One Golden Summer(49)

“Charlie?”

“You took this.” He fixes his gaze on me, piercing and bright. Fresh as new spring leaves.

“The summer I stayed here,” I confirm.

He shakes his head, and then suddenly, he grabs his phone, thumbing through his photos. When he finds what he’s looking for, he passes it to me. It’s a picture of my photo, this photo, displayed on a wall in a black frame.

“It hangs in a boardroom of a bank where my buddy works,” Charlie explains. “He thought it looked like me. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. It’s me, it’s us.”

It’s the print I sold back when I was a student. I blew it up more than I should have, making it slightly grainy. But I liked that. I thought it added a sense of nostalgia.

I peel my eyes away from the phone, stunned.

“You, Sam, and Percy?” I assumed it was them the night we watched the fireworks, but I want to be sure.

“Yeah.” Charlie rubs his forehead. “It was so wild. My friend sent it a few years ago. It was right after Percy and Sam had gotten back together. It felt like a message from the universe or fate or some shit. Like things were as they were supposed to be.” He searches my face. “You really took this?”

I stare into Charlie’s eyes, and for a moment I’m entranced. Green grapes. Kiwi fruit. Lime juice. Bands of impossibly bright light rippling across a black sky.

“Yeah, I really took it.

“This photo means a lot to me,” I say softly as we study it together. “It made me think I might be good one day. It helped me get into photography school. It was the first shot I ever sold.” I pause. “It changed my life.”

Charlie turns to face me. “I’ve gone to see it,” he says. “And I tried to find you, but there was no signature. I wanted to buy a print. I wanted to remember us like this, when things were simple.”

“I think that’s one of the reasons I feel so connected to it now,” I say. “When I look at it, I feel like I’m seventeen again.”

“So you do remember us?” Charlie puts his hand on my leg when it starts vibrating again, but this time it stays there.

“I remember you,” I whisper.

His eyes travel across my face so slowly. I don’t recognize the feeling in my chest, full yet weightless. Like there’s a hot-air balloon about to set sail beneath my sternum.

“You should have said hi,” Charlie says, voice low.

Time ticks by slowly. My perception shrinks to the space between us.

“I should have,” I murmur. “I wish I could have, but I was so shy. I’ve always wanted to be someone different, someone who could talk to cute boys and race around in a yellow boat.”

“I like the person you are. I wouldn’t change a thing.”

“No edits?”

“Not a single one.”

I become aware of three things at once: My nightshirt is made from the thinnest of cotton, the hem has shifted up my thighs, and Charlie’s hand is still on my leg.

“I can’t believe it was you all this time,” Charlie says. “And now you’re here.”

We both watch as goose bumps dapple my skin. His thumb smooths over my knee, and the touch zags through me like lightning. A whoosh of air leaves my lungs. His gaze shoots to mine.

Kiss me, I think.

I hold my breath as Charlie lifts his hand to my face. He traces my jaw. “I want…” he says. His eyes move to my lips, and his fingers follow, skimming the corner of my mouth. “But I shouldn’t.”

“You shouldn’t what?” I whisper.

“Want,” he says, his gaze still fastened on my lips.

“I strongly disagree.” I take a breath. “I think you should.”

A groan rumbles in his chest, and he brings his eyes to mine. He cups the back of my neck, fingers tangling in my hair. He pulls me closer, until our foreheads meet.

The heat of his skin, his smell, the way my blood races to the apex of my legs—it’s too much to look at him. My eyelids flutter closed. We breathe each other in. Charlie’s nose nudges mine, and even that innocent touch reverberates through my body.

I want to kiss him like nothing I’ve wanted before. I want to know how his lips feel against mine, and I want to know what he tastes like. Kissing someone for the first time is like learning a new dance, and I want to master Charlie’s choreography.

“Kiss me,” I whisper.

Charlie’s lips coast over mine.

“Because you want to cross off number five?”

For a second, I have no idea what he’s talking about. I shake my head when I remember.

“Kiss me because I want you to.”

I tilt forward to close the shred of oxygen that separates us. But instead of kissing me, he leans away and I fall into his chest.

I scramble to my feet, mortified, and make a beeline for my room.

“Alice, wait.”

Charlie sticks his foot in the threshold just as I’m shutting the door. I glare at him, but he slips inside and closes it gently behind him.

“Let’s talk about this.”

I don’t like confrontation, but I’m sick of smothering my feelings all the time. “Why?” I ask. “So you can tell me we should stay friends? Believe me, I’ve got the message now. It won’t happen again.”