Page 38 of The Summer I First Saw You
“You may be both,” he says, smiling.
I wakebefore he does on Friday morning, too excited to stay asleep, and move through my normal cycle of stretches and push-ups and lunges in the early morning sun. When I’m nearly through, I spy Harrison behind me, a cup of coffee in his hand, watching.
He appears guilty, as if he’s been caught at something.
I come inside, locking the door behind me. “Were you being extra quiet so I’d let you drink your coffee in peace?”
“Something like that.” He can’t quite meet my eye, which leaves me wondering. Things are changing with us, whether he’s willing to admit it or not. Sure, he’s been well aware that I’m female for a while—that erection he was sporting my first morning here is one of my favorite memories—but it’s different now. When he looks at me in a certain way, it’s as if he’s considering the possibilities rather than trying to ignore them.
“Are you ready for this?” I ask.
His gaze meets mine, as if I meant more by the question. Maybe I did.
“Yeah.” His smile makes my stomach flutter. “I’m ready.”
He drinks his coffee, I take a quick shower and then we are on the road, moving south of Santa Cruz and past farmland—Watsonville, Salinas—that I doubt has changed much since John Steinbeck made it famous.
“It’s an amazing state, isn’t it?” I ask, staring out the window. “People talk endless shit about California but look at it. We’ve got everything here.”
He glances at me. “You sound like you don’t want to leave at the end of August.”
There’s a small pinch at the center of my chest. It’s entirelypossible that I’ve got nothing to go back to in DC, but that still won’t mean I get to stay here instead.
“I’m…ooh, pull over!” I cry suddenly. “They’ve got eight avocados for a dollar at the stand ahead.”
“What the hell are we going to do with eight avocados?” he demands. “I’ll buy you a thousand avocados if you just agree that we don’t have to stop.”
“Think of all the money you’ll save,” I insist.
“I can’t reiterate enough that there’s never been a time when I needed eight avocados.”
“Pull over,” I demand.
“What do I get?” he asks, and my head jerks to his. Becausewhat do I get?sounds sexual to me.
I raise a brow, letting my gaze drop to his crotch.
He coughs into his hand and turns off the road. “I get to choose the music on the way home.”
I guess it’s for the best that he answered his own question. I think I’d have had a very different answer. And based on the look in his eyes before he coughed…he had a different one too.
21
HARRISON
We drive through Monterey, then Pacific Point, and reach Asilomar just as dark grey storm clouds slide in from the south.
Daisy’s smiling, determined to be out there no matter what Mother Nature throws at us. And I’m unable to tell her no, for some reason. “If we hear thunder, we get out.”
“If we seelightning. Thunder is meaningless.”
“I’m not negotiating with you, Daisy,” I warn, parking on the side of the road.
She climbs out of the car and reaches into the back seat for her wetsuit. “What are you going to do? Drag me out of the water?”
We look at each other and start to laugh.
“Fine,” she says. “You’d absolutely drag me out of the water.”
