He remembered.
CHAPTER 10
COLT
The last time I sat in the passenger seat of Summer’s old truck was four years ago. She’d hadChicken Friedplaying on the speakers while she shouted the lyrics. She called the song a classic. Not sure it quite fit the classic requirement, but I couldn’t hear that song and not think of her singing along. The windows had been down because they were busted and the heat was something else entirely. She didn’t care about the heat. She’d been so happy. I remembered resting my hand on her bare thigh without thinking about it. Those summer days were the best times of my life.
I glanced down at her leg now. Joggers. Right. What I wouldn’t give to have my hand sliding over her silky skin. Gently squeezing her toned thigh as I opened her legs.
My body jerked, my cock stirred at the thought of being inside her.What the hell was I doing?I needed to get my head straight. This wasn’t four years ago. She wasn’t mine to look at like that. She’d made it pretty clear on the beach the other night that whatever existed between us was ancient history. I had a business to run and a partner who was already threatening to sue half the town over a pile of dog shit. I did not have thebandwidth to sit in a truck and think about Summer Banks’ legs or other parts of her scrumptious body.
The radio filled the silence between us, some country station that wasn’t exactly clear but good enough. She reached over and cranked the volume without hesitation, like she always did when a song she liked came on. I didn’t recognize it for a beat, and then the lyrics settled in and I almost laughed.
Choosing Texas.
Of all the songs on all the stations in all of southern California. I watched her out of the corner of my eye. She was drumming her fingers on the steering wheel, her elbow propped on the window ledge, the night air moving through her salt-stiff hair. She looked every bit the fantasy that had kept me company on more sleepless nights than I was ever going to admit out loud. There was something about her that was completely effortless. She wasn’t trying to be anything. She just was. I’d met women who had been sculpted and curated and perfect in every sense of the word. Summer was salty—literally. Sun-drenched and gorgeous.
She sang along under her breath, just the chorus, just enough that I could hear it. I realized I was staring at her mouth. Watching her lips form the words. She turned her head and caught me ogling.
I didn’t look away. I’d already been busted. She stared back at me long enough to let me know she’d seen it. Then the corner of her mouth pulled up just slightly and she turned back to the road. No comment. No smug remark. She knew I was thinking about old times just like I knew she’d had a thought or two about our past.
The truck slowed as she took the turn onto our street. Our house came into view first because how could it not. The driveway was lit up like we were expecting a plane to land. Next to it, the Banks house sat quieter. Her house belonged. Ourswas a beautiful eyesore. I was going to talk to the groundskeeper about turning down the lights. I never realized how obnoxious it was until just then.
She pulled into the driveway and cut the engine. The music stopped mid lyric. There was a white SUV already parked in the drive. I noticed the rear bumper as she pulled alongside it. One of those stick-figure family decals. A woman figure and two kid figures, no dad figure in the lineup. The absence of it was its own kind of statement. I thought about what Summer had told me on the water. He doesn’t have anything to do with the kids. I looked at those two little stick figures and felt sad for them.
The truck ticked as the engine cooled.
Neither of us moved immediately. She pulled the keys from the ignition and stared out the window. It was the same kind of loaded quiet I remembered from before. The kind that meant too much was sitting unsaid and neither of us was quite ready to be the one who said it. Saying anything felt wrong. Saying nothing was also wrong.
I should get out of the truck. Walk across the property line and go inside and drink a cold beer and figure out what the hell I was going to do about Judd and the building. I didn’t move.
She was the one that opened the door and got out. Whatever opportunity I had was gone. I got out, went around to the bed of the truck, and pulled both boards out. I leaned hers against the tailgate and picked mine up.
“Thanks for the ride,” I said.
“Sure.”
She stood on her side of the driveway with her board tucked under her arm and her keys dangling from her fingers. The porch light from her house highlighted her face. She looked the same as she did all those years ago. Fresh faced and sun kissed. I stood on my side with my board.
I couldn’t help but look at the gate set into the fence line between our properties, half-hidden by the overgrown jasmine. The gate was unnecessary. I don’t know why either property owner kept it. The gate was part of the property before my father had bought it and expanded the house. Forty years ago, the gate separated two average houses. A sign of change.
I couldn’t help but smile thinking about the many nights I’d crept across the property line. Three summers of waiting until the lights in her father’s bedroom went dark and I’d sneak over or she’d slip through to my side. After that first summer, after she moved out of the beach house, she’d stay in the guest room at my place on the nights it got too late to drive back to the loft she shared with Capri. We’d lie awake talking until sunrise.
“I used to know exactly how many steps it was from our property to your back door,” I said. “Staying in the shadows and making sure I didn’t turn on the security light your dad set up because he was certain raccoons were a problem.”
“I remember those nights,” she said. “Poor raccoons taking the blame for your clumsy ass knocking over the trashcan.”
I laughed. “It was dark.”
“You were drunk.”
“True.”
“Although I was the drunk one that tripped over the path light and broke it.” She grinned. “Dad thought the raccoons were pulling them out of the ground.”
The memories were so good. The best times of my life. It was stupid to stay away. I had deprived myself.
“I’m sorry I never came back,” I said. “I should have. I meant to call. Just to check in. See how you were doing but it felt wrong. It felt…”
