Page 29 of That Summer Feeling

“I think she came to camp because she realized her deposit wasn’t refundable,” Andrew offered. “Itwasa lot of money.”

“No. She wanted to come ruin Stevie’s life even more,” Frank corrected.

It was easy to imagine them here as kids. Frank was definitely the crier, getting worked up by anything and everything. Andrew was the one who took it upon himself to be the helper. Mason, with his casual charm and effortless strength, was the star.

And then there was Stevie.

Stevie was the Swiss Army knife of this family. Clearly there was no role she couldn’t take. No part she couldn’t play. She’d told me yesterday that her brothers had once forgotten her on a mountain. I’d assumed then that they were negligent or they didn’t really care about her. That didn’t seem true in the slightest. If anything, they’d probably lost track of her on account of the fact that she had a way of being whatever she needed to be, and they’d assumed she’d find them when necessary.

“Maybe I should have stayed with Stevie,” I said to them. I regretted how I’d fled, but I’d gotten so flustered. She’d just finished saying she didn’t want to spend so much time with me, which made no sense. Both of us clearly enjoyed each other’s company.

“There’s no point in trying to get between Stevie and Allison,” Mason told me. “They’re gonna do what they’re gonna do.”

As much as I didn’t like it, it seemed my time being Stevie’s ally really was over. It sucked, but the signs were there, and I’d told myself to follow them. I was supposed to take every opportunity. Unless it involved heights. Then I could take an opportunity to set a boundary for myself. The opportunity to redefine an opportunity!

“So we can’t help?” I confirmed for posterity’s sake. Stevie would find a way to help me. She’d try, at least. Then she’d know when it was time to let go. Like when she took off across the ropes course. She knew when to surrender. A skill just as important as knowing when to push.

“Unless you wanna run in circles, no, we can’t help,” Mason told me. “But we can ride the Jet Skis?”

That simplicity of his logic charmed me. To his credit, I’d never tried to forget anything by getting on a fast water vehicle and whizzing around. There might have been merit to the solution.

“Well, then,” I said. “Hee-haw!”

Mason pumped his fist. “Hee-haw! Let’s go!”

We walked to the edge of the dock, where a Jet Ski was tethered to the side. Mason climbed on first. I stepped on behind him, wrapping my arms around his torso as I settled into my seat. He was so fit, it was like holding on to a slab of rock. Actually, I’d recently held a rock and it was smoother than Mason. He was so rigid and taut, rough in his strength, that I felt burdened by the effort he’d put into his body. Not ashamed of my softness but overwhelmed by the contrast. Even if we were to have a casual fling, I worried I’d be stressed the whole time.

“We’re going fast,” he told me.

“Famous last wor—”

He pressed the gas with such ferocity that my cheeks got sucked back into my ears, swallowing the end of my prophetic sentence. I’d never tasted so much of my own spit in my life. It was impossible to focus on anything but the immediatesituation. The mist of water drenching my face and the feel of the wind at high speeds. The smell of the air. My lungs breathing in and out. As we soared across the lake, my worries and disappointments could not catch me at the speeds we were traveling.

Mason was right.

Jet Skiscouldfix things.

He did figure eights in the lake with impressive ease. The edge he cut splashed so much water in my face that it reminded me of standing in front of a running hose as a kid. A simple kind of bliss.

By the time we pulled back in to the dock, I could’ve napped for hours. Or completed a triathlon. Either option made perfect sense to me. The ground suddenly felt so still and steady I couldn’t believe we moved ourselves across it, because we’d been flying through the water so easily that walking seemed comically slow by contrast. My first few steps on land, I stumbled.

“That was fun,” I told Mason, disbelieving.

Scary things could be fun. I’d forgotten. Maybe I’d never known at all. I’d been too afraid to find out. Funny how that worked.

All the worries and disappointments I’d shed on the water were eager to meet me again once I got my bearings on land. How long had Stevie dated Allison? When did she find out about the cheating? What kind of relationship did they have? Did the family like Allison before the breakup? WherewasStevie?

As if beckoned by my incessant thoughts of her, Stevie—no Allison in sight—found us by the water. She took in the scene before her—me and Mason toweling off, with Andrew and Frank sitting at a picnic table arm-wrestling each other. All four of us stopped what we were doing to stare at her in silent awe.

“Let’s eat,” she said.

The brothers and I shot up in near-perfect unison. I almost laughed at our eagerness. We were alldyingto know what had happened with Stevie and Allison.

12

So much for getting the scoop. Throughout our meal, Stevie had an almost supernatural calm about her. Nothing like the extroverted go-getter I’d come to know. That woman had been replaced with someone so neutral she could have startled a Buckingham guard with her commitment to not budging.

I followed her brothers’ cues regarding Allison. None of them asked about her, so I didn’t either. In fact, I didn’t say much of anything at all. It was a skill I’d never mastered, sitting with a group of people and contributing nothing but my presence. I understood why Dara did it. By saying nothing, I could see everything.