in jeopardy.
One
My therapist told me recently that instead of making lists about things I hated (Ethan Barbanel, Benjamin Franklin,
death, entropy), I should make lists about things I loved, or even liked, or, at the very least, could appreciate in the moment.
And so: I liked the seventy-five-degree June day. I appreciated the cup of Dunkin’ in my hand. I liked all the fishing boats filling the port of Hyannis.
Dad loves boats. He took me to harbor after harbor every time we visited the Cape, explaining the difference between sloops and bowriders, daydreaming out loud about the kind we’d get if we were the kind of people who could afford boats, as opposed to a widowed historian and his seventeen-year-old daughter. And while I liked looking at the small craft, I couldn’t really picture myself sailing down the Charles River. Maybe because most of those people dressed a little differently from my normal all-black outfits and combat boots.
However, people underestimated the greatness of combat boots, which went on my list of things I appreciated (specifically, their arch support). I’d taken the CapeFlyer from Boston to Hyannis, and good shoes were crucial as I hauled my two suitcases from the train station to the harbor. I maneuvered my load down the sidewalk edging Hyannis’s port, passing men loading giant cages onto a weathered fishing vessel next to elegant catamarans.
When I neared shouting distance of the ferry building, I dropped into one of the many Adirondack chairs lining the green. Forty minutes until my ferry left, and it hadn’t arrived yet, either, though people already waited by the dock. I closed my eyes and leaned my head back, trying to let the sunshine and lapping water soothe me. How bad could this summer be? Most people would be thrilled to spend three months on Nantucket.
When I opened my eyes a few minutes later, a boy sat in the chair closest to me, eating pizza out of a box. Broad shoulders, aquiline nose, and an easy confidence in the way he took up space. Too good-looking and exactly my type. I’d dated guys with his same rangy frame and smiling eyes before, and they’d been all flirtation and flattery right up until they dumped me.
Two women walked by dressed in capris and light blouses. They paused in front of the boy. One, wearing a wide-brimmed straw hat and bedazzled sandals, made an exaggerated expression of awe.
“Is that a salad on your pizza?”
I glanced at the pizza. There did, in fact, appear to be a pile of arugula on top.
The boy in the chair, too, contemplated the pizza and the green leaves. “Sure seems to be.”
The women both laughed. “What is that, arugula?” “Yup.”
“I love arugula on pizza,” the second woman said. “Makes me feel so healthy. Where did you get it?”
I tuned out the rest because, honestly, how much could one listen to a conversation about arugula on pizza, attractive boy notwithstanding?
Yet not five minutes after the women walked on—seriously, the chair boy had probably only eaten two bites—another woman paused before him.
“Isn’t that a good-looking pizza!”
I stared at her, astonished. I knew Hyannis was an hour and a half outside the city—a small seaside town on Cape Cod—but did people seriously talk to strangers here? About pizza? Not that pizza wasn’t a worthy topic of conversation, but you couldn’t pay me to talk to a stranger.
Well. Okay. I’d talk to a stranger who looked like Chair Boy.
Still, did all these women seriously consider this boy hot enough to strike up a conversation? Chair Boy was around my age. If not jailbait, close to it.
Maybe people were being friendly and I was ridiculously standoffish.
Beyond Chair Boy, a large, multistory ferry cruised into place. My ferry. Probably my neighbor’s ferry, too. I snuck another glance at him, our eyes briefly meeting before I tore mine away and focused on my phone. God, he really was my type, with an extra hint of confidence and arrogance in the way he lounged. Come to think of it, I usually would strike up a conversation with someone who looked like him. But I wasn’t going to, not today, not anymore. It’d occurred to me recently, given the stream of guys I’d hooked up with who made me feel like shit afterward, that I was the common factor. I selected boys who never wanted anything to do with me long-term. My selection criteria needed to be severely recalibrated.
So I wasn’t going to engage with the kind of boys I usually engaged with anymore. I wasn’t going to date or hook up with anyone this summer. I wasn’t.
I glanced over again and found him glancing at me.
