This Summer Will Be Different(31)

She looks at herself and shrugs. “Meh. It’s only Wolf and Zach.”

I met Zach on my first trip to the island. He’d introduced himself as Bridget’s future husband and, when she wasn’t looking, gave me squiggly eyebrows that let me know he had a fairly accurate idea of what had happened between Felix and me. They’re business partners, but they’ve been inseparable since they were in diapers. Zach is basically the third Clark sibling, and Felix tells him everything.

Bridget takes the rye out of the cupboard. “I’m looking forward to having a bit of fun,” she says. “The four of us haven’t hung out in years—it’s a special occasion.”

“True,” I say, watching her pour two generous glasses.

For a second, I let myself imagine what it might be like to spend all my nights like this, here with these people. Drinks with my best friend. A fully stocked fridge. Waiting for Felix to return home with seafood. It would be a nice life.

Bridget lifts her glass to mine as the mudroom door opens. Felix walks in, carrying several boxes of oysters. His eyes meet mine, and my heart hums happily.

Felix is home.

I give my head a shake because I will never spend all my nights like this. There can never be anything deeper between Felix and me. I don’t want anything deeper. He’s my best friend’s brother. He lives on Prince Edward Island. My life is in Toronto. Felix has a track record of sleeping with tourists, and I’m simply one of them. I’m here to support Bridget and nothing else. I should memorize it, repeat it at the top of every hour, tattoo it on my forehead so I don’t forget.

“What’s going on here?” Felix asks, eyeing our drinks and then the two of us. “Lucy looks like she’s seasick, and you look like you’re up to no good,” he tells Bridget.

She tilts her head to me, eyebrows lifted. It’s a silent, You okay?

I nod.

“We’re celebrating,” Bridget says, turning her attention back to Felix. She takes out another glass and fills half of it with rye, handing it to him.

“What are we celebrating?” he asks, assessing his very large tumbler of brown liquor with skepticism. The stubble on his face is darker than it was yesterday. I wonder what it would be like to see him every day, to watch his beard grow in. I need to stop this.

I take a long sip of the rye. Maybe I can whiskey my fantasies into oblivion.

“You and me and Bee and Zach,” Bridget says. “All of us together.”

Felix and I lock eyes.

Bridget clinks her glass against ours. “Cheers.”

Her phone pings, and she scowls at the screen. She types furiously, muttering to herself, then sets the device onto the counter with such force, I check whether she’s broken the screen. She hasn’t, but I see Miles’s name at the top of a text chain, and a message that reads:


This is crazy. We should talk it out in person.



I look to Bridget.

“It’s fine,” she says.

“Umm . . .”

“I don’t want to discuss it right now.”

Felix leans over to peek at her screen.

“Stop looking at my phone.” She snatches it away.

“I don’t like it when the Clark family parties without me,” Zach calls from the door.

“What timing,” Felix says under his breath as Zach strides across the living room.

He’s a tall Black man with close-cropped hair and dressed in a polo and khaki shorts. He’s so preposterously handsome that the thought of him and Felix bashing around the island together as two single guys makes me want to put them both in a corner and give them a time-out.

He hands Felix a bag of peanuts and a bottle of rye “for the stash,” then holds his arms out for Bridget.

“It’s been too long,” she says.

“Your fault,” he tells her.

He greets me with a short “Lucy.”

“Good to see you again,” I say.

Zach stares at me, unblinking. “You too.”

“When was the last time you were home?” he asks Bridget as we gather around the kitchen island.

“I was out for a week at Christmas.”

“That’s right,” he says, as if he’s only now remembering. Felix rolls his eyes. Zach’s crush on Bridget began before his seventh-grade growth spurt, and he’s not subtle. “Wolf and I slaughtered you and Miles in Trivial Pursuit.”

Bridget looks out the window, and Zach winces. Felix has obviously filled him in on the little we know about Bridget’s situation.

“I’ll marry you, Bridge,” Zach announces after a minute.

“Obviously,” Felix and I chime at the same time.

The room is silent for a moment, and then everyone laughs, even Bridget.

“I mean it, though,” Zach says after we quiet down.

“We know,” Felix and I say in stereo again. I glance at him, and he’s smiling, not exactly at me, but at least in my general direction.

“I don’t think Lana would mind, Bridge,” Zach goes on. “She’s pretty liberal-minded.”

“Who’s Lana?” I ask.

“New girlfriend,” Felix says.

“Not that new,” Zach corrects. “But definitely out of my league.”