Page 21 of My Summer Fling

“So,tell me about your life, Millie. I want to know what I missed,” he says as we walk through the aisles. I pick a spot and start sifting through the hundreds of records. “I missed a pretty big chunk of it. Teddy didn’t really keep me in the loop.”

“That’s probably because I told him not to.”

“Does he know?” Noah asks me, his face paled a bit with worry.

“No,” I tell him, putting him out of his misery after a moment of pause. “But I didn’t have to tell him anything for him to just accept that something wasn’t right. He’s my big brother, he knows when something is off.”

“He never told me.” He sighs, pretending to look through the box next to me.

“He wouldn’t, Noah.” I turn toward him, leaning my hip against the table. “While he’s your best friend, he’smybrother. And he didn’t know exactly what was wrong, he just knew that for some reason I was upset, and I wanted you kept out of my life for a while.” I shrug. “He loves us both and he wouldn’t get in the middle of anything. So he stayed quiet and kept me away from you.”

He nods, his face looking surprisingly sad. I didn’t think I’d ever catch Noah Harding looking this remorseful. And I can’t decide if it’s because he hurt me, or because my brother knows he hurt me. Not that Teddy reallyknowsanything about what happened. But when your sister runs to you crying and the only thing you can get out of her is the name “Noah” … I’m sure he suspected.

How he didn’t kill Noah I’ll never know.

“Anyway, you asked me about my life, yes?” I ask him, trying to switch the subject. This is supposed to be a little getaway, and I don’t want to ruin the entire mood.

“Yes. Tell me how the rest of college was, how you got your job, and how the hell you decided to move across the country to a completely different ocean.” He smiles and laughs quietly, his dimple popping out. “I thought the Pacific was in your blood just like your brother’s.”

“Nah,” I start, moving to the next box of records as I hear the camera click again. “I finished my bachelor’s, then grandma died, and she left the house to me. I always felt a special connection to her and the house. Since grandpa had died a few years earlier, it left the house vacant.”

I sigh, thinking back to how painful it was walking into the empty cottage for the first time. Everything still smelled like my grandma. Sometimes even now I’ll open a closet door or pull a quilt out from a drawer that hasn’t been opened in a while and I’ll get assaulted with her scent and the memories that come along with it.

“I couldn’t let anyone else move into that house. It was my grandparents’ home. He built it for her when they were first married, and it’s survived this long … I felt like I had to keep it going.”

He nods and gives me his full attention.

“So, anyway, I searched high and low for a job that would pay the bills and let me either work from home all the time or most of the time. Finally stumbled upon this head-hunting career and it turns out I’m pretty fucking good at it.”

“I bet you are. You’re a little sassier than the last time I saw you,” he says, smirking over at me.

I roll my eyes.

“And bysassydo you mean more confident in myself and who I am? Willing to stand up for myself and for what I know is good for me instead of letting people walk all over me?”

“Exactly that,” he agrees, pulling me under his arm and kissing the top of my head. Over the past couple of weeks that he’s been living with me, he’s been getting a little too comfy in the touching department.

I know we’re casually fucking almost every night, but when that translates into casual touching throughout the day, it worries me. I don’t really trust my own resolve to not fall for this asshat again.

So instead of basking in the affection like I really, really want to do, I gently pull away and instead walk over to the seating area and plop down on the floor to search through the little library of music. He follows me and sits in the leather sofa next to me, man spreading so his thighs are on full display.

Focus, Millie. Focus. Do not get distracted by the hunk of man meat sitting two feet away from you.

After digging through the boxes for a minute, I find a compilation of Frank Sinatra and throw it on the record player. That special scratchy sound fills the air, and I lie back on the rug by his feet and close my eyes. I tap my fingers on the worn cardboard sleeve and try to ignore that constant clicking of his camera.

“That kind of ruins the moment, you know,” I tell him.

“It captures the moment,” he says. “When you break up with me after the wedding, I’ll have all these memories to look back on. I can add them to the Millie file.”

I look over at him, feigning like I’m confused and maybe a little irritated that he would have a “Millie file.” But butterflies are swarming in my stomach, and I can’t help but think maybe, just maybe, he actually does have a place where he keeps all the candids he used to take of me. Maybe he actually has emotions under that player facade.

“You have …. a Millie file?” I ask him.

Just then, the song changes to “Witchcraft.”

“Your favorite,” he says as he smiles down at me. Fuck my fucking heart for swelling and doing stupid little flips because he remembered one of my favorite songs. “Dance with me.”

Frank Sinatra continues to play on the record player beside us, and when he reaches down to take my hand, I find myself giving in.

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