Page 41 of One Last Summer
“Agh!” A hand smacked against my shoulder and tugged at the edge of my tank top. I twisted around to find Eloise behind me, pink-faced and breathing heavily.
“Gotcha,” she panted, her face lighting up like the Cheshire Cat.
“Goddamnit,” I muttered as she nodded her head toward the soccer goal.
“Jail time, baby.”
“But Mack was about to get you!” I protested, begrudgingly turning to follow her.
Eloise shook her head. “Mack’s your cellmate.”
“Are you serious?” I turned to find that he was indeed pacing around the goal as he flicked his eyes toward his watch every few seconds.
“Off you go!” Eloise said with a playful push toward Mack, who glowered at me as I jogged toward him.
“You were supposed to be guarding her,” I hissed, wiping my dirty hands on the front of my tank top. “Do you not know how to play this game?”
I inhaled the tangy scent of my body clinging to my sweat-soaked clothes as I caught my breath, and knew without looking in a mirror that my hair—still knotted in a loose ponytail—was a wet, sticky mess. Normally, I would have felt self-conscious about appearing all disheveled, especially in front of someone I’d kissed the night before. But today was different; all I wanted to do right now was lean into this untamed side of me, and reclaim it as my own.
“It was your idea for us to all be on defense, and then you changed your mind and decided to run across the field!” He waved a hand in the air, toddler tantrum-esque. “What were you thinking?”
“It’s called thinking on your feet,” I snapped back, looking down at my own watch. Ninety seconds left in jail. We still had a shot to win this. “Changing course. Reworking the plan. You know, like, deciding to do one thing, and then switching and doing another? You’re good at that.”
I narrowed my eyes as the image of him shooting off the diving dock last night flashed through my mind.
“All I did was follow your plan for the game, Millen,” he said, once again gesturing around us. “I did exactly what you wanted.”
His damp, threadbare T-shirt was clinging to his chest, and my eyes—which I swear were only on him to glare—drifted just a bit, and settled right on that one spot along his collarbone that I could still almost feel under my fingertips, hard and smooth.
Goddamnit.
Off to our left, Nick turned around, gawking at us. “Are you two seriously fighting over Capture the Flag?”
“Yes!” we both yelled back, a little too loud.
Just then a shout went up on the other side of the field. Trey was on the move again, arms pumping furiously as a blue flag whipped wildly in his hand.
“Crap,” I grumbled under my breath. Trey crossed the midline with a leap, the air punctured by Sam’s whistle blaring from the sideline. He collapsed dramatically on the grass, Eloise running over to join him, hands triumphant in the air.
“That’s the game. We lost.”
“We’re going with my plan next time, Millen.” Mack’s eyes bore down on me as he raked a hand through sweat-soaked hair, looking utterly furious.
“There’s not going to be a next time, Sullivan,” I replied, taking off with a jog. I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of “I told you so.” He could wallow without me as far as I cared.
Not that I did care about what Mack thought. Not about me, or my Capture the Flag game strategy, or anything, really.
Which is why it didn’t matter that I glanced behind me, just to see if he was watching me go, and why I didn’t care at all that he wasn’t.
Not one bit.
18
“YOU HAVE GOT to be fucking kidding me.” The words came out garbled, fighting with my turkey sandwich for room in my mouth.
“What’s wrong?” Sam asked from the porch swing, her purple sundress billowing around her feet.
We were spread out across the Sunrise deck, feasting on sandwiches that Mack and Linus had picked up from the General Store deli counter. It was late afternoon now, closer to dinner than lunchtime. I had one hand shoved inside a bag of salt-and-vinegar potato chips. The other was tapping furiously at my phone screen.
