Page 6 of If the Summer Lasted Forever
My shoulders stiffen, and I look down at the desk. “Oh yeah?”
“Have you seen him?” She comes around the counter and swipes a stick of sour apple licorice Uncle Mark keeps stocked just for us.
“Twenty-nine?” I say as if thinking about it. I shuffle several papers without purpose. “That would be one of the Tillman kids.”
I feel her eyes on me, but I ignore her and pretend to look busy.
“I dropped my phone when I was running across the parking lot just now,” she says. “He saved it for me. Isn’t that sweet?”
“Mmmhmm,” I say, pretending I don’t mind that Landon rescued her in a rainstorm like the hero of a romantic movie. Why couldn’t I have met him like that? It sounds a lot more memorable than me walking him to his campsite after his sister’s dog got sick in their car.
I catch myself, startled. Obviously, I don’t care.
“Youlikehim,” Paige stage whispers, her voice triumphant.
I jerk my head up, realizing I’ve been caught in a trap. “What?No.”
“You’re a terrible liar. So…have you met him yet or only sighed over him from afar?” Somehow, I sense she already knows the answer to that question.
Rolling my eyes, I reshuffle the papers. “We met a few days ago when his family arrived.”
“Did you talk to him?” she demands, flopping down into the office chair next to mine and taking a tiny nibble of the green candy. I don’t know how she does it, but she can make one stick last an hour.
“I walked him to their campsite.” I say it like it’s no big deal—like I stroll through the campground with hot guys all the time.
Which, of course, I don’t.
“Well, you must have made a good impression because he asked about you.”
Again, I jerk my head up—this time so quickly I’m afraid I might have given myself whiplash. “What?”
She grins and does a seated dance of victory.
I’m busted.
“So, we’re standing on the porch, right?” she says, wasting no time. “He’s soaking wet because he jumped out of his SUV to save my phone, and I give him my most come-hither smile because,hello, he’s gorgeous. We talk for a few minutes, and when I explain I live not far from here, he asks if I’m the friendyouwere talking about. At that point, I completely lost him.” Her eyes sparkle as she points the licorice stick at me. “Lacey, he was sending out subtle questions about you in the freezing rain when he could have been back in his toasty warm car.”
A warm sensation starts in my chest and travels to my belly, making me feel off-kilter and a little breathless. I look down at the papers.Shuffle, shuffle, shuffle.
“Didn’t you say you were on the porch?” I ask, avoiding. “That’s not exactly in the rain. Landon was probably just being friendly.”
“Oh, it’sLandon,is it?” Paige laughs. “You’re so delusional.”
I prefer to think of it as practicing self-preservation.
“Well, no matter,” she says, twirling in the chair, holding her candy up like a royal scepter. “From here forth, we shall consider him yours.”
And though she says the words flippantly—and thoughI don’t wantLandon—I relax just a little knowing my pretty, flirty, vivacious best friend won’t pursue him.
Thirty-six—that’show many flower barrels we have scattered about the property. Thirty-six—that’s how many of those flower barrels I’m in charge of planting.
I can’t complain, not really. The June day is actually warm, the sky is that ideal shade of robin’s egg blue, and I’m not stuck in the office fighting with the printer or cleaning the guest cabins.
My wagon bumps down the paved campground road, and black flats of petunias and sweet alyssum bounce against a big bag of compost and a beat-up watering can.
I pause in the middle of the road, right by Site Twenty-five, and fix the earbud that fell to my shoulder. Then I open the playlist on my phone and replay Mason Knight’s newest single. He sings about the girl who got away, and I sigh with suppressed longing.
I’m not sure anyone will ever feel that way about me.
