Page 32 of That Summer Feeling

I did not know he was kidding. Not until he pulled me in for a hug best described asWow, I can’t believe I just saw my best friend driving down the same street as me! We’ve both pulled over to greet each other because we have to celebrate this beautiful coincidence to the fullest.I had a disco glitter flashback of me talking to this guy several times the night prior. Screaming requests in his face. Booing at him?

“Don’t you worry,” he said as he held me. A sweet Georgia lilt coated his words, flowing out from beneath his impressive handlebar mustache. “We went and learned your song for you.”

Another band member, a Black man with graying locs and the kind of rich bass voice that vibrated into my toes, stepped forward holding a guitar. “We spent all day working on it. It sure is a fun one.”

I could not bear the thought of breaking it to these musicians that I had no idea what I’d requested. So with the utmost sincerity, I said, “I’m so excited! I can’t wait to hear it!” because that much was true. It would be very exciting to know what song I’d forced this poor group into spending their day learning.

The youngest member of the band, a genderqueer thirtysomething with a buzzed head and dozens of pins on their denim vest, stepped forward. “We waited out here to tell you. I was pretty excited to get to use this thing on it!”

They held up a fiddle.

I did not think I knew any fiddle songs. None were coming to mind, at least.

“We are definitely going to go on a journey together!” I told them.

With that, the band made room for Stevie, Michelle, and me to enter the hall. I couldn’t help but look around for Allison. If Stevie was the sun, that woman was like the moon. Jet-black hair. Jet-black clothes. Frustratingly cool bangs I reminded myself I could not respect.

Allison made me question why I wanted to wear T-shirts with phrases on them. I’d never even heard her say a single word other than Stevie’s name, and I’d already started making a little mental tally of things I did that didn’t seem like something she would do. She had the confidence to attend an entire week of camp in hopes of getting Stevie back. I knew I’dneverdo something like that. I’d begged Ethan to take me back exactly once. Sobbing and shaking on our kitchen floor, pleading with him to reconsider. He didn’t even move. Not to hold me. Not to help me. He said “This is for the best” and left me lying there.

I fled Los Angeles as soon as we filed our papers at the courthouse. Even seeing him by accident would have been too much of an indignity. If he wasn’t remembering me splayed out on the kitchen floor begging for him to take me back,Isure would have been.

Then again, Ethan showing up at this camp was everything I’d ever dreamed of happening. Perhaps that’s what Stevie felt, deep in her heart. Maybe she couldn’t speak about it because she didn’t yet trust it. That Allison was really here with good intentions.

I always believed in redemption, even when I probably shouldn’t. Allison had cheated, and it infuriatedme, but I wasn’t Stevie. I knew what it was to have other people think they had the correct opinion of your love life. Only Stevie could decide how grievous that mistake had been. If she didn’t think it was that bad, then that was her decision to make.

It didn’t meanIhad to be nice to Allison, though.

I found her at the bar, sitting on one of the stools in front of the counter. Stevie clocked her at the same time as me, and she did not head for drinks like she had the night before. Instead she went toward a random table along the other side of the hall and plopped down, forcing herself to appear unaffected. I could still tell she was rattled. It was in everything she did not say. All the places she would not go. It was her version of yelling over the quiet parts.

This was why her brothers had a hard time navigating her pain. She worked very hard to disguise her feelings. Much like the force field she’d projected after we’d lost the ropes course, Ifelther reaction all the same. She could try to hide, but I could see the truth.

Allison was not the moon, I decided. That was too much of a compliment. She was a storm cloud, blocking Stevie’s sun. Our allyship had not been compromised by Allison’s presence. If anything, she’d strengthened it. I would do whatever it took to protect Stevie. To make sure her week continued to be good.

“Do you want me to get you a drink?” I asked, gesturing to the bar with the very visible Allison sitting with a foot looped through her stool, scanning the crowd.

“No, no,” Stevie said quickly. “I’m good. I don’t want one.”

I tried on my best impersonation of her, intensifying my gaze until it cut through her, moving the storm clouds until I saw the brightness of her smile. Joy pushed against the corners of her mouth, fighting to prevent itself from being revealed.

“Steven Magnusson, you want a drink,” I said.

She burst into the full, bright laugh I’d already come to depend on. “My name is Stephanie. And I don’t want anything,” she said, not even bothering to make it sound like it was true.

“Don’t you lie to me, Steven Magnusson. You are the master of mixing liquors and wearing matching sports sets. You want a vodka cranberry with lime. I know you do. Don’t forget, I havevisions.”

“And you’re having one of me?”

I closed my eyes and pretended to conjure up a prophecy. “Yes.” I nodded as if seeing it all come together. “You are having your drink, but you are also...” I smiled. “Wow. Steven. You’re dancing. Withme. We’re having a great time. Not at all worried about anyone else here.” I opened my eyes and found Stevie looking at me. No longer smiling.

“Then I guess I need a drink,” she said in her low, serious way.

Borrowing a move straight from Mason’s handbook, I squeezed her shoulder before heading to the bar, faking the confidence I needed to walk right past Allison and act like I didn’t care that she was there.

“Are you Stevie’s friend?” she asked as soon as I approached. She was forthright in a way I hadn’t anticipated. I was determined to stop it from scaring me off.

“Something like that,” I told her, leaving it up to her interpretation. More than anything, I wanted this storm cloud of a woman to regret her decision to attend camp.

Allison leaned in, dropping her voice to a staged whisper. “Is she avoiding me?”