Luke nods, happy. “Yeah, I’m glad. We need all that summer business because it gets so quiet in the offseason. Mom’s got a feature coming up in a local magazine too, for a house she did in Harwich. It’s a huge achievement for her, like a dream come true.”
“Wow. That’s great.” I try to find a simple way to ask what I want to ask, which is if he’s livinghisdream. “Maybe when things calm down, you’ll be able to spend more time on your art?” I say, thinking back to those well-loved art books I saw in his truck.
“Maybe,” Luke says with a shrug. “But helping my mom and the town is more important right now.”
I look out onto the water. The sky is darkening, the marine layer clouds moving in.
“You okay?” Luke asks, nudging my knee.
I don’t want to push him too hard, but I also don’t want to let it go. I turn back to him. “Yeah,” I say. “I just worry you’re letting your passions be overshadowed.” At the wordpassions, he shifts closer to me.
“I don’t need you to worry about me—you worry about staying healthy.” He brushes my hair back over my shoulder.
It’s a nice thought, but what’s life without worries, particularly over the people who matter?
“I’m going to worry no matter what. It’s my right. As your—girlfriend.” I try the word out slowly, not wanting to freak either of us out.
“All right,” he says, taking the empty fry container out of my hands and putting it to the side. He leans in and cups my cheek, drops his thumb onto my bottom lip. “But say that again.”
“Worry,” I tease, kissing his thumb. He rubs my bottom lip again and sparks shoot through my toes.
“Girlfriend,” he says, coming closer, replacing his thumb with his mouth. He bites on my bottom lip, then pulls away, waiting.
“Girlfriend,” I say, breathless. He leans in and kisses me again, his arms framing my hips. I keep myself upright with one arm against the rocks and slip the other under the back of his shirt, wanting to feel his skin.
I guess we’re done talking for the night.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Sera
July rolls on like a dream. It hasn’t crossed my mind in the last couple years that I could ever bethishappy. My heart holds steady, and Luke and I spend almost every day together. On days we both have off, he sweeps me away to the beach or whatever Cape events are happening, of which there are a lot—the pirate festival, carnivals, farmers markets, small concerts at family-friendly breweries. I help him sell raffle tickets at the road race to raise money for the town library renovations. He made a poster for it that looks so professional it reminds me how much more he could do if he could get out of here. I take his brothers to the skate park when he has to work late and try not to call out “Be careful!” constantly. We eat dinner at his house, Paula looking at us with perpetually wet eyes. I want to tell her everything is going to be okay. I’m going to be fine. But I don’t know that.
We don’t talk about my health much, but Luke is also clearly trying to make every minute of every day feel important. It’sthe smallest moments between us that mean the most to me, though. Like when we discover a patch of wildflowers along one of the nearby nature trails and he tucks one behind my ear. Or when he notices I’m about to finish my five hundredth reread of book three inThe Soul Druid Chronicles, my favorite, and leaves the next one in my room so I don’t have to go looking for it later that night. I begin to wish for just enough time to make more of these small, sweet memories.
Maddy comes with us when she can. We play mini golf in Sandwich with her and Sienna, who’s quiet but super smart. And the four of us go to the Woods Hole Film Festival, where Sienna and Luke get really into an indie science fiction movie for different reasons—he was obsessed with the set designs and she with the score. Abbi tags along too, feeling left out, but ends up in a different theater to watch a documentary. We even go on a couple double dates with her and Cam, no PDA allowed. We spend enough time around her that she sees Luke check in on me and my heart. I think she starts to trust him, just like I have. She also can’t be there every minute, so there’s plenty of time for all the things Luke and I want to do alone, whether it’s arguing over the scientific merit of our universe being one big experiment or learning the new landscapes of each other’s bodies.
We hang out at the Beach at the End of the Universe a lot. Sometimes we look for shells or I watch Luke leap from the rock into the water, careful to only swim out a little to meet him. On days where my energy is low, I rest while Luke fills me in on the gossip around town. His voice settles me, grounds me.
One day we’re caught off guard by a sudden rainstorm, theblue sky disappearing behind a shroud of gray in less than a minute. I’m floating in the shallows when the rain starts falling. Fat, cold drops scatter across the ocean surface. Luke’s up on the rock. He dives off the end and swims to me.
“We should get out. It might lightning,” he says as he brushes his hair out of his eyes.
“No, look.” I point over his shoulder to a bright swath of blue already chasing the clouds away. “It’ll be gone in just a second.” I swim over and put my hands on his shoulders, and though it looks like he wants to argue, his eyes also zero in on me, hot and piercing.
“You are so beautiful.” He kisses me slowly, and I ache for more even with him right here. I wrap my arms tighter around him, and he pulls me to his chest. In our swimsuits there’s no mistaking he wants to do more too, but he’s not rushing, he’s never rushing. He acts like we have all the time in the world. I’m the one who’s frantic, who’s desperate to touch him. His lips travel down my neck. I guide his face to meet mine and we kiss, deeper this time. Above us, the clouds return and the rain comes pouring down. I laugh as Luke grabs my hand and we run out of the water, making our way to the sun tent we set up earlier. I don’t bother toweling off, just slip my wet swimsuit top off, watching Luke as his eyes focus with intense precision on the rise and fall of my chest. He traces his hands over my collarbones, my breasts, my breath hitching, holding until I can’t wait anymore. I pull him down to our towels and push him to his back, meeting his mouth with mine.
Luke’s strong and graceful and slow with me, painfully slow, but he finds the places that make me flush withsatisfaction. I’ve found the places that make him melt into me, and it’s in those moments where he feels most like himself to me. When the whole of him comes into focus, the serious oldest son, baseball star, hometown hero, world’s greatest big brother, but also the soft, nerdy guy who sees the world with an artist’s eye.
“The light, look,” he says. I lie next to him, tucked under his arm. “The sun is fighting with the clouds. It looks, like, thicker, right there above the waves.” And it does. Rays of sunlight rise out behind the heavy gray clouds. Luke pulls me closer, and we watch the rain fade away.
My phone buzzes. Abbi. Checking in. I groan and pretend to throw it in the ocean.
“Guess we should get back,” he says.
“Not yet,” I say, kissing his lips.
*
