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“How are your feet?” he asked.
She looked down at her bare feet in the grass, her mind drawing a blank.
He squeezed her shoulder. “Are my creams helping, or…?”
“Oh, right.” She nodded her head, snapping out of it. “Yes, thank you. Nan is also making me take Benadryl around the clock, which makes me a little drowsy, but it’s helping.”
“Good.” He looked down at her leg. “Your bruise doesn’t look as scary as yesterday.”
She looked down at the spot breaking out of her denim cut-offs. The bruise was yellowing, but it still was obvious enough to be utterly embarrassing—a physical reminder that after her second and third attempts out on the water this week, she still couldn’t manage to get up. “Maybe I can’t water ski anymore.”
“You will. We just need to practice.”
She bit her bottom lip and looked out at the lake.
“You okay?”
She turned, and his face was wrinkled with concern.
“Yeah,” she replied. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
“You kind of looked like you saw a ghost when we made our way over here.”
Because I did. The ghost of summers’ past, telling her how much she screwed everything up. With her grandparents. With Riley. With Archer.
“I think I’m tired,” she lied.
“Too tired to be my teammate for the corn hole tournament?”
She narrowed her eyes. “Never.”
He grinned. “Good. Because I haven’t won in eight fucking years, and I’m in the mood to whip some ass.”
There was something nice about having traditions in such an unprecedented time, or at least that’s how Tea felt as she watched the rest of the Wild Pines crew gather at the center of the lawn, placing their trays of potluck items on the table before assembling around the flagpole. Everyone had come dressed in their red, white, and blue best, some in swimsuits, some in summer dresses and shorts. No one wore shoes. Gathering together for the Fourth of July felt like slipping into a worn pair of comfortable jeans. It was familiar, and as she scanned the faces of everyone in the circle, she could see plainly that the others felt the same. There were smiles and lots of laughing as old inside jokes were thrown around. Even if it was a risk, she knew this moment was much needed. People weren’t meant to be kept at a social distance. They needed each other.
She felt a twinge in her heart at the thought. Hadn’t she been keeping herself at a social distance already, even before the pandemic? Except for her mom, she didn’t have anyone else in her life to share her moments with, or even talk to about her father.
At the thought of her father, she turned to face Archer. He stood close beside her, his hands cupped in front of him, the tendons in them clenching and unclenching, as he scanned the crowd. After almost a month of working for him, Tea knew this was his usual response when he was stressed about something but didn’t want to raise his voice.
“Arch.”
He turned to her, his gaze like ice.
“Traditions like these hold us together. We need each other. It’s going to be okay.”
He exhaled, his arms still tense. “Then why do I feel like this is a very bad idea?”
“Do you want to leave?”
He sucked in a breath and looked at the cloudless sky.
“We’re taking every precaution we possibly can.”
“I know,” he murmured. “I simply want to protect everyone. Keep them safe. I don’t want to be the cause of any more spread, or to create any threats for those who are immunocompromised.”
Tea felt in her gut yet again that there was more to Archer’s words then he was letting on. She reached for his arm and squeezed it, watched him track the movement. “You’ve kept everyone safe, and if people didn’t feel that way, they wouldn’t be here today.”
He nodded, his eyes still on her hand on his bicep.
