Page 11 of Summer Romance
He laughs, and I watch his mouth so close to mine. I don’t know how much time you can spend looking at someone’s mouth before it becomes awkward, but I’m probably pushing it.
“I’m glad you agreed to come with me. You’re fun, and of course the alternatives were coming by myself or another night with my family.”
“Is your family not fun?” I take a peanut from his hand.
“They’re actually very fun. But you know how it can be.”
I don’t, actually. I don’t really have a baseline for what most families are like. “I don’t.”
“They’re great. They really are. But I’m the person in the family who doesn’t quite fit in.” He looks out at the field and then back at me. “The outlier, you know? I think maybe they always wanted me to be someone different.”
“Different how?”
“Well, like a football player, for starters. My dad never got over the fact that I wasn’t interested in football.” Hepops a peanut into his mouth. “It was like he hoped one day I’d come down for breakfast in pads and a helmet and make his dreams come true.”
I think of Cliffy and feel a pit in my stomach. I know this is the vibe he’s getting from Pete. “That stinks,” I say, at a loss for better words. The best thing about my mom was that she saw me for exactly who I was.
“Yeah, and it’s sort of still like that. They don’t understand why I live up in Devon. I have a great life there, but it’s like they’re waiting for me to snap out of it, go back to working at a law firm in Manhattan, and bring my wife and two point five kids to Sunday dinner.”
“No one ever tells you the point-five kid turns into a full kid, every time,” I say.
He laughs. “Should we work on our eye contact some more?”
We lock eyes, and it’s playful. He stepped into a vulnerable topic and stepped right out. I’d like to be able to do that.
We get icecream sandwiches on the way out and eat them as we walk back to the boat. They’re the classic kind with thin chocolate wafers that stick to the roof of your mouth. They’re delicious, and we lick our fingers and share napkins as the vanilla ice cream drips down our wrists.
As we approach the water, the moon casts a perfect stripe that ends at the dock. I stop to look, because it’s magic the way it lines up so perfectly. A one-in-a-million chance, sort of like a handsome man passing through my town onthe exact day I take off my ring. It’s starting to feel like a champagne summer.
Ethan powers up the boat and we head out into the sound. He’s driving slowly, and I’m glad because I’m not ready for this night to be over. After a few minutes, he cuts the engine.
“Are you in a hurry to get back?” he asks.
“Not even a little bit,” I say, and smile, because it’s true.
He smiles back. “Let’s just float for a bit.”
I follow him to the back of the boat, where he plops down on the lounge seat and puts his feet up on the center console. I do the same, and we are back to where we were in the stadium—reclined, shoulders touching, and leaning into one another.
“Comfortable?” he asks.
“Yes.” It’s odd how the space is so small again. The sky stretches above us and there’s water as far as I can see, but I’m cozy here with Ethan.
“So what’s your life like? Single with three kids?”
I turn my head toward him. He’s looking at me with that open-faced expression, like he’s ready to take on anything. “It’s like you’d imagine it,” I say.
“How do I imagine it?”
“Sort of hectic but beautiful. I have great kids. My husband. My ex-husband I guess. Pete, with the sausage pants. He doesn’t really step in much.” Okay, Rule Number One on a Date: don’t say “husband.”
“Does anyone help you out?”
Rule Number Two: don’t say “dead mother.” “My friend Frannie is great. She’s with my kids tonight.”
Something passes across his face. It’s a slight expressionshift, almost a wince, that makes me think he’s about to take this conversation in a different direction.
“What?”
