Page 46 of That Summer Feeling

“I came back here because I’ve forgotten what it means to do something just for my own enjoyment,” she continued. “Nature became my literal job. And Ilovedit at first. Then I loved what it gave me financially. When Allison ruinedeverything, I realized I’d forgotten how to enjoy something just because I like it, not because it gives me something. I’d forgotten how to justbe.”

“I understand,” I told her. “I really do.”

“What’syourjob?” she asked.

“Oh. Nothing notable,” I said.

She was a nature girl who did things in nature. Her work made sense. I had a part-time job in a part-time life. The job itself did not embarrass me, but the contrast between Stevie and me did. It wasn’t like I had a great passion for transporting people or anything. It was just a thing I did to get by, as all things were in my life. I had nothing I really loved. No dream I chased for the passion of it.

“That can’t be true,” Stevie said to me. “Everything you do is notable.”

“I really think you’d change your mind on that if you had me pick you up and take you to the airport.”

I didn’t like putting myself down, which is why I preferred making jokes about the hard things. Laughing was so much better than pity. But I didn’t know how to make good jokes anymore. Somewhere after our kiss, I’d lost my defenses.

“I’m a rideshare driver,” I said, attempting to move away from pity and into honesty.

Stevie squeezed my hand. “You take people places they need to be. That’s an important job! Before Uber and Lyft and stuff, a lot of people used to drive themselves drunk all the time.”

“Don’t you worry. They still do.”

“Yeah, but not as much.”

She was trying to make me feel better. With any other person, it wouldn’t have worked. But she hadthatface, andthatsmile, andthatsurefire confidence. Who was I to deny her?

“Well, thank you,” I said, squeezing her hand the same way she’d squeezed mine.

“If it’s not what you want to do, though, what else do you have in mind? What makes Garland Moore’s heart race?”

“Other than you?”

She grinned. “Other than me.”

We reached our front door. Stevie pulled her key out of the back pocket of her jeans and opened our cabin. All the lights were off, so we fumbled through the darkness, still holding hands, moving down the narrow hall and into our room.

“Did you know the distance between our beds is the same as the average length of a Golden Retriever?” I asked, slipping into the bathroom to wash the dirt off my hands.

“Of course. That’s exactly how they described it in the camp brochure.” Stevie flicked on the overhead light in our bedroom. “Sit with me in here,” she called out. “I won’t bite. Too hard.”

My face went hot. “What if we pushed our beds together?” I asked as I entered the room. Intentional recklessness at its finest.

“If you insist.” She picked up our shared nightstand, dragging it toward the door to prevent any obstacles. I walked around to the far end and pushed her bedframe toward mine.

“I love a strong woman,” she told me as I closed the gap between our beds.

“The frame is on wheels.”

She looked down to confirm I wasn’t lying, seeing the wheels beneath each bedpost. “It takes skill to control that kind of rolling,” she said. “Gliding like an ice skater across these knotty wood floors.” She picked up the nightstand again and carried it to the open side. We both had a few small belongings atop it, and for the second time, she managed not to drop a single thing.

“Now,thattakes skill,” I told her.

With everything appropriately rearranged, she laid herself across our newly joined bed, rolling onto her side to look at me. “Just so you know, I haven’t forgotten what I asked you before we came inside. About what makes your heart race.”

You, I thought again, seeing her sprawled out with her head resting on her hand and her other hand patting a spot for me. I couldn’t answer the question the same way twice, because she clearly expected something more cerebral than what my sensations were conjuring.

I laid myself down beside her, mirroring the way she held herself. “I don’t actually know,” I told her. “The life I used to want for myself was just a life that fit what I thought the world expected of me. I got a degree in communications, because that made sense. I married my college sweetheart. Because that made sense. I realize now that none of it actually made senseto me. It just made sense on paper. And it’s taken me way too long to see that those are different things. It’s like I’ve been in hibernation, and suddenly I’m awake. I’m alive. And I don’t know what to do with myself.”

She scooted in, resting her mouth atop my ear. “Let me tell you a secret,” she whispered. The soft tickle of her breath onmy skin made me shiver. “You still have time to figure it out. Even though you’re—” She pulled back and dropped her voice to the normal register. “Shit. How old are you again?”