Page 58 of That Summer Feeling

“Wait, I forgot to ask. Who was that guy who visited you?” she whispered into the dark.

“My ex-husband,” I said calmly.

Stevie flicked on the light again. “Ethan is yourex-husband? The chill guy with the red hair who sat with us at dinner?”

“That’s the one. Who did you think he was?”

“Your relative or something,” she said. “A third cousin twice removed who the twins found by sending in a swab of your spit to a private investigator who located him, then forced him to attend so that every individual person had a visitor on visitors’ day.”

“I’mthrilledto announce Ethan and I do not share DNA,” I said. “There are four of you Magnusson kids, and you only had your two parents come.”

“That’s not true. Frank’s firefighterbest friendwas also here. And Andrew’s weird neighbor, weirdly.”

“Best friend?”

Stevie shrugged. “I don’t ask questions. Since I’m the resident gay sibling, they know they can come to me with any news.”

“Well, my visitor was in fact Ethan, my ex-husband. But don’t worry, he and I have nothing between us anymore,” I said.

This made Stevie walk right up to me until our noses were touching. “Do I look worried?” she asked playfully. Her breath tickled my cheek.

“Hard to tell when you have your face smashed against mine.”

“I want you to be able to examine every detail. Reallyseehow unworried I am.”

On someone else, it may have felt like a “lady doth protest too much” thing. Not Stevie. She had a calm about her that I trusted. And I liked how much she trusted me in return. She believed me. “You seem to be one hundred percent unworried,” I told her.

She kissed me once, quick. “Exactly. Besides, it’s nice to see the guy who lost to me.” She laughed a quiet—but slightly evil—laugh.

I couldn’t help but laugh with her. “There’s no contest,” I said.

“Garland, there’salwaysa contest.” She hit the light and grabbed my hand to bring us into the hallway. When we passed Michelle’s door, she put a finger to her mouth to shush me.

“Michelle can’t come?” I whispered anyway.

Stevie refused to answer until after she closed our cabin door with utmost caution, careful not to make a single sound. “Lake night is a very exclusive event.” She led me down the familiar paths, past all the buildings and back into the places the lamplights couldn’t touch. She shone her phone’s flashlight on our feet to make sure we didn’t trip over anything. “It starts farthest from the cabins. That way we don’t get in trouble.”

I stifled my laugh. “I’m asking this with completely openhearted curiosity—how could we possibly get in trouble as adults?”

“Camp rules don’t abide by real-life ones,” she said. “Trouble is an idea.”

When we got to the designated starting spot, which was the edge of the lake right before her hideout, there was enough light that we weren’t swallowed whole, but we were mostly cloaked by night. I expected to find the twins waiting for us. The twins attended everything at camp. Instead I found the three Magnusson brothers and no one else.

“No Tim and Tommy?” I questioned.

“You can’t invite the owners to lake night,” Mason told me with the same obviousness his sister had used earlier.

“You’re not supposed to inviteanyone,” Frank elaborated.

“Really wishing for a lake night infographic,” I said. “Something compact and shareable so I’d stop committing so many faux pas.” It was chilly, and I was already shivering in my sweater. Any event called lake night surely required getting into the water, so I did my best to mentally prepare for that. “If this involves nudity, I just want to say that I think it’s weird you do it as siblings. Putting it out there, but letting you guys know I’m committed all the same.”

“There’s no nudity,” Andrew told me. “Not literally.”

I didn’t have the energy to explore what that could possibly mean.

Mason had a big backpack with him. From inside it, he pulled out four boxes. Stevie shone the light on them, revealing pool floats that had not been blown up—a pineapple, a flamingo, a strawberry, and a crane, to be exact.

“Lake night is a family tradition,” Mason said as hedistributed the boxes to his siblings. “We blow these up, and we put them out on the water.”