The Summer We Fell (The Summer, #1)(5)

“Hey, Maggie!” a guy shouts to the girl exiting the darkened pool house, still buttoning her shorts.

“You sure weren’t in there long. Take me next time.”

She laughs. “I like meals, not snacks.”

Danny has been adamantly “hands off” seeing as I’m underage and my experiences prior to him were mostly unwilling—making the best of a bad situation. But there’s a dazed, stuporous satisfaction on Maggie’s face, the kind I’ve seen in other girls before. I want to know what that’s like. And I want to know what it’s like not to feel sick about it afterward.

I look away and catch Luke watching me, as if he can see through me, as if he knows exactly what I want. And for a moment, there’s a weird energy between us, a heaviness to the air.

“This isn’t really our scene,” Danny says quietly, glancing from Maggie to the guy lighting up a joint to his right. “You want to head out?”

I nod, though the truth is that everything about this is my scene. In a world without the Allens, I’d be an entirely different girl.

Luke throws Danny the keys to the Jeep as we rise. “Don’t wait up.”

The girl in his lap is already sliding her hand into his waistband, and it makes something burn in my stomach. The rest of the world—girls like her and Maggie—get the things they want. They get to drink and dance and…experiment. Why can’t I?

“Goodness is its own reward, ” Pastor Dan often says. But right now, it doesn’t feel all that



rewarding.

We climb into the Jeep, and Danny starts the engine before carefully pulling out. I wonder what Luke will do next. Will he kiss that girl as if she matters, or will he kiss her the way Justin kissed me, mostly to keep her quiet so she can’t refuse?

“You’re quiet,” Danny says.

I turn toward him. “He doesn’t seem like someone you’d be friends with.”

Danny shrugs. “I might not approve of everything he does, but he’s a good guy, and he’s had a hard life. Like, unimaginably hard. He’s been homeless since he was sixteen…I guess his stepfather was beating his mom and they kicked him out when he tried to stop it. Can you imagine…homeless at sixteen?”

I laugh quietly. “Well…yeah. I left home at fifteen.”

“You left by choice,” he corrects, and my teeth grind. I wouldn’t say I had much of a fucking choice, given that I moved out after my stepbrother dislocated my shoulder. Danny is almost willful, at times, in his re-envisioning of my past.

“He doesn’t seem to like me much.”

Danny shakes his head. “He’s just a quiet guy. It’s not about you.”

I want to explain there’s something hard in Luke’s face when he looks at me, something that isn’t there when he looks at everyone else, but I’ll sound crazy if I keep arguing this. I just choose to hope, instead, that he decides to leave once the weekend is through.

WHEN WE WAKE on Saturday to go to the beach, there’s a heavy breeze, and I deeply regret taking the day off, which I only did because I thought it would just be me and Danny. Late May in Northern California is hit or miss anyway. It can be balmy in the shade, or so breezy even the sunlight can’t quite keep you warm. Today will be the latter, and with Luke acting like I poisoned the town well, the small appeal this trip held is completely nullified.

Danny and Luke come downstairs just as we finish pulling breakfast together. Luke’s eyes are barely open, but I still spy that ever-present disdain in them when I look his way.

“Do you have your suit on, hon?” Danny asks me. “We’re taking off the second we’re done eating.”

I can’t. I can’t spend the whole damn day with a guy who hates me for being pathetic and needy and sucking up to the people who’ve taken me in. I can’t.

“It’s pretty cold out,” I hedge. “And the wind is gonna kick the sand everywhere.”

“It’ll warm up,” Danny says. “You’ve got to come. I haven’t seen you in months.”

That’s how Danny gets his way—by being the one person who wants me around. I studiously avoid Luke’s gaze as I agree.

They eat while I scrub the pans, and I’ve just sat down at last when Danny asks his mom if there’s any more juice.

“I’ll get it,” I say, rising again and walking out to the fridge in the garage. When I return, Luke’s eyes meet mine and he raises a brow. As if to say, “I know exactly what you’re doing. ”

I raise mine right back: Fuck you, Luke. There’s nothing wrong with the fact that I do my best to be helpful around here. To pull my weight. Maybe I’m doing it to convince them I’m not a bad person, or maybe I’m doing it to convince myself. Either way, it’s none of his concern.

I walk outside to Luke’s beat-up, ancient Jeep after breakfast, shivering in my hoodie, with a book and towel pressed to my chest. Luke looks at me, eyes beginning at my ankles and climbing up.

“Where’s her board?” he asks.

Danny laughs and wraps an arm around me. “Juliet doesn’t surf.” He tried to teach me once, last summer, and it didn’t go well. “Believe me, it’s safer for everyone if she stays on the beach and looks pretty.”