Summer's Road (7 page)

“Yes. What are you going to wear?”

My laugh came easily at his dry tone. “Eric, Dee dresses me. That’s what she’s good at. We’re going shopping in Myrtle while we’re down there.”

A dramatic sigh. “Thank God. And your hair?”

“What’s wrong with my hair?”

“How can someone be so intelligent and beautiful and clueless?”

That sounded an awful lot like an insult wrapped in a compliment.

Another sigh. “Tell me you have someone
professionally
styling your hair. You’re not coming to the event in that horrid ponytail you seem so fond of.”

My hand went to my head, lacing my fingers through my ponytail with a pout.

“Never mind. I’m sending you to Miranda again.”

“Okay.” One less thing I needed to worry about. Dee had been putting my hair up in one of those fancy twist things until last year when Eric and Edward had sent me to Miranda. Admittedly, it had looked wonderful. Not growing up with a mother around, I just wasn’t schooled in all things girly. It didn’t help that my two best friends had been boys.

“Now we’re done,” he said. “Call me when you get back from vacation and we can set up a walk through.”

I hung up and turned to the painting I’d just finished before Eric called. It was kinda crazy how fast it had come along. After I had gotten back from dinner with Ian last night, it had commanded all my attention. I should’ve been working on a piece for the show but, ever since the idea sprung, I couldn’t put it out of my head. So goes my muse. Couldn’t shut her up some days.

In the painting, Ian was leaning against the window seat in my bedroom, wearing his infamous faded jeans and nothing else. In one hand was a long neck bottle of beer, a hammer in the other. Behind him, out the window, instead of the two acres between our homes, I painted the beach at Seasmoke. The day was just breaking and, in the far distance, I was sitting on the beach, looking up at the window instead of the sunrise.

I grinned in satisfaction. It looked just like him when he was creating a furniture piece in his head, oblivious to the world around him. Not unlike me, I suppose, with my art.

Before this piece, I hadn’t completed a painting in two months. The canvases ready for the auction were older pieces. I had a series of half-started works and little to show for it. I paced the room. Too easily, I had given up on my recent painting, a scene of my river birches at night with the fireflies glowing. Even the painting of Main Street in Wylie stood unfinished. Normally, painting helped to sooth and lull my mind out of the darkness, kept me from slipping back into the void. But even that hadn’t worked lately. I felt restless, like at any moment I’d be right back to the empty shell who didn’t give a damn about anything.

God. I couldn’t do that to Ian again, to any of my friends. Or the kids.

The benefit was coming up soon. I needed more material. There were some amateur artists who donated pieces. My students had their work in the bidding, too. But my paintings always sold out, were the first to go. For the most amount of money, too. That’s what it was all about. Money for the kids.

Sitting down at my computer, I logged on again. I pulled up the two social media sites I had accounts for and answered my messages and posts. Not one to use the sites often, there were a lot. I had created them because Dee thought it would be a great idea to boost donations for my benefit and show off my paintings. In honesty, I seemed to get more date requests than anything else. Checking the account and website for the auction, I responded to those emails.

The caterer had emailed already. Approving the grilled salmon, almond green beans, and wild rice, I emailed back with the dessert request I’d discussed earlier with Eric.

Now what? It was too late to call Dee. Attempting to sleep would be futile. I’d just lie awake and stare at the walls. Especially when I was this wound up.

I looked out the window. Ian’s light was still on next door. Perfect. Lifting the new painting of him, mindful not to touch the still wet edges, I stared at my best friend’s image.

Peter at the hobby store had claimed Ian was in love with me. I let the notion swirl around in my mind for just a moment. Which was stupid and dangerous. If I allowed myself to ride that thought train too long, I might grow to like the idea. He was the opposite of what I needed, and I was the opposite of what he wanted.

Besides, the idea was ridiculous. Why was I even letting Peter’s comment get to me?

Ian

I
watched Summer’s bedroom light from my window, as I did just about every night since we were fifteen. There wasn’t anything to see, just a soft glow through the weeping willow branches from across the two acres between us, but it was habit. My gut tightened as I took a swig of beer, the condensation from the long neck bottle soaking my hand.

Pacing my bedroom, I glared at her everywhere I turned. There’s been no escape for years now. Stupidly, I’d kept every ridiculous trinket she’d ever bought or made me, even the little ceramic frog she’d done in fifth grade art class. At least, that’s what she’d said it was. It didn’t look like a frog. Pictures of us as kids, as adults, and our families scattered the dark blue walls. I stared at the one of Tom, Summer, and myself outside her house. There was a pull in my chest as I remembered Tom, lying in bed, too sick to even hold his daughter in the end.

Christ. Our lives were like a jacked up version of Dawson’s Creek, sans the romance, emphasis on the witty banter. And now I was pissed off I even knew the show’s premise. Summer’s fault for making me watch the effing crap every week when it had been on air.

That was our relationship. She remembered climbing the birches near the creek and laughing. I remembered crying hysterically when she fell and broke her arm. She remembered the dancing and ambiance of senior prom. I remembered the navy dress she wore and the linebacker’s hands on her. Summer-
damn
-Quinn saw the world as if it was a painting waiting to be created. I only saw her.

Yeah. I surpassed pathetic about nine years before. Didn’t even pass Go or collect two-hundred dollars. I’d call her my kryptonite, but I was no Superman and I didn’t have the urge to flee from her whenever she was within ten yards. She did make me weak as hell, though. One bat of her eyelashes, one genuine grin, one
pretty please
from her lips, and I caved. Every time.

