One Golden Summer(89)

He stalks across the room toward me. “I didn’t say what I was eating.”

I pull a face despite a singular throb of desire between my legs. “You’re terrible.”

“You have no idea.” Charlie kisses me once, quick, his thumb skimming over my bottom lip before he moves around the counter. “You peel the potatoes.”

My hands tremble as I work. Charlie is kneading dough, his forearms flexing in a way that would make me think of naughty things if I weren’t so tightly wound. I can’t keep pretending. I need to tell him how I feel. It’s not fear that’s making me antsy. I’ve seen how Charlie looks at me. I’m nervous, but I’m also excited.

“We’re going to end up with a restaurant’s supply of pierogi,” Charlie says as he covers the dough. “Maybe we can freeze some for you to take back to the city.”

I hum. We’re cooking together, talking about freezing leftovers. We’re friends, but we’re already so much more.

Charlie has music playing over the speaker on the counter—his dock rock mix. Classics that my friends might play ironically but that Charlie embraces. He doesn’t like anything ironically. He’s singing out of tune, and I realize that this is something else I admire about him. He’s unapologetically him. He catches me staring and winks.

“Forever Young” begins to play, and I laugh. Until the end of time, I will associate Rod Stewart with this summer, with this night.

I’m finishing the potatoes when I feel Charlie at my back. He kisses my neck, slips the strap of my dress down my shoulder. His lips follow. A hand coasts over my waist. Lower. I prod him with an elbow.

“We’re cooking, remember?”

“Sorry,” he says, though I can hear him smiling. “I love this dress. And I’ve been thinking about you all day.”

“Same.” I turn my cheek to look at him. “I wanted to call you. I wanted to talk to someone about how great it was.”

His eyes soften. His smile is golden. It’s the look from the photo. The one I’ve failed to recognize until today.

“You could have,” he says. “I’m happy to talk about my sexual prowess any time. Angles, depth, speed, favorite positions.”

I laugh and elbow him again, and he spins me around, kissing me so deeply, I drop the vegetable peeler on the floor. Charlie groans into my mouth. It sounds like relief and longing and hunger. Usually our kisses grow more and more frenzied, until we’re clamoring for each other, but this one moves the opposite direction. Charlie holds my face between his hands. I open my eyes to find him staring at me in the way no one has before.

Only him.

He taps my hip, smiling. “Back to work, slacker.”

We set about boiling the potatoes and frying the onions in butter, their fragrance filling the kitchen with something that smells a lot like home. When the dough is ready, Charlie rolls it out until it’s a thin, smooth sheet. Charlie looks at me, watching him with my mouth hanging slightly open.

He chuckles. “Impressive, right?”

“I want to say no, because the last thing your ego needs is further stroking. But yeah, impressive.”

“Sometimes I helped my mom with them if she was short on time. Rolling out the dough was her least favorite part of the process.” He shrugs. “I didn’t mind it, and I liked being in the kitchen at the Tavern. It made me feel closer to…” Charlie stops speaking, and I put my hand on his arm.

“Your dad.”

He nods. “We didn’t talk about him at home after he died. But at the restaurant, I could feel him there. When my mom wasn’t in earshot, Julien would tell stories about him, mostly trash talk. And it felt normal, I guess. Sam never really liked working in the kitchen. Couldn’t wash a dish to save his life. But for me, that place, the people there—it was my family.”

He’s quiet as he cuts the dough into circles. I add a spoon of potato-onion mixture and then he shows me how to pinch the dough closed, making a crescent with folded edges. It takes me half a dozen tries to get it right, Charlie working three times faster than I do.

I glance at him after I’ve done one properly, but he’s staring at my hands, his jaw tight.

“Charlie? Are you okay?”

He gives me a weak smile. “Yeah. Just went back in time for a sec.”

“Want to tell me about it?”

“It’s nothing,” he says. He inspects the dumplings in front of me. “You’ve got the hang of it.”

“Not bad, right?”

“No,” he says, kissing my temple. “Not bad at all.”



* * *





We go for a boat ride before we eat. The sun has sunk below the hillside, leaving the horizon streaked in blush and blue. And even though the sight of Charlie on this picture-book evening is one I want to remember forever, I don’t itch for my camera. I’m in the moment, at the center of the action.

I release my hair from its elastic, and Charlie grins, then presses the throttle down. We soar across the lake, and I try to soak in every last detail. The rumble of the motor, a sound I can distinguish from all the other boats on the lake. My hair lashing against my cheeks. The softness of Charlie’s pullover against my skin. The goose bumps on my legs. The cool wind on my face and the fresh air in my lungs. The reflection of the sunset on the lake, like we’re sailing through the sky.