Page 25 of Seven Summer Weekends

“I’ll leave you to it,” he said as Sally put her face in Addison’s lap. She clearly had no intention of leaving. Addison scratched the first dog that didn’t scare her behind the ears to seal the deal. She didn’t like dogs now, just this dog.

“Return her on your way home,” he laughed. “She’s obviously smitten, missing female companionship, I guess.”

His comment was primed for a comeback, and after the way he’d spoken to her the other morning, she couldn’t resist.

“Really? I’m surprised the women aren’t flocking to you—with all those earnest flirting moves of yours, I would think you would have landed a keeper by now,” she snarked.

He looked taken back, and now that the joke had landed, she felt bad for insulting him.

What was it about this guy that brought out the worst in her?

“Enjoy the book”—he winked—“especially page one thirty-seven.”

Jeez, does he have it memorized?

“Thanks for the beer,” she said instead.

He briefly flashed his dimple and walked off.

Her Spidey sense told her that the entire interaction was BS. She could hear the old guy, Shep, warning him about making an enemy of the woman with her trigger finger on the landscape of their block. Total BS for sure.

She skipped to page 137, read a few lines, and quickly put the book down.

This Benjamin Morse must be very good in bed, she thought.

She picked up her phone and opened her group chat to distract herself from what had awoken between her legs.

LET’S DISCUSS NEXT WEEKEND!

She attached the link to the ferry schedule.

WHO’S ARRIVING WHEN?

The answers—filled with excitement and emojis—excited her as well. She couldn’t wait to show her friends everything—to laugh with them, hopefully not cry again, and mostly to not be alone.

Chapter Fourteen

Jessie and Katie rapped on Addison’s back door around eight o’clock, Saturday night, looking for ice.

“Hey, girl!” they said, upon entering. “Wanna pregame with us?”

They couldn’t have been more than ten years younger than Addison, but it somehow seemed much more. She contemplated sinking to their level, or rising to it, depending on what she wanted out of the evening. When Jessie whipped out a lime from her pocket, and Katie a bottle of Casamigos from behind her back, she gave in. She had already tried meditating away her angst. Maybe drinking it away would work better.

Following the cocktails, they invited Addison to party with them in town. She weighed the invitation against the draw of a particularly stubborn avocado that had just ripened and would surely be inedible by tomorrow. Both the offer and the avocado went equally well with the tequila. She couldn’t quite place when she began prioritizing what she would feel like the next day over the endless possibilities of a random night out—but the shift had most definitely occurred.

Summer of Addison!she reminded herself. Her life had been a bit lacking in the fun department lately, and these two were definitely on the prowl for it. Even if their idea of a celebrity crush seemed to be a horny author.

“I’m in,” she said, half meaning it.

“Yaaaay!” they said in unison, giving Addison pause. They asked her to take them to the hottest places, and she admitted she did not know where those were. It was a good thing she was venturing out before her friends arrived. They would expect her to know where to go too.

The three women dropped in on a few bars, one with a heavy metal band playing and another that advertised a nightly foam party at midnight. Addison wasn’t sure what a foam party was and had no desire to find out. They settled on a place called the Salty Pelican, which seemed to have a rowdy but not too crazy crowd. The Pelican seemed fun, with a bunch of people in the back gathered around the dartboard.

“This looks like the place inOn Fire Island, doesn’t it?” Jessie said, before turning to Addison for confirmation. Her face was blank.

“I don’t understand how you haven’t read it.”

“She told us—she’s new here,” Katie said in her defense, before turning to Addison with an explanation. “On Fire Islandis kind of like a memoir. It’s told by the author’s dead wife over one summer here. The author is a widower—he really lost his wife. That part’s true.”

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