Page 85
During the days, he worked and watched Tea from a distance. After he fixed his sail, she went out on his boat three more times, returning with windswept hair and glowing skin. It took everything in him not to drag her to his cabin and kiss her pink cheeks. Undress her from that striped one-piece and keep her in his bed the rest of the day.
They kept things quiet at first, wanting to keep whatever was happening between the two of them. Rhonda didn’t say a word, but that never stopped her from winking every time she saw him.
Tea was cautious about how often she came to the cabin, especially with her grandparents close by. At night, she would wait until Kelly and Wayne went to bed before sneaking over to his place then creeping back even later.
“This is a little ridiculous,” he admitted one night as Tea got dressed to go back to Cabin B. “I feel like a teenager. Let’s tell them.”
She shrugged on her shirt. “If I tell my grandparents, they’re going to come at me with twenty million questions.”
“Is that so bad?”
She paused. “Kind of? How are we supposed to answer their questions if we’re still figuring things out ourselves?”
He sat up and placed his feet on the floor beside his bed, then pulled Tea close. She stepped into the space between his legs and ruffled his hair. He had gotten the sense that Tea was not ready to talk about what would happen after the summer. He’d tried bringing it up once or twice, asking her what kind of job she wanted after all of this, or where she would want to live in New York. Archer wanted to hear her talk about her hopes and dreams, and maybe see if there was a way he could fit into all of it. Go with her. But she always changed the subject.
He ran his hands up the backs of her thighs. “What if we said that?”
“Doesn’t that seem kind of vague?”
He titled his head. “We’re still living through a pandemic, you know. I think there are a lot of other people out there who are also trying to figure things out.”
She played with his hair. He closed his eyes, reveling in the feel of her hands, the way her touch made his shoulders relax.
“Doesn’t that scare you?” she asked.
Yes. He was scared. At Wild Pines, everything was safe and easy. But outside of his cabin, where it felt like the world was falling apart? The two of them would have to face that reality eventually. It felt like he and Tea were on the edge of the dock, waiting to take the leap.
Yet after years of anger and longing, wishing that things had gone differently with the girl who stole his heart, he didn’t want to spend his time with her being scared. He wanted to make the absolute most of it.
“What scares me is not getting the chance to wake up next to you in the morning,” he admitted. “I don’t want to hide this anymore, Tea. Who cares what everyone thinks.”
She scanned his face, allowing the silence to linger between them. Then she crawled into his lap and kissed him. “Okay,” she whispered. “Let’s tell them.”
He moved his hands up her legs, then slipped them inside her shorts.
Chapter 23
Tea
There are four types of loon calls you may hear that communicate different things between pairs. The wail, used for long-distance communication between mates, particularly under stress. The yodel, typically used by the male when he feels threatened by an intruder. The hoot, a soft call that signals communication between the family at short distances. And the tremolo, also known as the “crazy laugh” that is used when threats are perceived. But there is also a fifth and lesser-known call—a soft cooing between two mates when they are close to one another at their nest.
The lake was quiet the next morning as Tea blinked her eyes open. She wasn’t used to waking up to the quiet. Usually by the time she woke up, people were out on the beach, the teenage cohort playing volleyball or making some kind of ruckus, and Pop was slamming cabinet doors downstairs while Nan pleaded with him to keep it down. But this moment was still. Serene.
She reached for her phone and discovered it was six in the morning. Two notifications waited for her. One was a missed call from Mom, likely on a break during her shift. They kept missing each other the past few weeks. She hadn’t had the moment to tell her about Archer, yet each time they missed a call, she couldn’t help feeling relieved. She liked how safe things felt with Archer at the moment. Inviting the rest of the world into it meant actually facing what came next, and she didn’t feel ready to face it.
Even though her second notification forced her to.
It was an email from Bank of America about her internship.
To: Theresa Richards
From: Bank of America Recruitment Team
Dear Theresa Richards,
