Page 19 of Summer Romance

He rests his forearms on his knees and watches the water. My forearms are on my knees in the same way, and if I leaned a bit to the left our shoulders would be touching. There’s heat coming off him now and I imagine I can feel the blond hair on his arms brushing up against my skin. The distance between us feels like nothing, a whisper.

He’s quiet for a second as a gull swoops down and plucks something off the beach and flies away. A large sailboat passes in the distance and momentarily breaks the skyline.

“I wanted to kiss you,” he says. “Thursday night, and atthe skate park, and at the dog park. And a million times before that, actually.”

“Oh?” It comes out high-pitched. I am taken aback by what he’s said and how easily he’s said it.

He laughs. “Don’t be weird about it, I’m trying to apologize. I was a little bit obsessed with you when I was a teenager. And when I ran into you and you looked at me like I wasn’t Scooter, it felt really good. I should have told you before we went out, but it just kept getting better and better. It felt so easy.”

“It was very easy,” I say to the water.

“It was maybe the first time I’ve ever really felt like myself here. Which is something, because I lived in Beechwood for eighteen years. Every time I come home I have this sort of uneasy feeling that there’s something I need to apologize for, but I forget what it is. But with you, I felt good. I didn’t want to break the spell. But I couldn’t kiss you while I was lying.” He turns back to the water. “I planned to get your number from Frannie on Friday morning and come clean, but I chickened out. And then there you were at dinner.”

I replay that night in my head, but with him telling me he was Scooter as we sat on the boat. I probably would have kissed him anyway.

“Okay, Scooter,” I say. “I forgive you.”

“Thank you,” he says. We look back out at the city and we’re quiet for a while.

“So what were you hoping to escape from?” I ask.

“People calling me Scooter, I guess.” He turns to me and his eyes search my face. “And yet here we are.”

“I’ve seen you skateboard—the name suits you.”

“That’s not why they call me that.” He looks back at the water and waits a bit before he spills it. “They call me Scooter because I never learned to crawl.”

I laugh. “Cliffy did that for a while. He’d sit and kind of scoot on his butt toward what he wanted. Eventually he figured it out.”

“Well I didn’t, apparently. I just scooted until I walked. And my grandparents thought it was hilarious, so the nickname stuck. A person’s got to get out of a town where he’s named for his first missed milestone. Kind of gives the place a weird vibe.” He stretches his legs out in front of him and leans back on his elbows. “But mostly the same reasons. I wanted to find out who I was, get a real job. Find a woman.”

“And did you do it?”

“Eventually. All but the woman. It’s easy to find a woman, nearly impossible to findthewoman.”

“I always wanted someone to think of me that way, that I was the one,” I say.

“Come on, Ali. I’m pretty sure every guy at Beechwood High thought you were the one.”

“Not even close.”

“Maybe it was just me,” he says, and looks back at the water.

My face goes hot and I pull my knees closer to my chest. I’m sure I’ve misheard him, and now I don’t know what to say.

He goes on like he’s said nothing. “You got married, you must have felt like you were the one then.”

“Not really. I think Pete liked the idea of me. He liked me at work. He liked me in a suit being good at things and then on the weekend doing power-couple activities. But life’s not a day job and planned activities. It gets messy.”

“So messy,” he says, and the warmth and fun leave his face. I want it back. “Is that why you’re divorcing him?”

I don’t answer. I don’t want to tell him that in all those miserable years, it never occurred to me to divorce him. I just kept regrouping and shifting gears every time things got worse. I sort of thought we’d just muddle through like that forever.

“I’m divorcing him because he’s divorcing me,” I say, finally. “It’s the first decision he’s made in a long time that I’ve really respected.”

“I say you let Ferris pick the next guy.” It’s an adorable thing to say, and he’s said it lightly, like it’s a joke. But all I can think is:Okay. He smiles and I want to reach up and run my fingers over the creases of his eyes. I want to touch the sharp corner of his jaw.

“How long are you staying?” I ask.

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