Page 61 of Rebel Summer

“Dax?”

“Yeah?”

“Thank you for all your help tonight.”

A warm pause settled between us as I waited for his response.

“Ivy?”

“Yeah?”

“Anytime.”

His voice and his presence in my space soothed and lulled, and I was almost gone when he pulled me back once more.

“Be sure to keep that bra on in case we get another visitor tonight.”

I moaned and covered my face to the sound of his low chuckle.

Biology Class

Day 23

“You got in a fight with Brock?” I said to Dax as he dropped into his seat next to me. Dax’s fight with the class president and my prom date was the reason he had missed class last week. He had been suspended from school.

He laughed, sliding lower into his seat to rest the back of his head on his chair. His right eye was rimmed with black and green hues.

“Apparently, he only likes discussing the stock market to impress his girlfriends. I was hoping to grab some tips from him and he freaked out.”

“You were making fun of him?” I asked.

He shrugged. “I just asked him a question. He kind of reminds me of you.”

“Why?” I asked automatically, my tone prickly.

“It’s that politician thing.” He looked at me then, a deep knowing in his gaze that startled me. “You smile and say all the right things, but there’s a lot boiling just below the surface. It’s pretty entertaining to poke the really nice bear.”

I moved my gaze over his black eye. “Looks like that nice bear poked you right back.”

Two mornings later, I was on break at the cafe, stuffing my face with Marco’s famous key-lime-pie pancakes with coconut syrup when my phone rang.

“Hi. Is this Caroline Brooks?” The woman on the line sounded bored. It was probably her polite secretary voice, but her tone and inflection sounded as though she was dreaming of a beach somewhere. She’d probably love Sunset Harbor.

“It’s Ivy, actually, but yeah.”

“Okay. This is Samantha from Kathleen Meyer’s office at Vanderbilt. I’m calling about the class you were scheduled for later this summer and fall.”

I snuck out of Marco’s loud kitchen and slipped into the small office in the back of the cafe. This phone call could quite literally change my life, and I didn’t think it was a great sign that Kathleen had assigned her secretary to call me. “Yeah?”

There was a slight pause before she deadpanned the sentence that would dash every plan I had made before coming to the island.

“Kathleen is sorry about the change in your summer schedule but ultimately feels you should serve your community service. Your eight-week course of Introduction to Statistics is scheduled to begin on Monday, August 5th. We are willing to waive the research you were supposed to do for this summer, but Kathleen needs you back in Nashville by Monday, July 22nd at the latest if you’d still like to keep your class and fellowship for the fall.”

I clenched the phone in my hands. That was a week and a half earlier than I was expecting to leave.

“Why that early?” I asked.

“Because if, for some reason, you can’t make it, we’ll need the extra time to make other arrangements.”

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