“Would I kid about soda rockets? Let’s take this to the yard.”
We spend the next hour trying to generate increasingly fizzy explosions and laughing, and I think about how much fun any kid would have playing in this forest-enclosed yard.
Shoot, it’s fun for me. I can’t remember the last time I laughed this much, especially when Sawyer makes a major miscalculation and ends up with a face full of Diet Coke.
He tops it all off by leading me to the opposite side of his house and the open garage, revealing two ATVs. “I borrowed them from the camp. There’s some pretty cool trails around here. You down?”
“I’m down,” I confirm, beelining for the bright green one.
For the next two hours, we race and explore, checking out the side of Lake Lupine opposite camp, a part I’ve never explored before. It’s as lake-y and woodsy as our side, but I love driving through it with Sawyer, frequently stopping to admire a bird or a plant or whatever catches our attention.
Mostly that’s Sawyer. He’s got all my attention, and everything else—the giant lake, big forest, and basically Mother Nature—gets whatever scraps of attention I have left.
This reminds me so much of old summers. The jokes, the easy vibe, the sense of adventure and possibility of what we’ll find in the next glade or hollow. But nothing reminds me of that time more than my uncertainty about Sawyer.
The same questions that ran through my mind then run through it now:Does he like me? Like, like me orlikeme? Does he just want to be friends for real? It seems like there’s more there, but howmuchmore? I want it to be maybe “fun summer make out” more, not the angsty kind of more. So what if helikesme? Do I hit him with a water balloon and escape? Do I want to escape?
We finally drive the ATVs back to the main office. We cut the engines and Sawyer smiles at me. “Walk you home?”
“Sure.” I remove my helmet and leave it on the seat, and we head toward the guest house trail. He doesn’t try to take my hand or even start a conversation. He’s always been like that, instinctively understanding how to respect my space. And now, like then, it’s a comfortable silence as we walk the half mile through the woods.
When it ends at the clearing for the family cabins, he stays on the trail as I step out from the trees.
“Have I made my case for friendship yet?” he asks.
I give a careless shrug. “I don’t know,buddy. I was promised three dat—hangs—before I decide. Need to gather more data.”
“Fully supported. I was thinking a picnic. Tomorrow. The old dock. Sunrise.”
The scene of the crime. The one that screwed us up all these years. Same place. Same time. Same activity.
What. Is. He. Up. To?!
Chapter 19
Iwakeupthenext morning to a thunderclap followed by a knock on the cottage door.
Sawyer.
I hop out of bed and throw on my robe, reaching the door as he knocks again. But when I open it, Natalie stands there in a dripping poncho, smiling, and I pull her in out of the rain.
“Hey. I didn’t wake you up, did I?”
Fully aware my fresh bedhead looks like Juniper styled my hair with an eggbeater, I point to my curls. “Nope. This is a choice.”
“Bold.”
“What’s up? Something wrong?”
“No, everything is good. But your sister called the office last night asking for you. She said you’re in big trouble and call her back right away, but also, it’s not an emergency. And Sawyer said to tell you he’ll figure out a different activity.”
I smile. “Thanks for telling me. Sorry you had to come all the way down here to deliver that. You could have sent Kylie or Jared with it.”
“Sure, but when I told them to hit you up for all the details on your sexy times with Sawyer, they expressed concern.”
“Dork. There are no sexy times to report. Why would you even think that?”
“Make some up and thrill me.”
