Summer's Road (8 page)

I shrugged, but she wasn’t paying attention.

“He asked if the reason I wouldn’t go out with him was because you were in love with me.”

Not that I’d been moving, but I froze. Everything froze. Time. Earth’s rotation.

“Can you believe that crap?” she said. “Imagine that. My best friend and the biggest playboy in Wylie falling in love with me. Absurd.”

I stared at her for several long beats, the edges of my vision graying. She may have claimed it was crap, but she was looking at me as if she was asking for validation. To confirm...what, exactly?

Well, Summer. Peter was right. Except, I’ve been a coward for the past ten years not telling you because
… Why? Christ. For the first time in a decade, I couldn’t remember. All the reasons seemed stupid now.

“Yeah,” I said instead. I opened my mouth to say more—what, I wasn’t sure—but my expression must’ve been unguarded too long.

She jumped off the bed, eyes wide, looking as if I’d filleted her alive. Was the possibility of me loving her that much of a betrayal? “Anyway.” She avoided my gaze and opted to study the floor.

Ah, yes. It was coming back to me now.
That’s
why I never spilled my guts and handed her my heart in a box. Well, one of many reasons. Because if it messed with her idea of content, then she’d shatter. I hadn’t given her any indication Peter was right, but she was starting to freak anyway. For a woman whose life had been a constant flutter of upheaval, she didn’t adjust to change very well. And, if I was being brutally honest, I just didn’t think she felt that tug of longing, of lust, like I did. Her reaction now was proving me right.

Even I had my pride. Most of the time. Buried way deep under a plethora of unresolved tension.

“Movie?” She grabbed the box off my dresser she’d left the other night and held up a DVD case. She inserted the disc into the player, her hands shaking.

Breathe
. I leaned against the headboard and crossed my fingers behind my head, acting for all the world like my heart was beating a steady rhythm. “Does the movie have half-naked women or inanimate objects blowing up?”

She gave me a sullen look, plopping next to me on the bed again as the credits rolled on a Ginger Rodgers and Fred Astaire flick.

Funny how she romanticized everything, but ran from romance. If my inability to answer her question ten seconds ago had her denial gene kicked into battle stance, what would she do when Matt opened up? He was coming to see her tomorrow, assumingly to lay down a plan for a future, so she’d have to face reality.

So would I.

Judging by her heavy lids and giant yawn, she’d be asleep before the opening scene was through. My dark blue blanket was wrapped around her like a shield. It contrasted with her pale skin, making her features seem child-like. Until I took in her caramel hair spilled over the pillow and her pouty lips.

After she was asleep, I brushed a strand of her hair away from her face, letting my knuckle linger on her soft cheek. I covered her with another blanket, knowing she’d get cold and steal mine. If she turned the air conditioner on once in awhile she’d be more accustomed to it. But no, she had to have the summer smell in her house.

I shut off the light, climbed under the covers with her, and laid with my back to her.

And in the morning, when I woke, she was gone. But her sweet lilac scent remained on my sheets.

CHAPTER FIVE

Fourteen Years Ago—Age Ten

I
should’ve just stayed home. I knew this was a bad idea. Who needed Girl Scouts anyway? Not me!

When my troop had announced a mother/daughter hike through the botanical gardens for Mother’s Day, I’d nearly died. After the meeting, my leader, Mrs. Hintz, had told me I should come anyway. That maybe one of the other mothers could go with me. How embarrassing.

I was just going to go home after the meeting and hide the permission slip, but Mrs. Hintz called that night and Daddy asked Ian’s mom to accompany me. It was really nice of her to say yes, but she wasn’t my mother. I didn’t have a mother.

I glanced up from the craft project we were working on at one of the picnic tables at the garden when one of the girls snickered. The mothers were off having coffee cake and tea while the girls were making them Mother’s Day cards. My leader had stepped away to help another table.

My hand froze over the cover of my homemade card. What was I supposed to write? The girl across from me, Jessica, snickered again, but I didn’t look up this time. They were laughing at me. My face was so hot I felt like I had a fever. My stomach bottomed out.

“Look, Tina,” Jessica said to one of the other girls. “Summer doesn’t know what to write to her
fake
mom.”

