“I’m sorry. This summer…” He rubs the back of his neck, squints into the sun. “It’s been hard for me.”
“And not because of your troublesome neighbor?”
He gives me a weak smile. “No, not because of that. My dad died when he was my age. In the spring. He didn’t make it to summer.”
I remember how resigned Charlie sounded when he told me he was thirty-five. “Every year we get is precious,” he’d said that day.
I set my hand on his arm. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what else there is to say, but I’m here. And so are you. Healthy. Alive.”
His gaze darkens, and he looks like he’s about to say something.
“Charlie?”
I don’t think he hears me, so I stand beside him, and together, we stare out at the lake.
“I’ve been thinking about him a lot,” he says eventually. “Being back here, in his house. Driving his boat, standing on the raft he built. Sometimes, the wind will ripple across the lake in a certain way, and just for a second, I can hear him calling out to Sam and me, telling us to get our life jackets on.” He peers down at me. “It’s hard to believe that he’s gone—that they’re both gone—and now I’m thirty-five. At my age, my dad had a wife, two kids, a business he was proud of. What would I leave behind?”
“Hey. Don’t talk like that. You’re not going anywhere.”
“I could.” He swallows again. “Any of us could.”
“Is that what the tree house is about?”
“My legacy?” He scratches his eyebrow. “I didn’t think of it like that, but yeah, it’s probably that. So fucking arrogant.”
“Stop. Of course this is a hard year for you. But the tree house is an amazing thing—don’t twist it out of shape.”
“I’m sorry.” He links his fingers behind his neck and looks up at the sky.
I don’t like seeing him like this. “Everything is okay.” I wrap an arm around his middle and squeeze. “We’re here. On this beautiful lake. Together.” I feel him take a deep breath.
“Can I help you take your mind off it?” I ask.
“I think you probably can.”
I tilt my chin and catch the quickest glint of a smile before Charlie scoops me up and chucks me in the water. He jumps in beside me before I even come up for air. It starts as a water fight, splashing and wrestling and laughing, and ends with me kissing Charlie beneath the surface. When we come up for air, he gestures to the ladder. “Up.”
Which is how I find myself making out with the boy across the bay on a raft on Kamaniskeg Lake. Just two people, figuring out their shit, kissing each other like there’s nothing better in this world than just kissing. My tongue is buried deep in his mouth when I hear a loud clanging. I pause, smiling at the sight of Charlie’s swollen lips. “What was that?”
“I think—”
He’s cut off by the samedingof metal hitting metal.
“I think that’s your dinner bell.”
We turn our heads toward the cottage as Nan waves from across the bay.
31
We climb the steps to where Nan waits for us on the deck, guilty grins on our faces. Charlie insisted on coming up to “face the music,” though he was laughing as he said it.
“The pair of you,” Nan says, looking between us. “Necking like teenagers for everyone to see.”
“I’m sorry, Nan,” Charlie says. I bite my lip so I don’t snort at the puppy dog eyes he gives my grandmother. “It’s my fault. I—”
He’s silenced. “Charlie Florek, I will not listen to you apologize for something you are clearly not sorry about.”
He drops his head, and Nan winks at me.
