Feels Like Summertime

  “I can’t believe you did that.” She blew water from her lips.

  “That’s what you get,” I told her. Then I turned and ran when she came after me. She stopped when she got to her towel and she dropped heavily onto it. Then she started drying her hair with another towel her friend handed her. I climbed back onto the lifeguard station and planned my question asking for when I saw her dad and Adam later. And no matter how I worked it out in my head, my palms still got sweaty and my heart still beat too fast. I was a bumbling mess by the time I finally got to ask them.

  “Mr. Higgins,” I said, as I ran the brim of my hat back and forth in my fingers as I stood in the doorway. Mr. Higgins didn’t open the door. He made me talk through the screen.

  “What do you want?” he asked as his eyes moved up and down my body. I was wearing a button-down shirt and some khaki shorts, and I had on sneakers instead of flip flops. I’d dressed up.

  “I was wondering if I might take Katie on a picnic, sir,” I said. I spun my hat.

  “A picnic?”

  I held up the basket I’d packed earlier. “Yes, sir. My dad said I could take the canoe out, so I thought I might take Katie out in it and have dinner while the sun sets.”

  Adam opened the door a little wider so he could step up beside Mr. Higgins. “Oh, that sounds so romantic,” he said with a smile. “Doesn’t it sound romantic, Dan?” He batted his lashes at Mr. Higgins.

  “No.” Mr. Higgins slammed the door in my face.

  I knocked tentatively. Katie’s dad opened the door again. “What?”

  I held up the basket. “I made sandwiches. And brought a pasta salad. And I was hoping to share it with Katie.”

  “You really like my daughter, don’t you?” he asked.

  I coughed into my fist. “Yes, sir.”

  “Do you have any beer in your cooler?”

  I cleared my throat again. “No, sir.”

  “Wine?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Alcohol of any kind?”

  I opened my cooler and showed him the soda cans. “Just soft drinks, sir.”

  He narrowed his eyes. “And you’ll treat my daughter with respect?”

  “At all times, sir.”

  He bellowed over his shoulder, “Katie!”

  She appeared from the hallway and grinned at me. She waved and it was all fingers.

  “Jake wants to take you on a picnic,” he said.

  “Can I go?” She grabbed his arm and held on to it with two hands. She looked at him until he bent and kissed her forehead.

  “You can go,” he said. “Be home by ten.” He stepped to the side so she could walk out from behind him.

  “That’s it?” she asked. “That’s the worst you’re going to do?” She laughed. “I thought you’d make him beg.”

  He snorted. “The boy already looks like he wants to shit himself, so I cut him some slack.”

  “I wasn’t going to–” I stopped. “Never mind.”

  “So, I can go?” Katie asked.

  He nodded his head toward us. “Go.” He closed the door in our faces.

  I took a deep breath for the first time in ten minutes. “Oh my God,” I said.

  She patted my shoulder soothingly. “You did great.”

  We walked down to the dock, where I helped her into the canoe. We rowed around the lake until we found a quiet spot, then we ate, and then we kissed until her lips were puffy and pink. When the sun went down, she laid down on my chest as I reclined in the bottom of the canoe. She snuggled under my chin and I stared up at the stars.

  And we fell asleep like that.

  I woke up to a light shining in my face as someone pulled Katie off my chest. My arm was asleep, and I couldn’t wiggle my fingers to grab her back.

  “You’re an idiot,” Pop muttered to me as he climbed carefully into my canoe. I could see Mr. Higgins and Adam rowing Katie back to the shore in their boat.

  “I really messed that up,” I said.

  “Yep,” Pop grunted at me as he began to paddle us back toward land.

  “They’ll never let me see her again.”

  “Did you use condoms?” he asked as we tugged the boat onto the shore. He stared into my face.

  “Pop,” I complained, “we didn’t–”

  “They’ll let you see her again. In the daylight. Where you can’t do any snuggling.” He started to whistle as we walked to our house.

  That was a damn shame, because cuddling with Katie…that was the highlight of my summer.

  The next day, Katie was cleaning the bath house with a toothbrush, while I hammered nails into the dock. It was like we were on opposite ends of the earth, and I couldn’t even tell her I was sorry for getting her in trouble.

