Page 12 of It Started with a Sunset
“There’s one!” Summer said as she whipped into a spot between two larger vehicles—a spot he hadn’t even seen. He held onto the handle just above the door to keep from being thrown into her with the speed she took the corner at.
“This one is thirty-minute parking, though.”
She waved off his concern and said, “It’s totally fine,” as she got out of the car. So he got out, too, and they headed past a few shops to Taheny’s Toys, because they usually had a lot of outdoor summer items. He hoped it wasn’t too close to autumn to still have what they needed.
It felt so different walking down the sidewalk in the middle of town right beside Summer. For as long as they’d worked together, they’d never done much outside of campus. She’d always been such a staple of his work life that it was strange to have her here, in a space that was distinctly his personal life. Like his two worlds were colliding.
But it was also kind of nice. And, as abnormal as the moment felt, it also felt, strangely,normal.
As he held open the door, Summer stopped as she was walking into the store, turning to him and asking, “Did you bring the list?”
“Of course.” He had printed a copy that was in his back pocket, he’d emailed himself the list, and he had it in his notes app. Being prepared was how he lived his life.
He hadn’t been in this store for quite a while, but from what he remembered, most of the outdoor summer toys were along the left side and along the back. But it looked like they had brought everything they still had to the front of the store and it was all on clearance. That was going to be great for their budget.
But instead of heading toward the outdoor toys, Summer ran to a bin of dress-up hats and put on a pirate one, then grabbed an old-time sheriff’s one and put it on his head. Fitting that she would choose the rebellious one and give him the rule-follower one.
“We need to send an update to Pavani. Come in for a selfie.”
Brock moved in close to Summer so they would both be in the frame of the camera—close enough that he could smell her shampoo or perfume or maybe it was just Summer’s natural scent—and she smelled just like a bright, sunshiny day, which was pretty much exactly what he expected her to smell like.
So maybe it wasn’t her actual scent and more of who she was. Maybe it was like when he was a kid and his mom bought the mystery Kool-Aid that was a different flavor than what its color was, and when his eyes saw that it was grape colored, his tastebuds thought it tasted like grape and couldn’t be convinced otherwise. Because it was Summer he was smelling, his brain automatically interpreted the scent as sunshine.
Whatever it was, it was a bit intoxicating.
“Aww, look how adorable we are!”
As he saw their two smiling faces with their dress-up hats so close together in the picture, he couldn’t agree more. “Do you think she feels like she’s been getting enough updates from all of us for the past week?”
Summer shrugged and put her phone in her pocket. “I think so, but she’s still going stir-crazy. She said she’s not used to sitting around doing nothing and it’s giving her cabin fever.” Then she gasped. “Do you know what we should do for one of the activities? Mystery bag skits! We could get a bunch of random things, like these hats, maybe find some things around the office …”
Brock took the hat off and put it back in the bin. “Summer. We have room for three activities, and we already decided on all three.” It wasn’t like they’d decided on a whim and it was still open for discussion. They had spent hours narrowing it down to three that would have the greatest chance of accomplishing their goals—getting the prospective students to get to know the campus, getting them working together, and doing activities that would appeal to the widest range of people.
She took a resigned breath, nodded, took off the hat, grabbed a shopping cart, and then headed toward the outdoor toys, but not before saying, “Spoil sport.”
He chuckled, and as she pushed the cart, he took the list out of his pocket. “Okay, it looks like they might have close to the number of pool noodles we need. But maybe we should get all the other items before getting those.”
Summer tossed an eighteen-inch inflated plastic ball at him, and he barely looked up in time to catch it. “They’ve got plenty of balls. Do we want those, or should we just get balloons?”
Now that Brock was looking at the metal frame filled with balls and seeing how much space they actually took up, he was definitely rethinking the ball idea. “Maybe balloons, so we don’t completely fill the staging area and drive everyone nuts for the next couple of weeks.”
Summer bit her bottom lip as she looked at the balls, both hands on her hips, surely thinking about the obstacle course they were planning for. All he could do, though, was think about her bottom lip. He had worked with Summer for a long time–why was he suddenly noticing things like her lips? Or how great she always looked in her Welcome Center polo and jeans? Or how she looked just as great in her heels as she did in the actual sensible shoes she wore today?
“I just worry that we won’t be able to keep the balloons in place, especially since they’ll be going through the obstacle course blindfolded. An obstacle that can be kicked away with barely a touch isn’t much of an obstacle. Why would the teammates of the person going through the course even worry about directing them around it?”
“True...” Brock said. “What about using gallon jugs of water instead?”
“Oh, perfect! Great idea.”
“Did I really hear you say that I had a great idea?”
She just winked and said, “I call it as I see it.” And somehow, that little sentence—or maybe it was the wink—caused his heart to speed up.
As they made their way around the store, she stopped and talked to every person. And not just in a “Hi, how are you doing” kind of way—she seemed to know all of them and asked personal questions about their lives.
“Do you knoweveryonein this town?”
She made a sound that was somehow both a laugh and a scoff. “No, not everyone.” She paused for a moment, then added, “I only know the adults.”
