“Really?” She squeals. “That would be so great. Maybe some berries? Or something refreshing? But honestly, I’m not picky.”
She leans over and kisses me on the cheek before flopping back on her towel, arms outstretched like a sun-soaked goddess.
It’salmostthe fantasy.
Except in the fantasy, she confesses she’s been secretly in love with me for years and wants to elope immediately.
Still, I’ll take it. For now.
“Do some recon while you’re up there,” she adds. “See if forgiveness is in the air.”
“Copy that.” I nod and slide my sunglasses on my nose to hide my eyes as they wander over the droplets of water dotting her skin.She is perfection in every humanly way possible.
Blake clears his throat.
I turn and find him smiling knowingly behind his shades.
Shit.Right. I’m probably giving myself away in more ways than one. I adjust my shorts and my gaze and my soul accordingly.
“You want anything while I’m up there, man?”
He shrugs with a laugh. “I wouldn’t mind if you could talk Lexi into coming down here for a little while.”
I laugh from a deep, dark place of understanding. “You got it.”
We’re just two saps on a dock, in love with girls way out of our league, yearning, pining, and trying to look casual while drowning inside.
Saturday, July 5th
Julia
The fireworks went off without a single call to the fire department, which, by lake house standards, is basically a national achievement.
No wayward bottle rockets. No flaming s’mores flying through the air. No Gunnar launching Roman candles from the grill.
Even more shocking? My dad and Thatchlaughed together.
Well, it was more my dad laughing at Thatch right after he slipped on the dock, tripped over a string of unlit fireworks, and cannonballed into the lake fully clothedwhileholding a heaping plate of ribs that he was in the process of eating, but it’s better than no laughter at all.
When Thatch popped back up like a deranged seal, with barbecue sauce still smeared across his mouth, my dad lost it. I’m talking full-on, clutching-his-stomach, laughing his ass off. Kline Brooks, the man who has barely spoken a full sentence to Thatch since the Crocodile Birthday Incident, doubled over laughing so hard I thought he was choking.
Ace and I made eye contact across the dock, both of us hopeful that it was a sign the feud was coming to an end.
“They’re either making up,” Ace had whispered, “or your dad is plotting my dad’s murder.”
Now, it’s really late, and the lake house is quiet. Everyone’s asleep. The moonlight spills through the window of Scottie, Evie, Willow’s, and my room like silver mist. Scottie’s snoringsoftly across the room, Evie’s tangled in her blankets, dead to the world, Willow’s passed out with socks all over her head in an attempt to master heatless curls, but despite shutting off my phone and rolling over to fall asleep an hour ago, I’m still wide awake.
Maybe it’s the leftover energy from the day. Maybe it’s the fact that I keep overanalyzing every text from Drew and wondering why I feel a weird combination of excitement and indifference. Maybe I’m traumatized from watching a shirtless, mullet-sporting Gunnar eat fifteen hot dogs in two minutes on a dare from Thatch.
No matter the reason, no counting of sheep or lack of blue light has been enough to lull me into submission.
The stillness is interrupted by the door creaking open, soft and slow.
Ace walks on quiet feet through streaming moonlight after shutting the door behind himself, lifts the thin white comforter off my bed, and climbs in beside me, staring up at the ceiling. I roll onto my side to face him, and he does the same, his big mouth curving up into his signature grin.
“I have something big. Huge. A secret. And I think I need to share it with you,” he whispers into the quiet of Aunt Paula and Uncle Brad’s big, old house. A gentle hum of the air conditioning working against the heat and humidity of July at night is the only sound I hear other than Ace’s excited breathing.
For the first time tonight, I’m kind of glad I didn’t fall into a sound slumber. If he’d come in and found me passed out, he might not have stayed to share his news.