  26

  Katie

  I’m in the middle of the best dream ever. A warm body is wrapped around mine, one arm beneath my head where I’m using it as a pillow and the other is wrapped around my middle. My dream lets me enjoy it, bask in it, and roll around in it until I get all tangled up in comfort and want. Until I blink my eyes open.

  Immediately, fear floods my heart as I wake up and realize there’s really a warm body in bed with me. “Cole?” I mumble.

  “No, I’m warm,” Jake mutters from behind me. “So are you.”

  Jake’s hand roams across my hip and up my side. “Just a bad dream,” I say. I wiggle my bottom. I really have to pee. “Go back to sleep.”

  “Mm,” he hums. He rocks his hips and presses against my bottom. Then he stiffens and pulls back. “Sorry,” he says with a tiny laugh. “Forgot where I was for a second.”

  God, I have missed the feel of a man behind me in the early morning hours. During that time before kids wake up, before the house starts to stir, before anyone needs anything from me, Jeff and I used to enjoy the quiet, and enjoy each other. Sometimes it was rushed and sometimes it was slow, but it was always there. It was always mine. This, what I have with Jake, it’s not mine, and I know it very well. It’s stolen. It’s like contraband that I’m keeping and using for my own purposes. I try to squeeze out from under his arm, but Jake wraps me up tighter and pulls me back against him.

  “Don’t go,” he mutters close to my ear. His lips press against my shoulder, and I arch my neck to give him better access.

  “Jake,” I whisper.

  “Katie,” he whispers back, and his chest rumbles with laughter against my back. “Just shut up for two seconds and let me hold you, okay?”

  “Okay.” I settle back, despite the fact that my bladder is seriously complaining. I turn my head and press my lips to Jake’s upper arm, and he slides his palm up my side, beneath my shirt. I lay my hand over his and he chuckles.

  “I think I just got slapped,” he says.

  “If I wanted to slap you, I’d slap you, Jake. I just wanted to slow you down.” I kiss his upper arm again. “I’m not ready for all that, and neither are you.” I stare at the wall in front of me.

  But then, an unfamiliar noise reaches my ears. There’s stomping. Hard shoe strikes against the hardwood floor. The door suddenly flies open.

  “Whoops,” a man’s voice says from the doorway.

  I lay a hand on my chest. It’s Adam. “Oh, my God, you scared me.”

  “Who’s in bed with you?” Adam asks.

  I sit up and smooth my hair back. “It’s just Jake,” I say. Jake sits up behind me and drops his feet over the side of the bed.

  Adam hitches his shoulder in the doorway and crosses his arms. He grins. “Morning, Jake.”

  “Adam,” Jake grunts. He bends over and pulls his shoes on. He slept in his clothes, and so did I. “So good to see you at…” Jake tips his wrist to look at his watch. “…zero-dark-thirty.”

  “I wasn’t aware that my daughter would have company so early in the morning. My apologies.”

  “Jake’s not company. He’s just…” I look at him and shrug. “He’s just Jake.”

  A minute ago, he was a warm body wrapped around me. Now he’s a
n offended man who’s sitting on the edge of my bed.

  “Just Jake?” Jake asks quietly. He arches a brow at me.

  “Hey, Katie,” Adam sings out, breaking the tension between me and the man who was in my bed mere seconds ago.

  “Hey, Adam,” I sing back. Adam and I have always done this, right before he teases me.

  “So, just to be clear, why is there a boy in your bed?”

  I laugh. “There isn’t a boy in my bed.”

  Adam steps to the side and then my dad fills the doorway. Great. Now there are two of them. “Sure looks like there’s a boy in your bed,” Dad says.

  “Hi, Dad,” I chirp.

  He doesn’t walk into the room. “After you get the boy out of your bed, you two come to the kitchen so we can have a talk.”

  “Dad… Seriously?”

  “Seriously,” he says. “Your kids are up.”

  “Thanks,” I mutter. I swipe a hand down my face. “I’ll be right there.”

