This Summer Will Be Different(3)

Felix made a show of looking at the empty seats beside me. “Did you lose your friend along the way?”

Bridget’s parents were visiting friends in Nova Scotia until the following week, and her younger brother hadn’t responded to her texts or calls about my solo arrival. I was supposed to drive to their place and let myself in. “Go around the house to the deck,” Bridget had instructed. “There’s a spare key under the ceramic toad.”

I hated being alone as much as sitting still, and I didn’t want to spend the rest of the afternoon lounging around the Clark house by myself, my parents’ displeasure reverberating in the quiet. I drove the rental car directly from the Charlottetown Airport to Shack Malpeque.

“My friend’s arriving tomorrow,” I said, holding Felix’s gaze.

He processed this information, head slanted to the side, squinting, and then he picked up his knife. I watched him shuck three dozen oysters in minutes, his hands moving with impressive speed. I was starting to think I’d read him wrong, when he spoke, eyes finding mine from beneath his lashes.

“Do you have any plans before your friend gets here?”

Maybe it was the beer or the buzz of being somewhere new, but I wasn’t usually so forward, so sure about what I wanted. “No,” I told Felix. “I’m wide open.”

His eyes expanded and then he cursed. A ribbon of blood unspooled down his arm. I grabbed a handful of paper serviettes from the dispenser, hurrying around the bar.

“Are you okay?”

He lifted his hand over the wound on his left wrist, and I covered it with napkins.

“I think you might need stitches.”

“It’s just a nick.”

I stepped closer, holding his arm, applying pressure to the cut.

“For the love of Mary,” the server called. “Clean that up, then get out of here.”

Still clutching his arm, I followed Felix into a tiny office, where he found a first aid kit in the desk drawer.

“Does this happen a lot?” I said as I wrapped his wrist with gauze. I could feel the warmth of his breath on my skin.

“No, Lucy. Beautiful women don’t tend to tell me they’re wide open while I’m holding a sharp object.”

I smiled. “How about blunt ones?”

“Afraid not.”

“That’s a shame,” I said, not that I fully believed him. His face was the intersection of breathtaking and rugged. Plus, the hair and the biceps. I’d taken a good look at his backside, too, and it was outstanding. I bet Felix had heard one or two pickup lines involving shucking puns. I’d come up with at least five since I’d walked into the restaurant.

I fastened the bandage but couldn’t make myself let go of him. “Do you want to get it looked at?” I asked. “I can drive you to a hospital.”

“My arm’s fine.” Felix ducked to meet my eyes.

Spark. Fizz. Crackle.

“How about taking me home instead, Lucy?”



* * *



? ? ?

We hardly spoke on the drive, but the air inside the car was buzzing with anticipation. I could feel Felix’s attention roaming from my cheek to my shoulders. Lower. I’m sure he could see the pulse in my neck.

I was nervous, my stomach swooping and diving like gulls through an open sky. At twenty-four, I was familiar with no-strings hookups. Flings, dalliances, a night of fun, a few weeks of fooling around—casual was my specialty. But this felt different. Riskier. We hadn’t shared a meal, or a drink. I hadn’t googled him. I didn’t know his last name or how old he was. Early twenties? All I knew about Felix was that he was hot, made shucking oysters look like foreplay, and he wanted to have sex with me.

I turned down his driveway, a red dirt squiggle through a celery-green field. Sprays of pink and purple grew in a fringe along the ditch. I rounded one bend, then another, and a house came into view. It stood proud in the distance, with graying cedar shingles and a roof that soared in two dramatic peaks at either end. The trim was fresh white, the front door a happy yellow. The ocean sprawled behind it, a shimmering plain of blue.

“This is where you live?” I asked once I parked. The flower beds were fantastic. Peony season was over in Toronto, but here they were in full bloom. There must have been at least a dozen. Roses galore. Magenta clematis climbing a trellis. Snap dragons. Black-eyed Susans. I turned to Felix. “Is this your garden?” But he was already getting out of the car.

He walked around the hood, opened my door, and held out his hand. Atlantic air filled my lungs as a strong breeze whipped my skirt around my legs. I laughed, trying to hold it in place, but Felix tugged me close. I forgot about the peonies. He was an inch or two taller than me, and we lined up perfectly, nose to nose, chest to chest, hip to hip.

“This is not how I expected today to turn out,” I said.

I caught the wink of a dimple in his left cheek as he smiled, no trace of the sorrow I’d sensed at the restaurant.

“No?”

His lips brushed against mine before they trailed down to my neck. I tilted my head back, gazing at a heron that flew above.

“Nuh-uh.”

His stubble tickled my skin as his mouth found its way to the triangle of moles. He placed a kiss on top of them, then tasted them with his tongue. I shivered.

“You mustn’t have done your research,” he said, lips moving to my ear. “This is how we always welcome gorgeous women from away—a traditional islander greeting.”