The Summer We Fell (The Summer, #1)(63)

I don’t want them to have noticed—those things are all mine.

“I’m so fucking sick of pizza,” says one of the guys, which is when I realize I was staring at Luke again. I’ve got to stop.

“Juliet can cook,” Danny offers. “You got some experience cooking for a crowd all summer, right?”

Before I can reply, before I can reluctantly agree to do the same shit I do every night, Luke slams his beer bottle down.

“She’s not here as the help, right, Dan?” he asks. “If she’s the housekeeper, our bathroom could use a good scrub, but you’d better offer her a salary first.”

Danny laughs, good-natured as ever. “Of course she’s not the housekeeper, but she’s like my mom.

She loves to take care of people.” He turns to me. “You don’t mind, right? It’s not like you’ll be surfing all day.”

There’s no way to gracefully tell him, “No” in front of everyone. There’s no way to say, “I thought this was my vacation, too, and as it happens, I fucking hate to cook.” But Luke, in his own way, was standing up for me. I’ve hung him out to dry before, with Aaron Tomlinson and Donna. I’m not doing it again.

“Are you going to help?” I ask.

Danny’s eyes widen. He glances at me, waiting to see if I’m joking. “Uh, sure? I guess? I mean, I’ll be surfing all day and you might not have much to do, but…”

“I’ll swim.”

He laughs. “Babe, the water is cold as hell. Believe me, you don’t want to swim.”

My resentment grows. Why am I even here, then? Why am I sleeping on the fucking floor and not drinking and not having sex and not going in the water? Is it all so he can show them all what a great little lady he’s wrangled for himself? She cooks! She cleans! She spends eight hours on a bus just because I ask her to!

“Super,” I say between my teeth. “Then you surf, and when you’re done and you want to cook, you let me know. Otherwise, we’re ordering pizza.”

Luke’s mouth twitches. A smile he couldn’t quite hide. It feels like a pat on the head.

“Where’s your drink, Juliet?” Ryan calls and I glance at him.

“You’re right. My drink is missing, Ryan. I’d better rectify that.”

I go into the kitchen and make myself a rum and Coke, but Caleb sees me wincing and pours me a margarita from the pitcher he just blended up. I take a walk on the beach with the girls who came here with Beck and Caleb, and slowly, I relax. I was worried I’d feel like a loser, as the one person here who isn’t in college, but most of the conversation is about sex, the guys’ drunken antics, and how little interest either of them have in surfing…I can understand most of that.

I almost see how I could even belong somewhere, in a house that wasn’t the Allens’.

By the time we get back, most of the guys, including Luke, have gone out to a bar. Danny waves from the table where he’s playing cards with Grady…who’s saying something about sin. Naturally.

“Why is he even here?” I ask under my breath.

Caleb grins and grabs my drink to refill it. “He’s just worried we might need someone to tell us what the Bible really thinks about homosexuals. You can never be reminded too often.”

I laugh. It’s kind of a revelation to be around people who say the wrong thing, who think the wrong thing and don’t feel bad about it. In the Allens’ home, I’m the outlier, the one who doesn’t share their faith and doesn’t care the way I should. Here, though, I have the potential to be almost…normal.

If only Danny saw it that way.

“Sweetie, you’d better slow down,” he says, walking over as I take a seat with my second margarita.

I slowly lower my glass. “Why?”

“I just don’t want you to do something you regret,” he answers.

I’m sick of being treated like I’m a child in need of guidance, the misguided girl from a bad home who still needs his help. He’s trying to protect me from myself, but maybe I’m not so evil that I need to be protected from myself. Maybe I’m just like everyone else.

As the night wears on, couples slip off to dark corners, or to the beach, and the drunks pass out in chairs or on the floor. I keep drinking, childishly defiant until I’m slurring my words and feeling like I just need a good cry. Only then do I go to the air mattress we’re sleeping on and pass out.

I wake in the middle of the night to find the house is dark and silent and the room is spinning, Danny’s arm draped over me, heavy and suffocating.

I’m still drunk, but my thoughts feel clearer than they ever have before.

Danny has no idea what I need, and he doesn’t care. If I tell him I’d like to surf, he’ll say it’s not a good idea. And if I say I want to dance, or drink, those won’t be good ideas either. It’s as if the mere act of me wanting something for myself is enough to make it a bad idea, and I just need to get away.

I crawl from the room because I’m drunk enough that I suspect if I try to stand, I’m going to trip, which is exactly what happens the minute I enter the living room.

I wait and make sure the crash hasn’t woken anyone before venturing out the side door.

“Juliet,” Luke croons, his voice like hot syrup pouring over my skin, six-plus feet of warm muscle blocking my path. “Where do you think you’re going?”