Page 80 of One Last Summer
“Clara, that is not okay!” Nick protested, and then dug a mound of frosting off his chest and smeared it down my face.
“See, this is why I haven’t even said anything to you about our relationship, because you’re always telling everyone what they can and can’t do,” Trey groused, kicking the tomato glop off his shoe.
“Well, it’s a good thing we’re breaking up, then. You won’t have to listen to me talk anymore!” Nick shouted before grabbing the chocolate ice cream and storming off toward Linus, who was currently licking something off Eloise’s finger.
Trey watched him, an odd look on his face, before he turned back toward me. Silently, he grabbed the ketchup bottle out of my hand and marched after his now-ex-boyfriend.
There was only one person left for me to find. I swiped the lone box of brownies from the table and took off for Mack.
Following the long route down a row of tables toward the back of the dining hall, I crept up on him slowly, stepping carefully over a slippery patch of melted vanilla.
When I was close, I leveled a brownie in his direction. It landed with a thump in the center of his forehead, chocolate crumbles sticking to his face. Mack froze, coughing out a shocked laugh before stepping toward me, close enough to swipe a finger across my brow, gathering up a chunk of frosting and smearing it against my bottom lip.
He pressed down gently, and as if on instinct my tongue shot out, swiping the sugary sweetness away. Now it was my turn to freeze, heat pooling between my legs, twisting me undone like a cork being yanked out of a champagne bottle.
He took advantage of my moment of weakness and yanked a brownie out of the box in my hands, patting it flat on my head like a pancake.
“Fuck!” I squealed, reaching for another sugary blob and smashing it onto his chest, grinding it into his shirt like I was trying to scrub grease out of a dirty pan. My focus was so intense that it took me a second to notice that Mack’s hand had paused, gently cupping my face.
“Give me my list back,” I demanded, glaring at him through ice cream-covered lashes.
“You are really pretty when you’re fired up, you know that?” He said it with delight like he’d just discovered something wonderful and couldn’t wait to share it with the world. “Lover.”
Everything went silent when Mack touched me, my senses giving up all autonomy, fully under his control. Everything in me that wanted to be angry with him seemed to melt away when his thumb pressed against my bottom teeth, his index finger stroking my chin. I was so focused on the sensation that it barely registered at first when my phone’s obnoxiously loud ring sounded from the porch, where Sam had gone to escape the chaos.
“Shit! Shit shit shit,” I said, dropping the brownies on the floor and taking off toward the door. Sam was moving through the doorway, holding my phone in her hand.
I skidded to a stop in front of her.
“I answered it,” she said, a strange look on her face. Oh no.
Amaya’s serene face, perfectly coiffed as always, appeared on my screen.
“Clara, hi. I’m here with the whole team.”
Suddenly the faces of my colleagues panned by as she scanned the camera across them, crammed into her office. Lydia was sandwiched on a couch with a laptop on her knees and gave me a small wave.
“I need you back in the—” Her mouth dropped, her sentence left hanging, unfinished. “What the hell happened to you?”
“She started a food fight,” Mack yelled a few feet behind me now.
“You started it!” I hissed back. “And please stop, it’s my boss.”
“Well, take a shower, scrub your face, whatever you need to do. And then I need you to get back here ASAP.”
“I’m sorry, what?” Her intensity caught me off guard. It shouldn’t have—I’d only been gone from work for a few days—but my ability to snap to order whenever Amaya came calling had already dulled. “I can’t. I’m in New Hampshire. At my old camp.”
“I know, I know, and I am so excited you’ve been enjoying your micro-sabbatical. But, Clara, the pitch you sent to Gabbie? She loved it.”
“She did?” I asked, trying to process what she was telling me.
“I did too,” she added quickly. “I always knew you were brilliant.”
“But you said I was burned out.” My fists clenched, fingernails stabbing my sticky palms. She’d forced me out of the office, rebuffed my email, and was now demanding I drop everything and run back to my desk. “You told me I had to take this time off.”
“And it worked!” she exclaimed, almost like she was trying to convince me. “Gabbie loved your idea so much that they’ve moved our pitch to tomorrow morning and won’t hear it unless you’re the one presenting.”
“Seriously?” I asked, dumbfounded. My plan had somehow succeeded, exactly how I’d wanted. I’d done it.
