This Summer Will Be Different(41)

When I wake up in Felix’s old bedroom and the room is bright and the clock says ten thirty, my first reaction is panic.

I call Farah immediately.

“This better be important, Lucy,” she says when she answers. “We’re in the middle of getting our deliveries ready.”

“I overslept. I wanted to make sure I didn’t miss anything.”

I hear her mutter under her breath. “Did you find another time to meet with Lillian about the restaurant contract?”

“I did. Tomorrow evening. I’ll be back in time.”

“Great, so until then, I need you to start behaving like you’re on vacation. Enjoy your last day. Forget about us here, and for the sake of my sanity and yours, will you please kindly fuck off?”

She hangs up, and I stare at the screen. I don’t think Farah’s ever told me to fuck off before. Overt displays of frustration fall outside the narrow range of emotions she allows others to witness.

I find Bridget and Felix in the kitchen, sitting across from each other at the table, drinking their first cups of tea and speaking in hushed tones. Felix sees me first.

We stayed out on the beach last night, talking, until I began to shiver. I would have lain there all night if Felix hadn’t noticed. I would have stayed beside him until my teeth chattered and my fingers turned to ice. It was almost two a.m. when we whispered good night in the kitchen.

“What’s wrong?” he says now, and Bridget turns around in her seat.

“Are you okay, Bee?”

“I slept in. Went into a minor tailspin that the store was on fire, or our delivery guy canceled, or our website crashed, or the cooler broke in the night, or Farah got a stomach bug, or any multitude of disasters that could happen before ten in the morning.”

Felix and Bridget stare back at me with worried expressions, looking more like siblings than ever.

“But everything was fine?” Bridget asks.

“Yeah.” I take a deep breath, put on a smile that Bridget must see through, because she gets to her feet and throws her arms around me. “Poor sweet potato.” She leads me to the table. “Let’s get you something to eat. Wolf offered to make breakfast.”

“Did he offer, or did you refuse?” I glance at Felix, who’s already getting out of his chair.

“Little bit of Column A, little bit of Column B,” Bridget says.

No one is dressed for the day. Felix is in soft pants that are obscene if you choose to look closely, and she’s in shorts and another one of her dad’s T-shirts. This one reads, HISTORY TEACHER. NOUN. JUST LIKE NORMAL TEACHER, BUT COOLER.

“I don’t mind cooking breakfast,” Felix says. He’s moved to the coffee maker.

“I can do that,” I tell him, reaching for the box of filters in his hand. Our fingers touch, and for a second we stand there, holding the box between us. It’s the smallest slice of his skin against the smallest slice of mine. Innocent. A nothing of a touch. Except my heart speeds up and my breathing does, too. Felix shifts his index finger, drawing a line over mine, and then releases the little yellow box of paper filters. It happens so fast that I think I may have imagined him touching me, but it’s also possible he didn’t notice that he was doing it. That his finger wandered of its own volition. Maybe his body betrays him the same way mine does. But now my nerves are frayed and I’m picturing Felix naked and kneeling over me in the TV room, and I end up spilling coffee grounds all over the counter and floor.

I’m filling my mug after cleaning up my mess, my free hand unconsciously rubbing the knot between my neck and shoulder when I feel him watching me. When I check, he’s closer than I expected. I could reach out and touch him. I automatically glance to see if Bridget’s noticed, but she’s not at the table.

“She’s in the bathroom,” Felix says. He nods in the direction of my shoulder. “What’s going on there?”

“Seventy-hour workweeks.”

“Want me to massage it?”

I go from a normal Lucy shade to hibiscus red in the second it takes me to say, “Umm.”

“I’m not going to bite.” His eyes are sparkling. Sunbeams on ocean waves. This Felix I’m used to. He’s good at flirting. A natural. It takes nothing to be drawn in.

“You’ve been known to bite,” I find myself saying.

He throws his head back and laughs.

“I’ll take a rain check,” I tell him. Felix’s hands on my body are one of the things I want the most and need the least.

Bridget lays out the agenda for today while we eat the scrambled eggs and bacon Felix prepared. The three of us will visit Green Gables Heritage Place in Cavendish and have lunch at Blue Mussel Café in North Rustico. I’m ordering the beer and lime mussels and the seafood chowder poutine. Bridget is already dreaming about the seafood bubbly bake. Then we’ll head back to Summer Wind for some downtime before we trek out to Tyne Valley with Zach for the oyster-shucking championship.

But when we’re showered and dressed and it’s time to get on our way, Bridget is buried in her phone.

“I’m going to hang back,” Bridget says.

Felix and I share a glance. “Are you sure?” I ask.

“You should get out of the house for a while,” Felix says.