And my mouth parted, and I started to say, You’re basically a walking advertisement for that pizza place, aren’t you? Only the grace of yet another person pausing to greet Chair Boy saved me from myself, this time an older man who apparently actually knew the guy. Not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, I headed for the ferry, checked my luggage, and got in line for the Grey Lady IV.
My shoulders slowly climbed toward my ears as I took in the passengers around me. I’d known the summering-on-Nantucket aesthetic would be different from mine, but I hadn’t expected to feel quite so out of place. Everyone seemed to have received the same memo about their outfits: faded blues and salmon pink, men in Sperrys, and more women with blond hair than allotted by nature. No one else wore mostly black. Which, fine. Most people at school didn’t, either. But I’d never felt uncomfortable dressed in black lace or fishnet tights before; I’d felt stylish. Interesting. Edgy.
It felt different wearing my clothes in a sea of beige and pearls. I’d picked my outfit carefully this morning because I was dressing for Ethan Barbanel, who I hated, who I’d never met.
I’d wanted armor, so I chose an outfit my friends said made me look both hot and badass, and which made me feel untouchable. A black top to highlight my red-and-black tartan skirt (Alice + Olivia, thrifted for twenty dollars at the Garment District). My trusty combat boots, dangly black earrings, and cat-eye eyeliner. A bored crew member scanned my ticket’s QR code and I boarded the ship, winding my way up several staircases until I reached the top outdoor deck. Somehow I’d chosen the slowest line, but plenty of seats were still open. Including one by the rail, where Chair Boy sat, having miraculously arrived before me.
Don’t do it, I told myself. Nope. Don’t. You’re done with hot, bro-y boys. They’re bad news bears.
I did it. I took the seat on the other side of the aisle from him, also facing the water. But I didn’t look at him as the ship pulled out from the dock, Hyannis’s harbor falling away behind us. At least I had that much control.
An announcement came on about rules and regulations. To my right, women in tank tops with Greek letters poured White Claws into thermoses; boys in ACK baseball caps ate slimy-looking ham sandwiches. I noticed my shoulders had drawn up again, high and tight, and forcibly relaxed them. I wasn’t being shipped off to Forks or anything, forced to handle pewter skies and brooding vampires. Plenty of people would give an arm and a leg to visit Nantucket.
Across the aisle, Chair Boy laughed. A loud laugh. A look at me laugh.
I steadfastly did not look at him. I might have chosen my seat
precisely to put myself in this position, but surely I had some willpower left? Surely I could keep myself from sliding down a slippery slope proven, time and again, to leave me feeling bad about myself.
He laughed once more.
I couldn’t help it. I couldn’t. I glanced over inquisitively. Our gazes collided.
He broke into a wide, contagious grin and nodded at a family standing by the rail. “They’re all wearing the same socks. Even the dog.”
Sure enough, the family of five wore navy socks with white anchors. Even the mini Bernedoodle.
“Isn’t the whole point of dogs not to need footwear?”
“I’m not sure the whole point of dogs is not to need footwear,” he mused. “There’s gotta be something about hunting in there.”
“And being our best friend.”
“They do a great job there.” He tilted his head. “You got a dog?”
This could be so easy. He wanted to talk, and I could talk an ear off an elephant.
I’d told myself this summer would be different. This summer, I wasn’t getting involved with anyone. Maybe in the fall, when I started college, I could start a relationship with someone kind and smart and genuinely interested. But right now, I was going to prove I was absolutely emotionally stable, and the easiest way to do so was to avoid romantic entanglements altogether, and to focus on helping my dad.
But. Screw it.
I wasn’t actually on Nantucket yet. The summer hadn’t really begun. I still had this one short, high-speed ferry ride.
And just like that, my entire posture changed as I relaxed and smiled. “I wish. No dog, just dreams of dogs. You?”
“Two brothers, which is almost the same thing.” I laughed. “Do they shed?”
“Come to think of it, yeah. One—David—has green hair right now, so you always know when it’s his fault.” He nodded at me. “He’d like your outfit.”
There was no judgment in his tone, no slight sneer at his brother and me, and it made me like him more, knowing he appreciated his green-haired brother with good fashion sense. “Oh?” I mirrored him, tilting my head as well. “Do you like it?”