  They close the door. “Sorry about that,” I say to Jake. “I didn’t know they were coming.”

  “It’s fine. It’s not like we did anything wrong. Except sleep in the same bed. Cuddle. Et cetera.”

  I look at him from over my shoulder as I pull my hair into a ponytail. “I don’t remember any et cetera. Surely if there was any et cetera, I’d remember it, right?”

  “Oh, you’d remember it.”

  “I’ll hold you to that.”

  “I’ll hold myself to that,” he mutters.

  I use the bathroom and brush my teeth, and then I find my kids all sitting around the table while Adam whips up special pancakes for each of them. For Trixie, it’s peanut butter and banana. Alex likes chocolate chip. And Gabby has always preferred blueberry.

  I kiss both my dads on the cheek and sit down next to the kids. The bedroom door opens and Jake quietly goes to the bathroom.

  I get up and open the refrigerator to get a glass of milk for Trixie. “So, why was Jake in your bed?” Adam asks right next to my ear.

  After I nearly jump sky high, I stop, take a breath, and roll my eyes. “He was babysitting last night for a little while.” I rub my forehead, where a headache is already building. “When I got home it was late, and he was asleep on top of my covers.”

  My dad joins the conversation behind the refrigerator door. “So you just crawled in bed with him.” Both of them are being really quiet so the kids won’t hear them.

  “Well, sort of. It’s hard to explain.”

  Dad kisses my forehead. “I’m glad Jake was here. I don’t like for you to be alone.”

  “I haven’t been alone in sixteen years, Dad.” I grab the milk, close the refrigerator door, and drop into a chair.

  “What does Jake think about all this?” Dad asks. He motions around the room and to my belly, like his action will encompass the entire crap that my life has turned into.

  Jake walks into the room and sits down next to me at the small table. “Jake doesn’t know anything about all this.” He gestures around the room just like Dad did, and then to my belly. “But he sure as hell hopes someone will explain it to him really soon.”

  Adam’s mouth falls open. “You didn’t tell him? Seriously, Katie?”

  Jake steals a bite of Gabby’s pancake and she playfully tries to stab him with a fork. He laughs and Adam sets a stack of pancakes in the center of the table. Jake gets one for himself. He slathers it with butter and syrup, and then puts another on top.

  “I love a man who likes to eat,” Adam says as he lays a hand upon his chest and sighs dramatically.

  Dad grumbles and grabs a fork, taking a few pancakes for himself.

  “I didn’t think you guys were coming yet,” I say. I get up and fill a dog bowl for Sally, who has been drooling next to Trixie’s plate since the pancakes started moving around. He turns his nose up at it and continues to watch Trixie’s fork go back and forth.

  Dad finally notices the dog and stabs his fork in its direction. “What the hell is that?”

  “Jake’s dog,” all the kids say at once.

  “That beast is yours?” Dad asks Jake.

  “Technically speaking, yes.” Jake shovels a forkful of pancakes into his mouth. “His name is Sally,” he says around a bite.

  Adam chuckles. “Trixie named him, huh?”

  Jake nods. “Yep.”

  The crunch of gravel in the drive gets my attention and I lift the edge of the curtain to look out.

  “Is that my truck?” Jake asks. He gets up and walks outside. The truck’s horn begins to honk.

  “That’s for me,” Gabby says as she eats the last bite of her pancake and finishes her milk. “I’m driving Mr. Jacobson to the doctor.”

  “In Jake’s truck?”

  “I guess.” She shrugs and walks outside.

  I follow them out and I see Jake and his dad arguing at the driver’s side window. “’Bout time, girl,” Mr. Jacobson grouses at Gabby.

  “Oh, keep your shirt on,” Gabby tosses back. Mr. Jacobson grins and scoots over so she can drive.

  “Gabby’s never driven a truck this big,” I warn them.

  But Mr. Jacobson just waves his hand like he’s swatting a fly. “Never a better time to learn.”

  Gabby puts the truck in gear, backs over a fence post, and they leave together, the truck making jerky motions.

  I feel like someone has just put me inside a snow globe and given it a good shake. The pieces haven’t even started to settle around me yet.

