This Summer Will Be Different(10)

“I was. They just take off on a road trip without telling me? It’s so typical.”

“Your mom and dad were gone when you got here?”

“Yup. They hadn’t booked their flights to Toronto, so they decided to take the scenic route. They’re going to see friends in Fredericton, spend a few days in Montreal.”

I can hear her annoyance. Ken and Christine are great parents, the reason Bridget and Felix are so self-reliant and sure-footed, but they have a lackadaisical approach to making plans that puts her on edge. Ken was a history teacher and Christine a large-animal vet, and now that they’re both retired, they’re almost impossible to pin down. They do what they want, when they want to, and they reserve the right to change their minds. I think Bridget’s need for order is a direct response to her parents’ more relaxed attitudes.

We’re halfway across the parking lot, and I’m about to ask her again why she needed me so urgently, but then I see him.

Felix Clark is leaning against a black pickup truck, its tires covered in sienna dirt, reading a paperback. His dark hair falls in a swirling, gorgeous mess over his forehead.

I suck in a breath. Seconds pass before I manage to take another. It’s been a full year since we’ve seen each other, and it comes back to me in a flash.

Bright blue eyes. Strong hands. Ocean breeze on sun-bronze skin. A kiss on a beach. Sand in the sheets. The day when everything changed.

I had a good time.

That I don’t trip is a miracle. My stomach spins like a windmill, and my heart is doing its best to pound a hole through my chest.

Calm down, I tell it. Behave.

But it only quickens.

Felix is here.





4





Summer, Five Years Ago





Bridget was in the shower, singing at an earsplitting decibel, while I hid in her bedroom. Felix was downstairs, and I didn’t want to be alone with him. He was Bridget’s younger brother, and I was reeling. So far, since returning from picking Bridget up at the airport, I had successfully avoided him.

I doubted Bridget’s room had changed since she left for Toronto to attend university. There was a puzzle of the 2010 Canadian Women’s Olympic Hockey Team holding their golds, assembled, framed, and mounted on the wall, and a Team Jacob canvas tote hanging from her closet door handle. Three hockey trophies. The patchwork quilt that covered the bed was made of purple and pink squares. The space belonged to a different version of Bridget than the one I knew.

I was sitting on a pile of faux-fur pillows, flipping through a fashion magazine I’d bought at the airport, when I heard the knock.

Tap, tap. Pause. Tap.

I froze.

“Lucy?” Felix called.

“I’m busy.”

“Can you let me in? I’d like to talk.”

I closed my eyes and pressed my fingers into the sockets. I didn’t want to talk. I wanted to return to yesterday afternoon, thank Felix for the oysters, and not have sex with him four times in the house my best friend grew up in.

He knocked again.

But I also didn’t want Bridget to catch her brother talking to me through the door, so I unlocked it and pulled him inside.

“You shouldn’t be here,” I hissed, letting go of his arm. “Bridget could have heard you.”

A loud Oooh-oooh-oooooh! rang from the bathroom.

“I think we’re safe,” he said, deadpan. “Next time, don’t leave me standing in the hall. I used our secret knock.”

“We don’t have a secret knock.”

“We do.” Felix held my gaze while he rapped his knuckles on the door. Two soft taps, a pause, and then a third, louder one.

“Well, we don’t need one.”

He took a step nearer.

Being this close to Felix was a bad idea. His fresh-air smell was impossible to ignore. Even without touching him, I could feel the heat of his body. The rebellious swirl of hair above his eyebrow called to my fingers. I wanted to climb him. I wanted to plunder his mouth. I wanted to slide my tongue over his dimple and sink my teeth into his bottom lip. I stepped back.

“What are you doing?” I asked. “You’re not allowed to be in here. We’re not allowed to do this.”

His smile was as slow as molasses. “We’re not allowed?”

“No! I’m under strict instructions!”

He blinked at me, baffled.

“Bridget has rules.”

“Rules?”

“Yes. Rules. Three of them.” I technically hadn’t broken any, but there was no doubt in my mind sleeping with Felix would be frowned upon. To say the least.

“And they are?”

“Eat your weight in oysters.” I paused. I didn’t want to tell him all the rules. “And leave the city behind.”

Felix’s gaze was steady. Hypnotic. “You said there were three. What’s the third one, Lucy?”

I may have been evading Felix, but my brain had been circling him all day, unearthing every single detail Bridget had ever shared about her brother. He was twenty-three, had lived on the island his whole life, and he was a competitive oyster shucker. But of all the facts I’d excavated from my memory, his ex-girlfriend, Joy, was the one that stood out most.

“Bridget asked me not to fall in love with you. It was sort of a joke, but also not? She doesn’t want a repeat of what happened with . . .” I winced. “Well, you know. You were there.”