“The state of your abdominals says otherwise.” I put my hand on his shoulder. “I think it’s time to quit. You’ve been in the sun all day.”
I lead him inside, past Nan, who’s snoozing on the screened porch sofa despite Charlie’s ruckus. He pauses in the entryway to the living room, laying a hand on the wall to steady himself.
“Charlie?”
He stares at me, wide-eyed.
“It’s just the heat,” I tell him, and he gives me a look that says he doesn’t believe me. He seems genuinely frightened.
“Here, sit.” I take his arm and guide him to the couch, then leave him to get a cool facecloth. His head is in his hands when I return. I sit next to him and dab the cloth on the back of his neck.
“That feels nice.”
Charlie closes his eyes, and I move the cloth to his forehead, then his temple, and his breathing begins to slow.
“This is embarrassing,” he says after a moment, head still dropped.
“This is nothing. You read my bucket list. You’ve got to do a lot worse than mild heatstroke before you reach that level of mortification.”
He turns his cheek toward me. His eyes meet mine, searching and serious. “Tell me why you wrote it?”
I hum. “Nostalgia?”
Charlie slowly sits up, leaning all the way back on the couch, his head resting on the cushion, slanted my way. Waiting.
I chew on my cheek, thinking. “It’s been a rough year. Beinghere made me think about the summer I was seventeen—and how I’d go back and redo it if I had the chance. I know when September rolls around, I’ll have to face everything that’s waiting for me in the city. But I want to leave it behind while I’m here—do all the silly things I’d do if I were seventeen again.”
“And you love a list,” Charlie says, voice gentle.
“Precisely.”
For a moment, I slip into the pools of green in his gaze.
I crinkle my nose. “It’s silly, right?”
He shakes his head. “I think I get it. If I could go back, knowing what I know now, I probably would.”
“Really?”
“Sure. There are things I’d like to do differently. That feeling of being invincible. All of life stretching before you. Not to mention no sixty-hour workweeks.”
“No bills. Or real responsibilities. No exes with fiancées named Astilbe.”
Charlie smiles. “Specific.”
“No compromising my integrity.”
“No serious consequences,” Charlie says.
“Exactly.”
“Can I see that list again?”
My smile falters. “Didn’t you get a good enough look at it?”
He makes a wishy-washy movement with his hand.
“Come on, Alice. I’m not going to laugh at you,” he says, the twinkle returning to his eyes.