His grin widened. “Definitely.” He swept a hand down, indicating his own body. “What do you think of this?”
I tried to contain an appreciative smirk and instead pasted a considering look on my face. I pulled my eyes over him, lingering on his boat shoes, his salmon-pink shorts, his white cable sweater. Everything was the highest quality, but deeply worn, as though he couldn’t be bothered to replace them. He had tanned skin, though the summer had barely started, like he’d spent two weeks lying on a Mediterranean shore. “I’m very impressed by all the fashion risks you’ve taken. Very avant-garde.”
He nodded, faux-serious. “I know. Nantucket red on Nantucket? It might be too radical. I might be thrown overboard before we reach the island.”
“I could tear off a little black tulle from my skirt and we could tie it around your neck. Help you fit in a little more.”
“Thank god.” He grinned at me. “Is this your first time on the island?”
“Yeah. What about you?” I didn’t leave time for him to answer. “Let me guess—you’re summer people.”
“What gave me away?” he asked. “Was it the tattoo on my forehead that says summer people?”
I laughed. “Yes. You should probably get a hat so you can cover
it up.”
He patted his dark hair delicately. “It would crush my curls.” “Vain.”
“I prefer to think ‘reasonably aware of my positive attributes.’ ” “And is the top one curls?”
“Definitely. Followed by height.”
I laughed again. “It’s important to know what matters.”
“It’s fake, actually.” He pointed at his tanned, muscled calves. “These are platform boots designed to look like legs and feet.”
“Nice.” I pointed at my own boots. “I’m wearing the same
thing. I’m actually a faun.”
He looked startled for a moment, and I wondered if I’d been too weird for him, but then he burst into laughter. “Mr. Tumnus in the flesh. So this is what you do outside of Narnia.”
“Ms. Tumnus to you.”
He draped his arm over the back of his chair. The sun made the dark hair on his skin glow. “So, Ms. Tumnus. What brings you to Nantucket?”
“I like to ride the ferry back and forth. I never actually set foot on Nantucket. Or Hyannis. I live on the ferry.”
He nodded. “I see. You’re a ghost. You died on the ferry a hundred years ago and you’ve never left.”
I tsked. “Usually it takes humans longer to figure me out.
What am I doing wrong?”
“It’s because you’re slightly transparent. And floating a few inches off the deck.”
“Ugh, and here I’d thought I had the floating under control.”
The boat picked up speed, the sudden wind fluttering hats and sunglasses. The crowd of people clustered at the rail staggered inside, clutching drinks in one hand and using their others to hold seat tops as they walked. The roar of the high-speed ferry crashing through the water made it too loud to have a conversation across the aisle, but I tried. “So what’s the island like?”
“What?” he yelled back.
“What’s the island’s deal? Anything I should know?” “You mean, whether or not there’s a Hot Topic?”
I stuck my tongue out. “What’s there to do?” “Looking for a tour guide?”
“You should be so lucky.”
His smile grew. “I should.” He gestured at his ear. “It’s kind of loud. You mind if—” He nodded at the seat next to me.
I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from grinning too broadly. “Yeah, sure.”
He grabbed his backpack and crossed the aisle. I scooted over so he could sit, and when he did, his thigh brushed mine. A familiar, intoxicating rush of anticipation filled me. For a moment, we watched the ship’s spray rushing behind the boat in two long, endlessly colliding torrents. They clashed in the middle, arching and sinking into the water like a sandworm burrowing downward forever. Above, an honest-to-god rainbow formed in the spray’s wake, a shimmer of red and yellow and green dancing above the white foam.
The warmth of the boy beside me was more than welcome given the wind off the sea. He was big and solid, and my heartbeat started pounding, a drum inside my chest. An electric shock of desire surged through me as he angled himself in my direction.
“What do you like to do?” he asked.
I let one shoulder rise and fall, my best Gallic shrug. “I’m really good at long walks on the beach.”
“Well, have I got some good news for you . . .”
