Page 30 of One Last Summer
Was I trying to make a joke to deflect from what had just happened? Absolutely. But it also felt like it was ten degrees colder here on the beach than it was out on the diving raft, where I’d been wrapped up in a blanket of lust.
“Okay, now you’ve made it weird.” Mack snorted a laugh as he watched me, tossing me his T-shirt. I immediately pressed it against my face, as if I could somehow hide underneath the soft cotton. But it smelled distinctly like him, a mix of burned leaves and damp wood, and the lingering scent of powdery detergent. My body hollowed with want.
I hadn’t really planned on having a passionate love affair with Mack—or anyone, for that matter—this week, despite what I’d promised my fifteen-year-old self. But my focus—once so clear in my day-to-day life—was slipping.
I rubbed his shirt down my arms as he gathered his stuff, trying to come up with some sort of plan for how to handle this situation unfolding in front of me.
“Thanks,” I said as I tossed the Pine Lake tee back to him, my mind still racing through our conversation, our kiss, to my world before I landed here at camp.
“Of course,” he said, draping it around his neck. “Are you okay?”
“Uh-huh,” I muttered, hurrying over to the spot where I’d unceremoniously dumped my clothes. But was I? It didn’t seem like I was feeling anything that remotely landed me in the category of okay.
And honestly, I couldn’t remember the last time I’d felt okay. This whole last year had been a blur. I should have been dating eligible people in Boston, making my way toward a new, better relationship, but I hadn’t even tried to meet anyone. I focused instead on killing it at work, except all I’d managed was to burn out, something I was the last person to realize. And now I was on a break I didn’t ask for, kissing Mack in a way that even fifteen-year-old me would never believe.
This wasn’t where I was meant to be at all, except maybe it was, and all these contradicting thoughts, combined with the thick, churning desire coursing through my body, had my mind spinning.
“Millen?” I heard him call.
“Sorry, it’s just been a weird twenty-four hours, and I’m not totally thinking right,” I babbled, not looking up as I grabbed my phone and clothes off the ground and balled them up in my arms. “Work is crazy right now, and my boss—”
Mack was already gone, walking back toward the boathouse.
“Hey! Mack!” I hustled after him, wincing as the pebbles underfoot dug into my feet.
“Come on,” he said, leaning against the screen door to hold it open for me. “Let me get you the wireless password.”
“Are you serious right now?” I shuffled inside and narrowed my eyes at him as he studied me with an amused look on his face, the door closing with a thud behind him. “We just kissed and you’re talking about the wireless password?”
“Isn’t that why you’re here, Clara?” Mack turned to look at me, and the person I’d known almost my whole life was gone. No impish smile or teasing, raised brows. This Mack was somehow smoldering, like his bones were coal, illuminating him from the inside out.
He never called me Clara.
“No,” I said firmly. “I’m just here to make sure this”—I waved a hand between us—“isn’t weird.”
“It’s not weird.” His voice was steady and firm, which only lit me up more. With his hair slicked back off his face I could see how his eyes crinkled in the corners as he watched me, and he suddenly looked old to me in a way I’d never noticed before.
Even as we grew into our twenties, I always thought of Mack as a boy, the handsome, shaggy-haired kid who got under my skin in every way imaginable. But those years were long gone, and this person in front of me was so clearly a man: his chest broad and filled out, his skin creased and freckled from years in the sun.
“But we just kissed,” I said slowly and emphatically like I was explaining it to a small child. “We shouldn’t have done that. We’re friends.”
I wasn’t sure I meant it, but it seemed like the right thing to say, the wisest plan, the best way not to rock this very unstable boat we were now teetering in.
“Are we? Friends?” His eyes bore down like he was challenging me to really, truly, answer that question. I wasn’t used to him like this, with no jokes or jabs coming out of his mouth.
“Yes,” I said, gulping. “Obviously.”
“Well, we did that once before,” he said, and he gave me an amused look, like he was enjoying watching me try not to squirm. He was still shirtless, and he crossed his arms as he leaned back against the door, keeping his eyes on me the entire time. “Don’t you remember?”
I wrapped my sweatshirt awkwardly across my chest. “Of course I remember. And come to think of it, you’ve literally never told me why you gave me the silent treatment after.”
The kiss we’d shared that night at camp had been very hot, which honestly was something that confused me as I got older and had more experiences to weigh it against. Making out was supposed to get steamier as you aged and learned what made your body ignite.
But that first kiss with Mack had been, well, something. And as much as I hated to admit it, I’d been chasing that something for years and never found it again. Until tonight.
And now I was freaking out.
“So what is this then, Millen?” he asked, gesturing a hand between us. “Is it just another thing you wanted to do as part of your big, last camp hurrah plan?”
