Page 13 of One Last Summer
“I like a packing list,” I grumbled, anxious at the thought of doing all of this so last-minute. “Is that so bad?”
“Of course not! But isn’t it exciting that you’re already doing something that scares you?” she said, grabbing the letter off the table and waving it in my face. “I’m so proud.”
“Very funny.” I brushed her off and moved to my closet to dig around for my duffel bag.
I hated being unprepared, and I could feel the tension building in my body as I prepared to face the unknown. But I felt something else, too, something that felt faintly like optimism. It hummed along the surface of my skin, a familiar buzz that reminded me of who I’d been that summer: sparkling and hopeful, invigorated by possibility.
Maybe it was time to get her back.
7
“BABE.” NICK LEVELED an exasperated look at Trey, who had gamely offered to drive my car so I could work. “You have the cruise control set at sixty-two in a sixty-five-mile-an-hour zone. Maybe you should kick it up a mile or two so we get there before sunset?”
Nick’s tone was light, but he had a point; it felt like we’d been driving for ages.
Not that I wasn’t grateful; despite not hearing from me for months—or good lord, was it years?—Nick had responded Obvs! within minutes of me texting him to ask if they’d want to drive together up to Pine Lake, followed by a row of hearts from Trey. They’d been able to cancel their rental car, and I’d picked them up at the airport, nervous but excited to see them both again.
Nick’s openheartedness was classic him, as classic as the banter he and Trey had perfected over the years, a singsong soundtrack that wasn’t unpleasant, even as I tapped through my email trying to forward Lydia everything she could possibly need before we got to Pine Lake.
My sleep last night had been restless at best, one of those weird nights where you linger in that delirious purgatory between asleep and awake. I was exhausted but wired, and a dull, thumping panic throbbed behind my eyelids.
I’d spent the better part of the drive so far chewing the side of my mouth raw as I scrolled through endless email debates about creative direction and brand vision for Alewife. Amaya had shot down every idea we’d had so far, and now I was on my way to the land of limited internet access with less than two weeks to go before we had to present our pitch. Correction: only one week for me to get it right after this stupid micro-sabbatical. A wave of nervous nausea hit high tide in my stomach.
“Shhh, just do your crossword and let me drive.” Trey swatted at his boyfriend, his intricate tattoos flexing on his golden-brown skin, as Nick ducked playfully.
“Look, I just don’t want your Australian brain to get confused. Roads are hard for you.” Nick’s lips curled into a wicked smile as he baited Trey.
“I’m seriously about to pull over and leave you on the side of the highway.” Trey turned quickly to give Nick a ridiculously dramatic, brooding glare, and his lush, dark brows and thick black hair made him look like some sort of Austen-inspired grump-hunk.
Years ago, back when my group of friends was working at Pine Lake as counselors, Trey had rolled in from Down Under to teach waterskiing on a work visa, and he’d wooed the entire camp instantly with his down-to-earth charm and universally appealing biceps.
But Nick had been the one to win Trey’s heart, which surprised no one.
“I forgot how cute the two of you are together,” I teased, giving up on my emails for a moment to watch them.
Nick lodged a pointed glance at Trey before turning back to me, tugging at one of his chin-length black locs, which were not new, but new to me. I’d only ever seen them in photos online.
“Be honest, you’re only coming this weekend to see the two of us.”
“Oh, one hundred percent,” I agreed sarcastically, hoping he wouldn’t dig around for the real reason. I’d given no explanation for my about-face, other than my schedule magically changing at the last minute. The humiliation of my boss sending me on a forced vacation because I was utter shit at work wasn’t something I’d figured out how to share. Not yet.
“Charles and I never had adorable fights,” I muttered.
“I’m sorry that didn’t work out,” Trey said, his accent making even the most mundane words sound charming. “He always seemed like a decent dude.”
“Yeah, he was.” I smiled diplomatically. “He is. It just didn’t work out. We grew apart, wanted different things.”
This had been my rote answer for the past year, and it had worked in most social situations when people asked about him. The real answer was far more complicated and nuanced, something I still couldn’t quite put into words. When I tried—only in my head, of course—it amounted to something like, I think he was right. I loved the idea of him, and the stability I thought the relationship gave me, more than I actually loved him. But I’d never said anything close to this aloud, to anyone.
“That makes a lot of sense,” he said, nodding. I noticed Nick peek ever so slightly toward Trey, who caught his eye for a moment before turning back to the road ahead. “Well, wait until you see Eloise with her boyfriend. We met them up in Sonoma for a night a few months ago, and it was…” He shook his head like he still couldn’t believe what he’d seen.
“It was what?” I pushed, as Nick chuckled, making me feel even more like I was missing out on something. Eloise was the kind of person who had seemed forty years old at fourteen, so composed and collected it was hard to imagine her as anything else. She was wildly different from the rest of our group, serious and stoic to our silly, but that only made her fit in more, like a cork on a bottle of wine.
Nick turned in his seat. “Imagine two people in the honeymoon phase of a relationship and then multiply that times a hundred.”
“So much kissing,” Trey added with an amused shake of his head.
“Wow,” I replied. I didn’t know what to make of this loved-up version of Eloise other than it was an oversized example of everything I’d missed out on by not keeping in touch.