“Why is she even here?” Tina replied, as if I wasn’t sitting right there and couldn’t hear. “I mean, she had to borrow Ian’s mom to come. How horrible for Ian.”

They laughed again.

My throat tightened. I slouched over my card, biting my tongue so I wouldn’t cry in front of them. Swallowing hard, I just wrote
Happy Mother’s Day
on the front, and
Love, Ian
on the inside. I’d just give it to Ian to give to her.

There was nothing else to say.

Except, the next day, Daddy and I wound up over at the Memmers. Mr. Memmer was grilling burgers and my dad went out to “supervise,” leaving Ian and I alone in the living room with his mama. I felt stupid for intruding, but she’d insisted she wanted her “surrogate daughter” around on Mother’s Day. Whatever that meant.

Ian got up, retrieved something from the other room, and shoved a box of chocolates under his mama’s nose. She
oohed
and
ahhed
, smiling like it was the best gift ever. Ian wedged himself next to me on the couch. His bony elbow dug into my ribs. “Moms like candy, right? Dad said so. I bought that by myself at the drug store.”

I shrugged. How would I know? Then I swallowed hard when Mrs. Memmer opened the card I’d made. She read it aloud and I jerked at my name.

My gaze shot to Ian’s. He’d added my name to the card?

He grinned, exposing a gap where his two front teeth had fallen out. “You made the card. It should be from both of us.” He whispered close to my face so his mom couldn’t hear. His breath was warm and smelled like bubble gum. “We’re besties. We share everything, so I’m sharing my mom. That way you won’t be so sad yours isn’t here. She sucks anyway.”

I blinked really fast, but it was hard not to cry. Ian always knew what to say, like he had no choice but to take care of me. My lip quivered. “Thank you.”

Present

M
att finally pulled into my driveway at nine a.m. I’d been pacing a tread pattern into my living room carpet ever since I’d crawled out of Ian’s house at dawn. After worrying about my mother taking the house, Matt claiming he wanted to talk, and Ian acting all weird last night, I was ready to slam a bottle of Pepto.

Matt’s beige Buick rolled to a stop. His car fit his personality. Ordinary, reliable, and responsible. I could do worse for a boyfriend. That was, if he wasn’t breaking up with me. No, he’d said it was good news, right? The craziest thing, though, was worry didn’t ping my gut at the idea of him breaking things off. From day one, I’d had a compatible like for Matt, but it wasn’t a can’t-live-without-him ache I’d expected from a relationship. Which was probably why we’d been together so long. He didn’t threaten my sense of balance.

He exited his car, but didn’t pop the trunk for an overnight bag. Maybe this was bad news. If he wasn’t staying…

I sighed and stepped out into the early morning heat. Matt’s hair was strawberry blond, bordering on red when he stood in the sun. He carried himself as a man in total confidence with his surroundings. He looked over the hood of his car, caught sight of me on the porch, and grinned. It melted a portion of my nervousness away.

“Hey, beautiful.” He rounded the car, his southern drawl as warm as the day was proving to be.

I leapt off the bottom stair and into his arms. Unlike me to be so affectionate, but I had this insane need to be held. Everything in my life had been off-kilter lately. “Hi, yourself.” I smacked his mouth with a quick kiss. His face was clean shaven, it always was. I wondered if a five o’clock shadow ever dared to tarnish his perfect image. “I missed you.”

And I had. I’d missed him. As horrible as it sounded, I didn’t think about him nearly as much as I should when he wasn’t around. This past week, with him wanting to talk, had forced him into my thoughts more than usual. When he was here, he made that safe feeling I rarely experienced come back, comforting and addictive at the same time. It had been so long since I’d felt that.

“I missed you, too.” He pulled me closer and stole another kiss. Longer, sweeter. There were no butterflies in my belly, no heat in my veins, but it was good. He brought up his other arm, passing a bouquet of flowers into my hands. “For you.”

“You brought me daisies?” I wasn’t sure whether to grin or gush. There was something about daisies that made me adore them. Maybe the happiness they demanded just by being. They were my second favorite flower, orchids being the first.

“I couldn’t bring you roses now, could I?” His eyes lit with amusement. “You hate roses.”

