He didn’t look. “I’m sure it’s fine.”
“But—”
“Hey, Tab. It’s good to see you.”
I sighed. “Did I scare you at all?”
His pupils flared for the tiniest microsecond. I would have missed it if I wasn’t staring right in his face when he said, “No.”
But I did see it. He’d been scared for a second, and I suddenly felt better about this summer now that I’d wrestled back the upper hand. “Is there a dog?”
“No.”
“Help me up,” he said.
I stood and reached down to pull him to his feet, but when he was standing, instead of letting go, he leaned down like he was going to kiss me.
I froze, mesmerized as I watched his head lowering to mine, but he swerved at the last second and whispered in my ear instead. “I can’t wait to pay you back.”
An electric zing shot down my spine as he turned and sauntered toward the car.
I stared after him, not sure I’d gotten the upper hand at all.
Chapter 7
Present
Isquintatthedeck, not sure I trust my eyes. Sawyer Reed is here. At Camp Oak Crest. Or right next to it. Sawyer Reed, in the flesh.
I scuttle behind the nearest tree. The trail opens to the side of his house—a house as big as the largest cabin down on my beach—and the front faces the lake. It has a wraparound deck, and the side where Sawyer works at a patio table also boasts a hot tub.
He’s in shorts and a tank top, his laptop open in front of him as he types furiously. The slightest turn of his head will give him a clear view of the trail.
I barely breathe even though there’s no way he could hear me. It’s at least forty yards to the edge of the deck.
He’s broader through the shoulders, bigger in the way boys become when they grow into their bodies, but the set of them is so familiar, my palms go sweaty.
Even at a distance, I can tell he’s a hotter version of the Sawyer I knew.
Dang it, Sawyer.
And all of that aside,why is he here?
Ben and Natalie must know about this. Why did they lie and say he wouldn’t be?
I review every mention of Sawyer in my mind, but all Natalie had specifically said was “He’s hardly ever here,” not that he wasn’t here now. And that he wouldn’t be at the gala, and I wouldn’t bump into him.
But she hadn’t flat out said Sawyer was not at Oak Crest.
But I’ve bumped into him. Or nearly have. He just doesn’t know it yet.
In a way, it’s almost not surprising. I’ve been so immersed in memories from the minute I landed in Virginia that I can almost believe I’ve manifested him in the flesh.
He pauses his typing to stretch his neck and limber his fingers, two more parts of him I’d gotten to know well our last summer. A blur of senses and snatches of memory crashes over me in an intense wave of nostalgia.
For a few breathless seconds, I’m nine years in the past, feeling every glance from Sawyer like a touch, sneaking in time to press so tightly together that I don’t know where my breaths end and his begin.
I lean back against the tree, resting my head against the trunk as I process the wash of feelings and consider this new development. My chest is tight, my palms sweating. What would Therapist Jane tell me to do?