  “She’s going to wreck my truck,” Jake says.

  I wince. “Maybe not.”

  Jake growls low under his breath. “I’m going to kill him. He could have had her drive his car.”

  Jake swings around quickly. I see him moving out of the corner of my eye, and I react the only way I know how to react: I brace my arms over my head and wait for the blow.

  Jake’s voice is soft when he pulls my arms down from on top of my head. “Katie,” he says, his voice no more than a whisper.

  “What?” I say, my heart thundering in my chest.

  “Did you think I was going to hit you?” His voice is still soft and even.

  I avoid his gaze. “No.”

  “Then why did you duck? Why did you cower?”

  I swallow hard. “R-reflex?”

  “You think I’d hurt you?” he asks. I finally get the courage to look at his face, and I see a world of pain there.

  “No, Jake,” I protest. “I didn’t think you–”

  But he’s already walking away. He’s walking toward the big house on the hill.

  “Take the golf cart!” I yell to him.

  But he doesn’t respond. And he doesn’t stop.

  Adam and Dad walk onto the porch. “You should have told him already,” Dad says.

  “I know,” I whisper.

  “You could go tell him now,” Adam suggests.

  I nod. “I could.” I can barely force the words past the frog in my throat.

  Dad sighs. “You should probably go talk to him, Katie.”

  I glare at both of them. “You guys could have given me some warning, you know. Instead of just showing up here.” I stomp up the steps.

  “How?” Dad asks. “You didn’t bring your phone.”

  I turn back and glare at them, crossing my arms over my chest. “Are you sure no one followed you here?”

  “We were very careful.” Dad and Adam both nod like two dashboard dogs.

  “I hope you were.”

  God, I hope they were careful, because if they weren’t careful enough and he finds me, he’ll kill me.

  27

  Katie

  I drive Jake’s golf cart back to the big house on the hill and park it in the driveway. I hear heavy rock-and-roll music blaring from the garage and I look in through the open door. Jake’s legs are sticking out from under his dad’s car. Loud knocks and bangs come from under the car.

  “Jake,” I call out.

  His shoes wiggle but he doesn’t c
ome out. I cross to the radio and turn it down a little. Jake’s shoes stop dancing. He rolls himself out from under the car, but he doesn’t sit up. “Why did you do that?” He glares at me.

  I walk over to him. “We need to talk.”

  “Great,” he mumbles as he rolls back under the car. “Now she wants to talk.” The banging resumes.

  “Jake,” I say again.

  He stops banging. “What?”

  “Come out.”

  The banging resumes. What the heck is he knocking on down there? I tap his knee.

  “Jake!”

  He starts to sing. Loudly. And poorly. I bite back a chuckle, because I doubt laughing at him would be a good idea right now.

  I grab Jake’s ankles, lift them, and back up until he slides out from under the car. “That’s cheating,” he says. He wipes a hand across his forehead, smearing grease from one side to the other. He doesn’t sit up. He just lies there looking up at me.

  I point to my forehead. “You got a little dirt right here.”

  “You want to do that mom thing you do and lick your finger, then rub it off?”

  Actually I did. “No,” I grouse, “of course not.”

  “Are moms just born with an excess of spit?”

  I shrug my shoulders. “Must be.”

  “I’ve seen you do that with Alex and Trixie. And you tried it one night with Gabby but she sidestepped you.”

  “She’s too old for me to clean her with spit.” Or so she says. I happen to disagree.

  “My mom used to do that too.” He finally sits up, rolling until he can stand up.

  That takes me aback a little. “You never talk about your mom.”

  “She died when I was twelve.” He shrugs. “There isn’t much to talk about.”

  “Cancer, right?”

  He winces and nods. “Yep.”

  “What was she like?”

  He walks by me and puts his tools in the toolbox. “I have the memories of a twelve-year-old. They’re probably a little skewed.”

  “What else do you remember?”

  He smiles softly. “She always smelled like vanilla. Except for right after she’d sneak out onto the back porch to smoke a cigarette. Then she smelled like cookies and smoke. She tried to hide it from me and Pop, but I think he always knew, just like I did.”