Page 47 of That Summer Feeling

“I’m thirty-two,” I said.

She leaned back in and returned to her ASMR whisper. “Even at thirty-two. You are not required by law to understand a single fucking thing about yourself, despite what everyone might want to tell you.”

It was my turn to whisper in her ear. I pressed myself against the side of her face and said, “You’re younger than me, how do you already have this all figured out?”

She laughed her magical laugh. “Were you listening earlier? I don’t have a single thing figured out.”

I moved back to trace the line of her jaw with my pointer finger. “Oh, I was listening,” I said. “I just have a hard time believing you don’t know every single thing. You’re the most confident person I’ve ever met.”

She had to put her hand over her mouth to stop herself from laughing again. “Nothing could be further from the truth. Do you not remember me when we didn’t win the ropes course? I’m an insecure wreck.”

“See? You want to win things. You have that figured out about yourself.”

“I enjoy knowing that the things I do in life count for something,” she said. “And when you win, it’s proof you did the best you could.”

“Not winning isn’t the same as losing, though. You can do the best you possibly can and still get last,” I reminded her. “It’s a state of mind. A perspective.”

“I told you, Garland, I’m all-or-nothing. If it doesn’t work, I drop it forever.”

“So why is Allison here trying to win you back?” I asked. “She lived with you. Shouldn’t she know you enough to know that’s the last thing you’d want?”

Suddenly, Stevie put her thumb on my cheek and tucked her fingers under my chin. Like she just had to hold me, because she couldn’t believe I was real. I could feel that urgency, that desperation to understand how I had turned up in her life and we were sharing this moment. I knew because I felt the same way about her.

“Allison loves a challenge,” she told me. “Which is part of what drew me to her in the first place. She thinks I haven’t been serious when I’ve told her we’re over, because in the past, I wasn’t. That was before I knew the extent of what she’d done to me. She didn’t just cheat on me with one person. It was multiple people. The entire time we were together.”

“How’d you find out?”

Stevie rolled away from me, breaking our touch. “You’re gonna think I’m shitty.”

“Try me,” I said, rubbing her back.

She peeked over her shoulder. Peering deep into my eyes, trying to see if I was worthy of her trust.C’mon, Stevie, I thought.Let’s see how far we can fall.

“I looked through her phone,” she admitted.

“That’s not that bad!” I told her, meaning it. “What made you do it?”

“I don’t even know. She left it unlocked on the couch one day when she went to shower. And I just had thisfeeling. Iwanted to prove myself wrong. Instead I ended up proving myself right.”

“See? Sometimes it’s bad to win!”

She granted me a quick scrunch of her face. “I was out the door by the time she finished her shower. I sent Andrew to get all my stuff for me. Bought the van the next day. I like living on the road because it doesn’t feel like I belong to anything. No one can catch me there. But being here at camp again, I can see that I’m just running from my fear. And Allison thinks she’s caught me. Which she should know pisses me off. I can’t be caught.”

“Of course not,” I told her with fake seriousness. “You are one slippery fish.” I took the opportunity to pull her closer to me again. “This is a woman who can’t be tied down. No one can hold her,” I said as I did just that. I held her.

The power of it wasn’t lost on me. Our bodies seemed designed to be pressed together. That’s how well they fit. We were meant to hold each other, telling secrets to each other at summer camp.

“Thank you again for dancing with me last night,” she whispered to me. She’d rolled so her back lay against the front of me, and I had my face in her hair, breathing in the coconut of her shampoo. “I know that killed Allison. That’s not why I liked it, but it didn’t hurt. She told me by the water today that if I didn’t take her back by the end of the night, she was gonna leave tomorrow. Seeing as I’m here in bed with you, she should be gone by the time we wake up.”

“You know what? I’d say I won’t miss her, but if it weren’t for Allison’s presence, I’d probably be three sheets to the windagain tonight, trying to get Mason to tell me about pour-over techniques.”

Stevie faked a shudder against me. “He’d have proposed marriage.”

“The nice thing is, I would have said no,” I told her. “I have no plans to get married again.”

“And you thought you didn’t know anything about your life!” Stevie rolled so we were nose to nose. “I don’t want to get married either.”

“Of course not. Because no one could hold you.”