No one had ever noticed before, had ever bothered to ask. Maybe Matt was The One after all. It seemed silly to think something as menial as flowers could render that thought but, to me, it meant everything. It meant he noticed the little things. It meant he cared about the details.

“What’s wrong?”

I forced a grin. “Nothing. Um, you didn’t bring a bag?” I pointed to the car. Typically, he spent the night when he visited. We didn’t have sex, but we would fool around.

“I’m afraid I can’t stay.” He mock-frowned. “I have to drop off some documents in Charlotte and head back to Greensboro for a meeting tomorrow.”

Why wasn’t I disappointed? “You want some sweet tea? Or a beer?” When he smiled, I ushered him inside.

Upon returning from the kitchen with two glasses of sweet tea, I found Matt in the living room in front of the fireplace mantle, studying my photos. He pointed to the one of me, Ian, and Rick in my dad’s old VW.

“I always loved that one,” he said.

“Me, too.” I handed him the tea.

He nodded at the picture of my mother, taken over twenty years ago in front of a lilac bush in full bloom. She looked happy then. Not like she did a week ago when I’d kicked her out. Crazy as it sounded, I was regretting that. I had no reason to feel guilty, had every right to feel the way I did. The woman had bailed on me and Daddy when I’d been an infant, and wanted to take my damn house away.

“You ever going to take this down?” he asked gently.

Matt hadn’t been around as much as Ian or Rick to see just how hard Sharon’s absence had been, but he knew. I looked at the photo. I’d thought about burning the thing a thousand times, but could never bring myself to do it. It had been Daddy’s favorite.

I shook my head. Evasion, my gift. “You said you had good news.”

Pictures forgotten, he turned and sat in a recliner, drawing me into his lap. He took both our glasses and set them on a table. “I got a promotion at work.” He studied my face for a reaction, his stoic by comparison.

I knew very little about what he did, other than he was an investment banker. “Why don’t you look pleased, then?”

He cradled my back against his chest, his large hand smoothing my hair. It seemed oddly like he was trying to tame me for his answer. When he spoke, it was against the top of my head. “They want me to take over the Charlotte branch.”

I turned in his arms to see his face. He seemed too calm. “Your family is in Greensboro. That’s a big step.”

“It’s not far. Besides, you’re here.”

My heart thumped against my ribs, and it wasn’t a pleasant sensation of anticipation. Would he take the job solely because I was here? What did that mean?

“We’ve been doing this...thing we’re doing together, Summer, for a long time. I don’t know what label to put on us. I just know I like being with you.” He swallowed. “The promotion means more money and a title, but I won’t do it if you don’t want me to.”

My heart rate kicked faster.
Thump, thump, thump
. Painful. He dissected my expression for a reaction, but I couldn’t muster one. I was frozen, unable to utter a sound.

Reaching up, he stroked my cheek, wove his fingers into my hair. “Do you want to take that step with me?” His voice grew quieter, as if he knew I was about to flip the hell out. When I didn’t answer right away, he frowned. “Is there someone else?”

A flash of Ian’s face came to mind, there and gone in a blink. Damn. Where had that come from? Matt and I had an understanding, an open relationship. We could see other people. I had no clue if Matt had sought another, but I hadn’t. Certainly not Ian. A vision of him, shirtless, muscles flexing under his tan skin while he leaned against my window seat, popped into my mind and I closed my eyes. What the hell? I shook my head.

Matt made a sound of approval, probably thinking my attempt to expel Ian from my thoughts was an answer. A thousand insecurities played over his face. I realized he was just as nervous as me. He was laying his heart out, seeing if I’d break it or take it.

He didn’t give me butterflies, mind-blowing kisses, or the dancing in the rain kind of feeling I’d expected to have if in love. Maybe I was too much of a romantic. What if I didn’t take this chance and ruined my only opportunity for happiness? What if my possible unrealistic version of love would leave me alone forever?

Matt was solid. Stable. Safe.

Here
.

I blinked slowly, not liking the pitting hollowness in my stomach. “Yes,” I whispered, opening my eyes. “Take the job.”

He laughed, hesitant at first. “Thank God.” He pressed a kiss to my mouth. “I thought you were going to say no. I was beginning to think you didn’t feel the same way.” He kissed me again, more thoroughly this time. “We can do this. I know we can. I love you, Summer. I really do.”