Page 178 of Johnny

weddings?

Or did she hear something and what she told me was actually the truth?

Was I meant to marry Charlotte Kane?

My father was with me that day and right after she said this he came up and dragged me away from

her. We spent the rest of the party inside the “men’s tent” where every bored father was watching

football on an outdoor theatre screen while smoking cigars.

It didn’t feel like a punishment back then. I was kinda thrilled to be invited into the tent with all the

men. But looking back on it now, was my father trying to keep me away from Charlotte? Did he know

about this project? Did her father—whom I have never met—want to make some kind of marriage

pact with mine?

Obviously my father came through for me because Charlotte hooked up with Joey and ta-da, I now

have a niece.

And that’s the end of that story, because now she’s dead.

Suddenly a series of clicks and whistles are coming through the speakers.

“Oh, no.” Megan lifts her head up off my shoulder and straightens her back. “No, no, no. This isn’t

happening.” She turns to me. “That is not a dolphin.”

But just as I open my mouth to respond, there’s a great splashing off to the starboard side of the

yacht.

Dolphins. Swimming and turning in the waves near the boat, exciting the plankton so that it lights

their bodies up an electric blue.

“This isn’t happening. No way.” She looks at me and laughs. And it’s such a real laugh, such a

pure, innocent, real laugh, that I laugh too.

I shrug with my hands. “I had nothing to do with that. Logan isn’t out there in the dark with some

secret team of trained dolphins.”

She laughs harder. Then grabs hold of the handrail above our heads and leans forward to get a

better look. “This is amazing.”

“Want to jump in with them?”

She looks at me like I’m crazy. “They’re wild animals.”

“They’re dolphins, Megan.”

“They could eat us.”