“And you didn’t, I’m guessing.”
“Nope. I was determined, even then.”
“My brother was like that. Very by the book. The year after Dad died, Percy’s parents bought the cottage next door to us. Sam and Percy became instant best friends. She talked nonstop and somehow pulled him out of his shell, helped him have fun again. They took care of each other.”
I study him. “Who took care of you?”
He looks at me from the corner of his eye. “Our mom did her best, which was pretty damn good. And the chef at the Tavern, Julien, was always keeping an eye out. But I still managed to do a bunch of boneheaded stuff.”
“Like what?”
“Partying.” He pauses, and then adds, “Girls.”
I think of what the women in the salon said last week. I think of what I heard Sam say, and what it implied.
You know how he is.
“I didn’t have my first kiss until I was nineteen,” I tell Charlie.
“I hope it was worth the wait.” The look on his face is hysterical.
I laugh. “It was kind of a letdown. It was just a random guy during frosh week. But to be fair, my expectations were extremely high at that point.”
His thigh bumps against mine. “I would have kissed you.”
It knocks the air out of me. “What?”
“Back then,” Charlie says, eyes glued to me. “When you were here that summer. I definitely would have kissed you.”
“And what makes you think I would have wanted to kissyou?” I press my thigh into his leg.
His smile is treacherous. “Everyone wanted to kiss me.”
I hit him on his concrete block of a shoulder, and he laughs. I love seeing him like this. Unburdened.
“We should do it together,” I find myself saying.
He looks taken aback. “Kiss?”
“The list.” I laugh. “You should have a seventeen-year-old summer with me.”
Charlie’s eyes brighten. “Yeah?”
He reads my list over again, lips moving silently. Then he digs his phone out of his pocket and snaps a photo.
“No problem,” he announces.
“No problem?”
“Nope,” he says. “You’ve already done a bunch of it. You jumped off the rock, threw yourself a birthday party.” He arches an eyebrow. “Andthatis a very skimpy bathing suit. We can do this.”
“We?” I say, smiling.
His eyes spark. They’re aurora borealis green.
“You and me, Alice Everly.”
22
