Page 45 of One Last Summer
He simply offered a nonchalant shrug and nodded toward the boathouse. “Come on.”
I followed him through the grass along the short path, worn down by decades of footsteps. Mack held the screen door open and ushered me inside with a casual wave of his hand, and then wandered over to a built-in shelf along the far wall that I hadn’t noticed last night.
“Catch,” he said as he tossed a beach towel at me.
It was huge, complete with a giant, exploding football shooting out of a Patriots logo.
“Really?”
Mack chuckled when I flipped it around. “What, I don’t seem like the super-masculine, football dude type to you? It was five dollars on sale at the General Store a couple of summers ago.”
I folded my clothes as best I could in a stack on the floor, and got to work drying off, wrapping the towel around my shoulders. His phone sounded again, and I made a point of looking anywhere but at him. It was only then that I really noticed things—the warm recessed lighting overhead, the faded dingy walls now repainted creamy ivory, the windows trimmed in forest green.
The once dark and drab boathouse was now homey and filled with light. It was beautiful. Not beautiful like some sort of HGTV renovation, with shimmering fixtures and barn-chic lanterns. Beautiful in a way that felt true to the spirit of this place.
In place of the ancient linoleum work counter that I remembered being cluttered with broken rudders and empty tubes of sunscreen was a smooth plank of butcher block that extended along the outer wall of the building. A once empty wall we’d rested paddles against haphazardly was now home to a bench that wrapped all the way around to the corner of the room. It was covered in green cushions and gingham pillows, with life preservers stacked neatly underneath.
The dingy pulley-operated door that opened out on the water was long gone, replaced by French doors that drew the sunlight inside like a vortex, making the whole place sparkle. Even the ladder up to the loft was new—thick, soft-grain wood and sturdy steps instead of the narrow, teetering death trap I remembered from my youth.
Just above the folded towels, Mack had displayed all the old sailing regatta trophies from years past, posed next to tiny stacks of rocks that almost surely once lived on the bottom of Pine Lake. I examined their craggy shapes as I got closer, then plucked one off the shelf and rolled it in the palm of my hand. It was a pale, milky white, soft and round with a crack on one side.
“Anytime something special happens I like to grab a stone from the lake and put it up here.” His voice was low and so very close behind me, his breath skipping softly over my skin.
“What’s this one for?” I asked, holding it up to the light.
“Last day of camp this year,” he said matter-of-factly, as if it were obvious.
I nestled it back next to its little stone friends, grabbing a small slab of blue glass next.
“You found this in the lake?” I asked skeptically.
“What are you, a detective?” he teased. “Fine, some I get from other places. That’s from my last trip back to LA. Zuma Beach in Malibu always has a ton of sea glass.”
He slipped it out of my hand as he stepped closer and reached up over my shoulder to grab a large granite chunk off the top shelf. It was the color of dirty rainwater, with flecks of white and silver that came alive in the light. He held it as his body shifted, leaning one shoulder against the bookcase to face me.
“And this one?” I ran a finger along its rough edges, and my voice felt tight in my throat. I’d been dripping wet just moments ago, but now my body pulsed with a feverish heat.
“Ah, this one’s special,” he said, looking down at the stone in his hands before resting his eyes back on me, two big blinding suns. “I grabbed it the other day, when I heard you were coming back up this summer.”
The meaning behind his words hung heavy between us, and I felt suddenly like I couldn’t get enough air into my lungs. “It’s huge,” I finally blurted out in a gasp, and Mack snorted at the double entendre as he handed it to me.
“Yeah, well, you’re a lot, Millen. I couldn’t give you some puny old pebble.”
I pressed my fingertips gently against the craggy stone like I was holding his entire heart in my hands. Our kiss on the diving raft had been spontaneous, two people caught up in a moment. Old friends who did something rash. But every single thing unfolding between us right now felt very, very deliberate, and if I wasn’t careful, I knew I’d only want more, of him, and from him.
“I said the other night that we shouldn’t, you know.” I exhaled slowly, trying not to let on that I was suddenly racked with nerves.
He chuckled softly, Adam’s apple bobbing. “I know. We’re not going to make things weird.”
“But what if I…”
The sound of his text alert chirping once again from his pocket interrupted me.
“Do you want to get that?” I asked.
“Nope,” was all he said. “You were about to ask me a question.”
Was I really going to put myself out there like this, to Mack? Every drop of blood in my body raced to my face, which was hot with anticipation. Yes. Yes, I was.
