Every Summer After(41)
“You’re still the most beautiful woman I’ve ever known,” he says, and it sounds like coarse sandpaper. I blink at him. His words are confusing and wonderful, and I feel a little high and a lot turned on. But I know we shouldn’t be doing this. I shouldn’t want this. He traces my lips with his thumb, and the fingers of his other hand dig more deeply into the flesh at the back of my hip.
“This is a bad idea.” I choke the words out.
His eyes move rapidly across my face, and he sits up beneath me so that I’m on his lap. He rests his forehead on mine and closes his eyes, taking shallow breaths. Is he shaking? I think he’s shaking. I move my hands to his shoulders and rub them up and down his arms.
“Hey, it’s okay. Old habits, right?” I say, trying to lighten the mood, but my heart is screaming at me. “Why don’t we head back and have a swim to cool off,” I say, looking around, seeing now that I hadn’t even made it halfway across the lake.
When I look back to Sam, his jaw is clenched as though he’s trying to decide something, but he only says, “Yeah, okay.”
* * *
SAM HEADS UP to the house to change when we get back from our very short, very quiet boat ride. I had gotten a quick glimpse of my cottage from the water, a flashback of my parents sitting on the deck with cold glasses of wine. Now I sit at the edge of the dock waiting for Sam with my feet in the water, replaying what just happened, lingering on the moment when his fingers slipped under my suit. My hips still tingle where his hands gripped them. I once wanted Sam in every way I could have him—that hasn’t changed. And if he had kept going, I would have, too. I’m ashamed by that truth, but it is the truth. I know myself. My self-control is on ice when I’m around him. I wonder if that would be a good premise for a book, a woman with no self-control. I smile to myself—I haven’t daydreamed about stories in a long time.
I hear Sam’s footsteps behind me, and I look over my shoulder. He’s wearing a pair of coral-colored swim trunks that look amazing against his tanned skin and holding a pair of towels and a water bottle.
“What are you thinking about?” He puts the towels down and sits beside me, his shoulder touching mine, and passes me the bottle.
“Just an idea for a story.”
“You still write like that?”
“No,” I admit. “I don’t really write at all.”
“You should,” he says gently, after a moment. “You were really good. I’m pretty sure I still have an autographed copy of ‘Young Blood’ in the desk drawer of my old bedroom.”
I look at him wide-eyed. “You don’t.”
“Yeah. Actually, I know I do. It holds up.” He must see the question written on my face, because he answers it without me asking. “I’ve been staying in my old room for a year—I went through my things a while back.”
“I can’t believe you still have it. I don’t think I even have a copy anymore,” I say with disbelief.
“Well, you can’t have mine.” He grins. “It’s dedicated to me, if you’ll remember.”
“Of course,” I murmur as my mind drifts into nostalgia. I wish Sue were here. She would have got a kick out of watching thirty-year-old me attempt to swim across the lake without any training.
The question leaves my throat as soon as it enters my head: “Did your mom hate me?” I turn to Sam and watch him puzzle out how to answer. He’s silent for a long moment.
“No, she didn’t hate you, Percy,” he says finally. “She was concerned that we stopped speaking so suddenly. She asked a lot of questions—some of them I had answers for, and others I didn’t. And, I don’t know, I think she was hurt, too.” His blue eyes fix on me. “She loved you. You were family.” I press my lips together, hard, and tilt my face skyward.
This is the moment, I think. This is the moment where I tell him.
But then Sam speaks again. “I don’t, either, by the way.”
“You don’t what?” I ask, looking at him.
“I don’t hate you,” he says simply. I hadn’t known how badly I needed to hear those words until they left his lips. My bottom lip begins to tremble and I bite down on it, concentrating on the sharpness of my teeth. My courage has vanished. I’m as brittle as dry straw.
“Thanks,” I say when I’m certain my voice won’t break. Sam bumps me gently with his shoulder. “Shall we?” He slants his head toward the raft. “Maybe we can get some more freckles on that nose of yours.” I exhale a nervous laugh. He stands up first, then holds out a hand, pulling me up.
“I would apologize in advance, Percy, but I know I won’t be sorry,” he says with a smirk, and before I can ask what the hell he means, he picks me up like a sack of flour, and tosses me into the water.
10
Summer, Fourteen Years Ago
It was easy to persuade Sue to let me work at the Tavern. But my parents needed more convincing. They didn’t understand why I’d want to spend evenings at the restaurant when finances weren’t an issue. I told them that I wanted to earn my own money and, rookie mistake, that I wanted to hang out with Sam. Considering how much time we already spent together, they found this information disturbing and, being a cunning pair of PhDs, took advantage of the drive to Barry’s Bay at the beginning of the summer to stage an intervention.