Page 124 of Until Next Summer

He’s saying goodbye, and my throat tightens. Unsure how to respond, I choose the cowardly route again: reaching for him, pressing my mouth to his. We drift into deeper water, touching, tasting, biting, until I’m so turned on I can hardly breathe.

“I can’t get enough of you,” he murmurs into my mouth. “This isn’t enough. I need more.”

Soon we’re rushing back to our campsite, drying ourselves with the T-shirts we plan to wear tomorrow. He pulls me into the tent, pressing me down as he comes over me, whispering words that are filthy and tender at the same time, and I close my eyes and pretend this will last forever.

—

Hours later, I’m still awake. I don’t want this night to end. Come morning, we’ll pack up and go back to camp, and it’ll be over.

Luke’s arms tighten around me. “Stay with me,” he murmurs.

“I’m not going anywhere tonight.”

“I’m not talking about tonight.”

I twist around to look at him; he’s rumpled and soft, his eyes half-lidded, like he’s mostly asleep.

“I want you to stay with me for a while,” he says. “At my family’s cabin in Michigan.”

His voice is warm and gentle, and I want to wrap myself up in it. But something holds me back, something I can’t put into words, so instead I say, “I told Hillary I’d stay with her.”

He lifts one shoulder in a lazy shrug. “Stay with her while I finish my draft. Then come visit me. It’ll take my editor a month or so to get back to me. I’ll have nothing to do.”

“Ah, so you want something to do,” I say, teasing.

“I wantsomeoneto do.” His eyes dance, then turn serious. “You’d love it there, Jess. It’s right on a lake, we have kayaks and paddleboards, there’s a bike path and hiking trails.”

“It sounds amazing. It’s just…”

I trail off, once again not sure how to say what I’m thinking.

“What’s holding you back?” His voice is probing, inviting me to dig deeper, like the time he helped me unpack my feelings about Hillary.

If I was totally honest, I would tell him that I’m already losing so much this summer. I’m not sure I can handle losing him, too, because inevitably I would have to leave, and the more I allow myself to care about him, the more it’ll hurt.

But thinking about this makes my chest feel like it’s caving in, so all I can manage is, “Aren’t you the one who said everything has to end?”

“Ah,” he says, nodding. “So why prolong the inevitable?”

“Exactly.”

He tucks his arm under his head, looking up at the tent above us. His expression is pensive, the groove between his eyebrows deepening. “Let me ask you something. Back when you were offered the job as director of the camp, if you’d known it would end like this, would you have taken it?”

“Honestly? I don’t know. Yes, I have some great memories, but are they worth how painful it’s going to be to walk away?”

“I’ve thought the same thing about my marriage. And those first two books. If I’d known ahead of time how nasty the divorce would be, that the books would bomb—would I have done any of it?”

“Would you?”

“Probably not.”

I huff and shake my head. “Great. More nihilistic thoughts from Luke.”

He chuckles. “But if we knew the ending before we started, we’d cherry-pick our way through life, only doing things that are guaranteed to work out.”

“That sounds kind of ideal.”

“Yeah, but if I’d known how fucking awful it’d be to bury Scout, I never would’ve taken her when my uncle died. And I would’ve missed out on some great years with her.”

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