I caught her light go off out of the corner of my eye and stilled, wondering what she dreamed of in the quiet of her room. She still made wishes like an expectant child. She actually believed in things like happily ever after. Truth was, I didn’t mind the hopelessly romantic movies she made me watch or listening to her babble endlessly about a painting she was working on. It meant she was breathing, was wanting to fight. And sometimes, she made me believe, too. That we could be more. That, one day, she’d see me. Any time with her, regardless of what we did, was worth it.

For a while there, after her father died, I didn’t think she dreamed at all anymore. It was like a light had gone off in her. For someone like Summer, she may as well have been dead. We brought her back, though—Rick, Dee, and myself. Barely, but we’d brought her back from the brink.

Did she allow herself to remember our childhood? All the adventures we’d had, the fun? Or was it all a black void to her to expunge the grief? Like when we were eight and Rick had fallen in the river after swinging from a low branch where the edge of Lake Wylie opened. Rick had flailed his arms and legs while screaming bloody murder until he discovered he was only in a foot of water. We’ve called him Rivers ever since.

I dropped on my bed, recalling when Rick rushed inside her house to tell Summer he was getting married. The girl who never cried in all the time I’d known her had a mist in her eyes. She’d always had a softness for Rivers. There was never anything romantic about it. Not in all the years Rick lived across the shallow waters had he ever laid a hand on Summer.

But I wanted to.

The night Rick and Dee wed was permanently hung on my mind’s memory wall. Summer had looked beautiful that night. Her eyes sparkled watching our two best friends say their vows. The long red bridesmaids dress had been a little too big, her hair pulled up in some sort of twist. She’d been all mine that night. Walking down the aisle, on the dance floor.

I should have married Kasey Mae Fillmore in the third grade when she’d asked. Maybe things would be different now. Maybe I wouldn’t be pining for the girl next door like a hopeless poet.

I sat up and finished off my beer, glancing at her window again and hoping to God she still dreamed. I didn’t care what about, just so long as she did. Matt was closing in on sealing the deal. That was one of her dreams, starting a family. It was obvious to everyone but Summer he loved her. According to her, Matt had finally told her so. What had started out as teenage hormones one summer vacation on the beach had morphed into a quasi-relationship. But now they weren’t just a fling, they were dating.

I didn’t like it. Not one iota. When push came to shove, Matt was the only man Summer would think to get serious with. Because he was safe. He didn’t make her feel anything but warm cozies. There was no punch of lust on her end, no bearing her soul and shredding her heart. She could live without him. And that’s why she’d stick with him. No risk. Safety.

Which meant there would never be any hope for us. Hope was all I held onto.

Frustrated, I lay down, listening to the faint sound of her chimes and trying to ignore the scent of lilac from her yard. Fruitless. I picked up my copy of
To Kill a Mockingbird
from the nightstand
,
an old favorite, and was comforted by the smell of aged paper and binding as I dove in to escape.

I looked up a short while later at the sound of footsteps. Summer’s, to be exact. She walked like a mouse. She emerged in my doorway, holding a large canvas.

“What’s that?” Rising from bed, I reached out to help her, but she pulled back.

“It’s still a bit tacky.” She turned the canvas around and set it on the floor against a bookshelf. She stepped out of the way, brushing her paint-splattered hands together.

All the air left my lungs. I was unsure whether to laugh or cry, as I was damn tempted to do both. She’d captured me in her room, where I always waited for her. Holding a hammer, I was immersed in thought. I was probably thinking about my latest woodworking idea, which only she could know the depth of my devotion. Funny she’d painted herself on the beach watching me from a distance. As a protector or a potential lover? There was an odd romanticism to this piece she hadn’t used in others of me.

Heart hammering, I turned to her. “It’s amazing.” Christ, she had such a knack for bold color and soft strokes. The contrast just ensnared me every time.

She exhaled a yawn and plopped on my bed, laying down. “So, you like it?”

I didn’t know which was harder to look at, her or the way she’d painted me. “No. I
love
it.”

“Good.” She stretched, making her shirt rise and exposing a thin strip of her midriff. “Stven451 on Twitter wants to date me.”

“Yeah?” I glanced down at her. She would drift off to sleep soon. Her blue eyes were heavy and a sleepy smile curved her lips. And in the morning, when I woke, she’d be gone. “Is that the thirteen-year-old in Wyoming?”

She laughed. “No, the fifty-year-old in Romania.”

Summer could remember just about every face and detail about her online friends, but she couldn’t see me right here in front of her. Couldn’t, or didn’t want to see, the one who wanted her most. Not that I lay the blame on her. I’d never let on I’d harbored feelings.

Glancing at the ceiling, she rubbed her arm, a tiny wrinkle between her brows.

My gut twisted. “What’s on your mind?”

She shrugged her shoulder against the mattress, but the casual gesture couldn’t hide the unrest etched on her face.

I sat next to her, the bed dipping with my weight, and pulled the blanket up to her chin. “Tell me.”

“I guess I’m just nervous about Matt. I mean, who says ‘I love you, but we need to talk?’” She curled on her side and stared at me through fathomless, almost innocent eyes.

I nodded, not sure what to say. It wasn’t as if the truth was an option.

Propping herself on one elbow, she pursed her lips. “Peter from the hobby store asked me out again. You know what he said when I turned him down?”