The Summer We Fell (The Summer, #1)(18)

Caleb pulls out a guitar and starts to play a really crappy version of “Sweet Home Alabama”.

“Let Juliet play,” Luke says when it ends, his voice ringing with authority. I gawk at him, and his gaze meets mine, unrepentant, issuing a challenge. “I heard her the other night. She’s good.”

I can’t believe he’s ratting me out like this, not just in front of Danny but in front of everyone.

Caleb holds the guitar out and I take it unwillingly, my stomach in knots, but there’s something reassuring about the feel of it, too, as I settle the guitar in my lap. As if it’s shielding me, though it’s really doing the opposite.

“Play the song I heard,” Luke says. “The one about coming home.”

I glare at him. “That’s not ready.”

“It was absolutely fucking ready,” says Luke. “But if you don’t want to play it, just play something else.”

I glance from him to Danny, who gives me a tepid smile and a small nod. I get the feeling he’d rather I didn’t play, and it’s this, more than anything else, that has me settling in and attempting a few chords to get a sense for how the guitar has been tuned. Luke shouldn’t have called me out, but I also shouldn’t feel bad about wanting to do this either.

I start with an acoustic version of “Umbrella ” . I have every intention of stopping when the song concludes, but I just can’t. I know, now, what it is I see on Luke’s face when he surfs. It’s not happiness. I’m better than happy. I’m fucking full.

This is my wave. This is me figuring out where to put my voice next to a chord, finding one sweet spot and then the next. The song ends but I don’t want to stop. I’ve slid down the face of the wave and now I want to enter the barrel. I want to drag my hand along the wall to slow myself and make this last. The transition is uneven, bumpy, and I have a moment of wondering if I should ditch out, but I keep going. I morph into “Wild Horses” by the Stones. It was always a wistful song, but it sounds even more so tonight. I channel every ounce of the longing inside me and even I’m surprised by it—by how much I want from the world, how much I mourn that I won’t be getting it.

The song ends and for a moment I can’t even hear anyone breathing. I wait with my stomach in knots, unsure if I’ve succeeded or if I’ve shown myself and ruined everything.

“Holy shit,” whispers Caleb. “You play like that and you sing like that and you sat there listening to me fuck around on the guitar without saying a word?”

“That was amazing,” says Rain. She’s so genuine I find her slightly less easy to hate.

“Dude, you should be in Hollywood,” says Beck. It’s three more words than I’ve ever heard him say.

Luke just leans back, arms folded across his chest, eyes on me as if he can’t bring himself to look away. And I look back at him, for just a moment too long.

Maybe, just maybe, he was trying to help me.

My heart starts drumming in my chest, my lungs expanding…and I force myself to look away.

Whatever door I just opened needs to be shut again, and locked up tight. Luke was not trying to help me. He wasn’t.

And I wouldn’t be thinking or feeling any of the insane things I am if Danny and I were just…

more. If he wasn’t treating me like a little kid, if we had a relationship half as adult as the ones Luke has with girls he barely knows.

I wait until Danny and I are alone by the fire, after every single one of his friends has wandered off to hook up with someone or chase after a girl at another one of the bonfires.

I reach for his hand. “Danny,” I whisper, staring at the sand at our feet, “I don’t actually want to wait for marriage.”

He looks around us as if even the discussion of this topic is forbidden, though we’re the only ones here. “I thought you agreed with me,” he says. “I thought you wanted it to be special.”

“It can probably be special whether we’re married or not.” In the distance a girl laughs, and I wonder if it’s the girl Luke is with right now. If his hand is sliding from her back to her ass. If she’s letting her body curve against his to remind him she’s female and willing, just in case he forgot.

“I think you’re spending too much time around Luke,” he concludes.

And even though he’s got it all wrong…he’s also right. I’m definitely spending too much time

around Luke.





9





NOW


T hat afternoon, we have our first meeting with the board of Danny’s House.

Donna arranged it at the last minute so we could meet everyone, but of all the things she wants me to be a part of—the interviews, the opening ceremony, the fundraising gala—it’s this stupid meeting I dread most. Even after all these years, I can’t shake those early experiences of the mean old ladies in the diner, sitting there talking about how Danny could do better and it would all come to no good.

The shittiest part is that they were a hundred percent right.

I move toward the room but come to an awkward halt when I see Libby at the table. I’m not sure what kind of reception I’ll get.

She sees me and rises with a shy, tentative smile. She’s as cute as she ever was…and extremely pregnant. “Juliet,” she says, throwing her arms around me. “It’s so good to see you.”