The Summer We Fell (The Summer, #1)(16)

His jaw shifts before he glances at her, stoic as ever. “So, where do you want these shrubs?”

“I think along the back fence. Evenly spaced. And I’m making a list of things we need to buy for the addition, so if anything comes to mind, let me know. You guys can go pick it up later.”

“Blinds,” I say. “But maybe one of us could dig in the backyard while the other one shops? Just to save time?”

By which I mean Luke will dig and I will shop, of course.

“No,” she says. “You need to do it together.”

“Donna—” he starts.

She sets her fork down, staring at her lap. “There’s a reason they disqualified you in Australia, and if you don’t figure out what’s eating you, I’m worried you won’t survive the next competition.”

My chest constricts. I’ve tried very, very hard not to think about what he does for a living. I’ve told myself that he is too big, too smart, too fierce to get hurt. But big and smart and fierce…none of these are a match for the ocean. And he was reckless in Australia—he took risks he shouldn’t have and got in a fight in the line-up. It could have all ended very badly.

The idea of him dying causes a pain so sharp that I’d reach into my chest and rip it out if I could.

She looks at me. “And you let a man you’re dating shove you out of an elevator so hard you hit the floor, and then you let him drag you out by your hair. Something has gone wrong, and whatever it is the two of you need, please find it here and figure it out together so I can go on to the next life certain you’re okay.”

My eyes close. I really wish she hadn’t seen that video, and what she’s hoping for…it’s a lost cause. If I’m dating an asshole, a morning spent planting shrubs isn’t going to fix me, and I can’t imagine why she thinks it would. But if I’ve got to spend three weeks pretending to be a changed

person, so be it.

I head out back once breakfast is cleaned up. Luke’s already digging, the shirt clinging to his broad back and shoulders, his muscles delineated with each strike into the soil. He looks like he was made to do this, but that’s the thing about Luke: he looks like he was made to do every damn thing he attempts.

He glances at me from head to toe before shaking his head.

“You can plant the bulbs.” He nods at the boxes on the corner of the new flagstone patio.

It’s a generous offer. I don’t know why I’m so hell-bent on refusing it. I’ve never planted a tree in my life, and I assume none of the skills I’ve acquired over the past couple of years will be helpful.

I’m good at singing, diverting reporters when they ask about what appears to be an abusive relationship, and flirting with other guys to regain Cash’s wavering attention. These are skills with limited application.

“You realize I work out almost every day,” I say. “I'm just as capable of digging as you.”

He hands me the shovel. “Go ahead then. Show me how fit you are.”

Well played, Juliet. Now you’re doing the digging, and no matter how hard it is, you can’t admit you’re not up to the job.

For the next thirty minutes I slam the shovel into the ground, making only a fraction of the progress he did. My arms are shaking and my hands are blistered, and when his shadow finally looms over me, he takes the shovel without a word. It was like him to be a dick about it when I suggested I could shovel, but this is like him too: letting me off the hook when I probably don’t deserve it. Taking pity on me when he could simply sit back and relish yet another of my failures.

“I had it,” I mutter. We both know I didn't.

“Those foster kids would have grandchildren by the time you were done.”

Stop being kind, Luke. Stop protecting me.

It’s never gotten either of us anywhere.





THEN

JULY 2013

B efore I met Danny, I dreamed of a different kind of life for myself. I hoped that maybe I could end up doing something I really love, that maybe I could fly rather than just land. That Luke liked my song has me hoping for it again. And wondering why I stopped thinking it was possible in the first place.

I’m not sure why I ignore all the negative shit he implied about me and Danny but listen to this. I just do. I hum that unfinished song under my breath when I work at the diner and when I help Donna with dinner. It’s a puzzle I’m missing a piece to, but Luke’s words have made it feel like finding that piece matters.

I hum it all day, every day—searching, searching. Wishing I could just get some time to myself to try to fix it, knowing it won’t happen. Danny’s got two friends from school visiting this week, and it’s only made our days fuller. Every spare moment I’m not helping Donna, I’m being rushed off to some party I don’t want to go to because one of them is meeting a girl.

They reach the house Saturday afternoon after a full day of surfing just as I’m biking in from a double shift at the diner. They’re upstairs while Donna and I get dinner on the table, and they’re upstairs again while Donna and I clean up. It’s a full half hour of scrubbing pans, loading the dishwasher, and sweeping the floor, while upstairs, the four boys laugh like naughty kids cutting class.

I silently fume, sick of…everything. Of fighting for a minute alone, of this weird tension between me and Luke.