And then I kiss him. I kiss him in the way my heart has wanted to for the last five years of my life. I kiss him for that ten-year-old version of me who loved the way his bucket hat flopped over his eyes. I kiss him for the fourteen-year-old girl who was just trying to figure out what it meant when she missed him for four summers as more than a friend. I kiss him for the girl who didn’t want that first kiss to ever end and the one who lost herfirst love because she was stupid and selfish and couldn’t tell him how she felt. But most of all, I kiss him for the me now. The one who isn’t scared to live in the moment. Because he taught me that. He made me feel like I didn’t have to remember. I don’t even have to run to what’s next. I can just live.
So, we live. Together. In this moment, like it will last a lifetime.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
SUMMER, ONE YEAR AGO
Igrip my hair in a fisted heap. “Go any faster and my parents will find a way to fuse their headlights to our bumper.”
Cozy abandons the steering wheel, drawing a pair of oversized Ray-Bans down the bridge of her nose and wagging her eyebrows at me. “We wouldn’t want that, now would we?”
Her graduation present lurches forward at the same time her fingers wiggle out the sunroof.
Honk.
My phone dings in the palm of my hand, and I swipe to view the message.
I didn’t agree to a Nascar audition! A canary yellow Mini Cooper is a billboard on this road. Don’t make me regret your month-long invitation to Cozy.
I chew on the ends of my worn nails beforeflipping the notifications to silent.
“How are you feeling about the breakup?” I ask, changing the subject.
Cozy shakes her head. “Nope. Prom sucks. Peter sucks. I don’t want to talk about him when we can be talking about your awaiting love interests.”
I groan and tuck my feet against the dash. “Don’t remind me.”
“No, it’s good! You’ve livedthe summer of boy meets girlandthe summer of boy kisses girl,and then it wasthe summer of boy breaks girl’s heart,and finally,the summer of girl dates boy’s best friend. I want to know what this one’s gonna be!”
“How aboutthe summer of girl graduating and living it up with her best friend.”
“Hell yes!” Cozy screams, throwing both hands in the air.
Honk.
Great. My parents are sending Cozy packing the moment this vehicle stops.
One, two, three, I count, calming my jittery heart. When I’ve made it to a hundred, I count the number of times Cozy says the word cute (fifteen) while winding around the lake through Garden City.
Not two minutes in the cabin driveway, my past summers find me. Reed runs for me first, sweeping me into an air-spinning hug. My face plants against the dip of his tank top, and his bronzed skin makes mine look like a fluorescent lightbulb that’s been rolled in a layer of speckled sand.
“You’re really here,” he says. “I don’t have to text you to ask about your day anymore.”
“Or about my art class,” I add as he sets me on my feet.
He raises his arms above his head. “I don’t want to know.”
I giggle. “I told you… high school art is nothing like inTitanic.”
My knees bow at the sight of that damn dimple in his cheek.
“Well, now I know what all the fuss is about,” Cozy interrupts. She scrolls Reed’s body and then leans in to hug him.
“Hi,” Miles says with a grin that could split the sky in half. He’s different. More content than I’ve seen him in a long time, I think. He squeezes me around the shoulders.
“Hi back,” I say.
A hand peels me away from him, and he staggers backward with the tackle of Cozy’s bear hug.
