Page 48 of Summer Romance
“Exactly never.”
“Huh.” I turn my body completely toward him. “Why not? You’re all grown up now, and you know who you are.”
He hesitates before he speaks, concentrating on the road. “Devon feels like solid ground. Back in Beechwood, I feel like I’m in quicksand.”
“You feel pretty solid to me.”
“With you, yes. For sure.” He takes my hand and turns back to the road. “But I finally have a life that I feel good about. I’m not going to walk away from it to run the inn or whatever.”
“Do they want you to run the inn?”
“Oh my God, are you kidding? Besides me being a high school quarterback, that’s pretty much always been their big dream. Bigger than the corporate law job and the two point five kids. Frannie at the diner, me at the inn. The thought of it makes me feel like I’m disappearing.” He laughs.
I sit with this for a second. I try to imagine being Ethan and living in Beechwood and finally giving in to his parents’ vision of his life.
“Is that so weird it’s made you go mute?” he asks.
“No. I get it. You have a life up there that’s your own. And if you stayed in Beechwood, you’d lose that part of yourself.”
It’s nine fifteenwhen we pull into my driveway. I want to invite him in, which is ridiculous because my kids could be home at any time. I turn to him and try to think of something to say, because I don’t want to get out of the car.
“You should go in,” he says.
“I guess.” He should kiss me now. We are at that part of the movie. Overnight date and a kiss goodbye. I don’t like thinking there’s a possibility that he’s watching a different movie than I am.
“Thanks for coming with me,” he says.
“You have a good life up there.”
“I’m glad you saw that, thanks. Sometimes I think my family thinks I’m crazy.”
“They definitely think you’re crazy.”
He laughs, and then we’re just sitting there looking ateach other. It’s like when you’re a teenager talking on the phone with your boyfriend in the dark and neither of you wants to hang up.
“You should go in,” he says again. He leans in and kisses me softly, just the press of his lips against mine. It’s a we-have-all-the-time-in-the-world kiss, but I am aching for all of it, the rest of it, right now.
“Of course,” I say, and undo my seat belt. “Thanks again. And for dinner.” I reach into the backseat to grab Ferris, and Ethan walks around to open my door and help us out.
As I walk into my house, there’s a knowing coming at me all at once, and I don’t really want to take it in. This is not going to be a lighthearted summer romance where we ride bikes with ice cream cones in our hands. It’s going to be the kind where the waves crash over us as we feverishly make love on the sand. It has a different soundtrack, but it ends the same.
26
I am so happy to see my kids when Pete drops them off at 9:50 that I forget to be tired. I try to modulate my enthusiasm so they will know I missed them but that I wasn’t miserable without them. And, of course, I wasn’t. Even putting this huge leap forward with Ethan aside, I enjoyed the break and the chance to move in the world as just myself. I loved walking around in his world and having a backstage pass to his heart. Ferris, however, does not keep his cool and runs shamelessly around the three of them.
They have a lot to say about Pete’s new apartment and their rooms there. Greer and Iris have twin beds and beanbag chairs, and Cliffy’s room looks out onto the train station.
Pete hugs them goodbye and makes a big show of making them promise not to tell me what they had for dinner last night. I let him have his secret.
“Can I have cereal?” Cliffy asks when Pete’s gone.
“Didn’t you guys have breakfast?” I ask.
Iris is first to defend her dad. “We slept kind of late and Dad said you needed us back by ten.”
“That’s fine,” I say into the refrigerator as I’m discovering we are out of milk. “Want to go get pancakes at the diner?”
They’re ecstatic, which is fun. I say, “Okay, five minutes; let me get dressed and check on Phyllis real quick.”