I grinned at him. He grinned at me. This was the kind of perfect, delightful flirtation I loved: the kind where you could tell you were both into each other, and you knew it would go somewhere, and the only question was how and when.
“Hey,” he said. “I wanna show you something.”
Ah. Now, and with a cliché. “Seriously? Does that line work for you?”
“It’s not a line,” he said, mock-offended. “I really do want to show you something.”
I raised my brows to show him what I thought of that. But since I did, in fact, want to be shown, I simply said, “Okay.”
“Come on.” He stood with an easy grin on his face, and I returned it, my smile so wide it felt like it would break my face, like it shoved my cheeks open and crinkled up my eyes and made my teeth hurt like a sugar rush.
God, I liked him. He was fun and goofy and hot and I loved
liking someone.
At first, a tiny little part of me reminded the rest. And then they break your heart and then you’re sad.
Moot point. Nothing would happen with this guy beyond the ferry.
“Where are we going?” I asked as he pulled me down a back staircase I hadn’t been aware of, open to the air but currently unused—a sterile place of metal and unexpected privacy.
“Right here.” He paused on the stairs, near the bottom. He turned so he stood on the same stair as me, my back to the wall, his body right in front of me.
“Oh?” I couldn’t get the grin off my face. “And what did you want to show me?”
“This,” he said, and I laughed because it was such a line and he grinned and was kissing me.
God was he kissing me.
Normally, I wasn’t into first kisses. I wasn’t into tender anticipation, into does-he-like-me, does-he-want-to? All the self-doubt and stomach flutters and quivering nerves: no thank you. First kisses were usually mediocre and filled with irritating, nervous uncertainty—I would rather squash all of those and move on. Second kisses, and third: that’s where the going got good, where you didn’t have to feel obnoxious feelings but could concentrate on the good stuff.
This skipped straight to the good stuff.
I twined my arms around his neck and pulled him close. Heat ran beneath my skin, a dizzy, heady fog obscuring the rest of the world so I focused on immediate sensation. His hands ran over my back and slid up my neck, and his fingers dug into the base of my skull, tugging on my hair with just enough pressure to be interesting.
Someone clattered, pointedly loud, down the stairs.
I let out an embarrassed giggle and hid my face in his shoulder, delighted to be caught, delighted to have someone to hide my face in. “I can’t believe we’re making out in a stairwell.”
“I can.” He grinned at me. “I mean, I can’t believe my luck in catching your attention, but having done that all I want is more making out in the stairwell.”
“I think we can arrange that.” I pulled his face back to mine. The next thing I knew, people were coming into the stairwell,
lining up to exit the ferry, and we broke apart. I swallowed unsteady giggles. Chair Boy kept his hand on the small of my back as we joined the disembarking passengers. I hadn’t even watched the island approach, which I’d meant to. Instead, my first glimpse of Nantucket came from the top of the ramp connected to the ferry’s doors—a sea of busy streets bounded by shops and restaurants.
The boy stayed beside me as we shuffled down the ramp. “Want to trade numbers?”
Did I want to trade numbers?
Of course I did. Of course I wanted a steady supply of a hot, funny guy to make out with all summer.
Except I wasn’t going to hook up with anyone this summer.
And even if I had been, this boy was wrong for me.
When I was ready to date again, I wanted a different kind of boy. A soft boy, a cinnamon bun of a boy, warm and pliant and loving. A Peeta to smother me in cakes and to hold me when I fell apart. A boy who didn’t make me fall apart. I didn’t need a boy who I thought about for days and days as he never texted me back, who made me act like somebody I wasn’t just to hold his attention.
“I’m sort of in a weird place right now,” I told Chair Boy, honestly as I could. “So while this was super fun—”
“I get it.” He stepped back, tone cooling. We’d reached the
bottom of the ramp, and we moved aside as other passengers flowed off the ferry. “Just thought I’d ask.”
“Sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry. I had a good time.” He tossed me a smile— only a tad hurt pride, mostly genuine. “Have fun on Nantucket.”
And he turned his back and walked away. I almost yelled Come back!
Instead I stared after him for a long while. Maybe he would
have been perfect. Maybe I’d messed up.
But then, I was good at that.
