“I know. Now I feel like I’ve wasted a lot of time.” Peyton laughs. “College is almost over, and I could have been spending weekends out here.”
“You’re here now,” I say. “And you don’t graduate this year, right?”
“Next year, though, I’m hoping to be drafted this year. My agent says my name is being thrown around, so it’s possible. We’ll see.”
“That’s cool.” Also sucky. I can’t imagine not seeing him almost every day at the café. “But there are a handful of weekends left this year. Still plenty of time to visit.”
“Yep. I’m going to need to invest in my own California kayak.”
“Is that a special kind of kayak?” I look down at the one we’re in to determine what makes it a California kayak.
He chuckles. “No. It just means that I don’t have to transport one from the East Coast to the West Coast.”
“Ah. Yeah, that seems like a pain.”
“It’s far more troublesome and expensive than just buying one and then selling it when I leave the state.”
I don’t even want to think about him leaving the state. Ugh.
I don’t notice the kayak rocking more than it had been until a cool breeze whips against me. I feel like I’m flung backwards, and the kayak shifts on the water. The water ripples in the wind. That’s when I hear the distant roll of thunder in the sky.
I look up, noticing for the first time how dark the sky has gotten. With my face turned up, I feel the first drop of water on my forehead.
Oh no.
Fear climbs in my chest, and I twist around to look at how far we are away from shore. Except, I have no idea where we came from. I can’t see the truck.
Fear turns into panic.
“Easy, Dana. We’re closer to the island than we are to the truck, so we’ll head there and wait out the storm.”
I nod. He doesn’t sound concerned at all. I’m determined to take that as comfort and turn forward again. “Want me to try paddling too?”
He chuckles, despite the storm clouds rolling in rapidly now. “Just sit tight. I’ll have us there in no time.”
CHAPTER 5
PEYTON
I knew it was going to rain. But the darkness of the clouds rolling in quickly is far more than I was expecting. In the distance, the clouds light up with a burst of lightning.
Fuck.
I’m not exactly panicking. We’re not far from the island. But as the wind picks up, the lake becomes more and more churned. Dana isn’t used to being on something that rocks and tips, so anything that makes him nervous gives us an elevated chance of flipping. Even with life vests on, I don’t want us in the water. Not during a lightning storm.
“Are you sure I can’t help?” Dana asks. He looks up at the sky, and I see him flinch as a raindrop hits his forehead. I think I actually saw it splash. Big drop. Not good.
“Go ahead,” I tell him. “Skim the surface with the paddle. You’re not digging a hole. Okay?”
He does okay, but his depth perception of the lake surface needs some work. He ends up splashing me with nearly every other stroke and apologizes constantly.
I’m laughing, even as I’m trying to hurry us along.
I’m not afraid, precisely. We’ll live. No doubt in my mind at all. We’d be further, except Dana was appreciating the view—it’s so peaceful and beautiful—so I’d been letting us drift more than rushing to the island.
I glance at the sky as we ride the lake. Just beyond the island we’re aiming for, I can see a wall of rain as it moves this way. Great. We’re going to get soaked. Though I had a feeling we weren’t going to get out of that eventuality as soon as I realized a storm was coming.
Did I simply ignore the news because I’d been dying to kayak again for ages? How had I missed the fact that we were getting a lightning storm way out here in the middle of nowhere while we’re sitting in the middle of a damn lake on a kayak?
