This Summer Will Be Different(67)
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We spend the afternoon so tightly knit together that I can’t say for sure where Felix ends and I begin. When my stomach grumbles, Felix pulls me from his old bed.
“Let’s go out.”
We dress, and Felix tosses me the keys to the Mustang. I almost trip on the rug trying to catch them.
He picks up the keys off the ground and hands them to me. “You drive.”
After some jerky shifts and a few reminders from Felix, I have the hang of it again. The rain has stopped, but moody clouds linger, the departing sun slung low and plump between them. Shadows grow long, and the fields glow gold. The ocean is dark, twinkling with promise. Felix’s profile is washed in orange and gold. We crest a hill and are met with a stunning vista of cliffs and sea. I let out a long exhale.
I follow Felix’s instructions to a roadside fish and chips stand and fold the towels he packed over the damp picnic table bench. We sit side by side, thighs kissing, ankles twined.
Without asking, Felix opens a couple of ketchup packets and squirts them on my fries. It’s how I like to eat them—uneven dollops of red sauce, some bites sweeter than others. These details we’ve stored about each other.
I press my lips to his when he’s done. “Thank you.”
“For the ketchup?”
“For the ketchup.”
I open three more packets and squeeze them into a puddle for dipping on the side of his basket, the way he likes.
“I can’t believe you have to leave in two days,” Felix says. “I’ve just got you.”
“I know.” But I’m grinning. I’ve just got you. I don’t know what this is, but I like it already.
“I’ll be in Toronto later this week for the wedding.”
“I’m very aware.”
“I’ve booked a hotel room.” His eyes ask the question.
“Cancel,” I say. “Stay with me.”
His smile is magnificent. “Is your bed pink?”
“Does that matter?”
“I like your pink.” His gaze drops to my mouth.
“You make that sound dirty.”
“It might be.”
“Well, the bed is white. The walls are pale pink.”
“Perfect.”
“Felix Clark among the streetlights and traffic and skyscrapers. You are made for the East Coast, but I like picturing you in the city.”
He hums, then swipes his thumb over a dot of ketchup at the corner of my mouth. He sucks it off his thumb. “I’m made for a lot of things.”
I’m going to miss this place. I’m going to miss this man.
On the way back to Summer Wind, we stop at a market and Felix buys oysters for dessert.
“You never get sick of them, huh?” he says after I’ve polished off my eighth. We’re snuggled on the outdoor sofa. Citronella candles flicker in jars around the deck.
I squeeze a lemon wedge over my ninth. “Never.”
“You still eat like you’re from away,” he says with fondness.
“I am from away.”
“You’ve been here so many times, you’re practically an islander.”
“I think island regulations stipulate you have to spend at least three winters on PEI before you can claim that title.”
Felix smiles. “Five, actually. I like oysters, but they’re not my favorite.”
I jerk my head back, eyes wide. “Excuse me? I don’t think you’re allowed to talk like that. They might not let you compete next year.”
“I prefer my seafood cooked. I’m more of a fish and chips guy.”
“I find this highly offensive, borderline scandalous. No wonder it’s taken you so long to come clean.”
Felix laughs, then prepares an oyster for himself, shaking a bottle of hot sauce on top. “There’s a lot about each other we don’t know yet.”
“Hmm . . . That’s true. Important things. Your favorite color, for instance.”
“Pink.”
“That’s my favorite color.”
“Mine, too,” he says. “Pink like your suitcase. Pink like your lips. Pink like that striped dress with the buttons and the buckles on your sandals. Pink like the ribbon on your nightgown. Lucy pink.”
I don’t even think he’s joking. “Lucy pink. You’re . . .” I shake my head. “You like me.”
“I do.”
I take a deep breath. “It’s going to take me time to get used to that. It feels . . .”
“Like a dream?”
“Or an explicit fantasy.”
He chuckles.
“Favorite number?” I ask.
“Ah, the tough questions. Six.”
“Because?”
“When I turned six, I announced that it was my favorite number, and my dad said when I turned seven, seven would be my favorite number. I decided right then that I’d never let go of six.”
“So committed. Mine is thirteen. I feel the need to show it love.”
“Very generous. Very Lucy.”
“Middle name?”
“Edgar.”
“Felix Edgar Clark,” I repeat. “I can work with that.”