This Summer Will Be Different(38)

“Welcome to the Clark family,” Bridget said.

I smiled. “I like it here. Aside from the knife.”

We were halfway through the potatoes when I heard the mudroom door swing open. It was almost like the atoms in the house had rearranged. I knew Felix was there before he called out, “Happy Thanksgiving.”

I turned around slowly, my pulse rocketing.

Felix was walking across the living room, a large canvas backpack over his shoulder. His hair was longer than it had been when I saw him last. He still had the beard, a little shaggier than before, and he wore a nubby oatmeal wool sweater that I bet his grandma had knit. Bridget had one just like it. His jeans were cuffed over a pair of scuffed gray suede boots. He looked cozy and a little rumpled. Autumn Felix.

“Wolf!” Christine and Bridget cried out in unison, crossing the floor to meet him.

He dropped his bag and hugged his mother, then his sister. I couldn’t look away.

“Hi, Lucy,” he said when he let Bridget go.

I don’t know how he made my name sound like foreplay. I took a shaky breath. “Hey, Wolf.”

His eyebrow arched, but he was smiling. God, he was glorious.

“How are you here?” Bridget asked.

“Found an earlier flight. Thought it would be fun to surprise everyone.”

I returned to the potatoes, my hands far less steady than before. I felt the heat of him before he spoke.

“You haven’t been practicing.”

“I am now. Your mother is a tyrant,” I said, glancing over my shoulder. Our eyes met. Snap.

Felix chuckled. “That she is. May I?” He gestured to the knife. I passed it to him, but he shook his head. “Try it again.”

He adjusted my hand, and I felt the electricity zip from the pads of his fingers down to the base of my spine. “Good.”

Felix stepped away, leaned his hip against the counter, watching me. It didn’t help with the wobbly fingers.

“Are you going to stand there and lord over me?”

“I’m not that much taller than you. I can’t lord.”

I turned to him. “Your shoulders are like six feet wide. You’re lording.”

“It’s true,” Bridget said, picking up the vegetable peeler. “You’re lording.”

Felix scoffed. “I’ll go take a shower, then.”

I should have kept my gaze on the knife, but I met Felix’s eyes. They were dancing, not heated exactly, but definitely teasing.

“Not happening,” I mouthed to him, and he laughed. Because it wasn’t happening. This time was still going to be different—it didn’t matter that Felix had waltzed in looking like sex.

“Suit yourself,” he whispered, leaving me to the potatoes and the image of Felix Clark in the shower.

He stayed close most of the day, helping with the cranberry sauce, setting the table with Bridget, telling us about the hostel he’d stayed at in Lisbon, the castles he’d visited in Sintra, the cherry liqueur and vinho verde. When Bridget asked about the plans for the cottages, he described them in such vivid detail that I could imagine myself walking around the rooms, stepping onto the deck. Felix had a way of painting pictures with words that I hadn’t noticed before, and he sounded different than he had the last time I’d seen him, more mature.

For dinner, there were baked oysters with bacon and Worcestershire sauce (an Aussie preparation Miles had introduced to the Clarks on his maiden visit that summer), followed by turkey, stuffing, acorn squash, mashed potato casserole, green bean casserole, mashed turnip, and Brussels sprouts—a laughable amount of food. I had extra helpings of everything.

A bigger crowd than usual was gathered around the table—two sets of grandparents, two cousins, and an aunt—and the space was tight. I was acutely aware of Felix sitting beside me. Of our elbows knocking as we ate. Of the way our fingers touched when he passed me the platter of turkey, how a current pinged from his pinkie to mine. I could think of little else aside from how good he smelled, how warm his body was next to mine, how well that body worked with my body. When his knee bumped against my knee, an accidental nudge, I almost jumped out of my chair. He laughed quietly.

The volume setting of a Clark family gathering, the number of voices competing to be heard, overlapping in happy arguments and in-jokes, made it so that only I could hear when Felix leaned toward my ear and asked, “Do I make you nervous, Lucy?”

“Not at all,” I replied, keeping my attention on my dinner.

“Hmm,” he said, then took a bite of stuffing.

“Hmm,” I said back, spearing a bean with my fork.

We didn’t speak more than a few sentences here and there (“pass the gravy,” “hand me the salt”) for the rest of the night, but I could feel his gaze on me when we cleaned the table and got out the board of Trivial Pursuit. When Bridget sat down at the piano around midnight, and everyone gathered around her with their glasses of rye to sing “Let It Be,” I found myself staring at him openly, and him at me. Felix had a good singing voice, deep and clear, and our eyes didn’t leave each other for the rest of the song.

I had offered to give Felix his old room back, but he said he was happy to sleep on the pull-out sofa in the TV room. I washed my face, changed into my nightgown, and braided my hair with trembling fingers. I lay down, but I couldn’t be still. Felix didn’t sleep in this bed anymore and I had been the one in it the last few days, but I swear I could smell him on the sheets. I must have tossed and turned for an hour. I felt like an everlasting sparkler, sizzling and sparking in the dark, no end to the burning. I hadn’t been this sexually frustrated in . . . ever? I had never craved another person the way I craved Felix. The house was silent, everyone having long since fallen asleep. I threw back the sheets and paced the floor of the bedroom.