The summers we left behi.., p.12
The Summers We Left Behind, page 12
“I was just feeling really motivated to repay the free coffees.”
“Don’t mention that to my mom.”
“I’ll take it to my grave,” I promise. I’ll never say anything to Diane. She so incredibly overflows with love that she can’t help but share it. I don’t want to dim the things she did out of love by making them transactional.
This had been far better than any day laying on the sand reading.
When Diane realized my birthday was in December a couple of years ago, she started to buy me a gift for my half-birthday. She said she didn’t want to ship it to me because the best part of giving a gift is seeing the person’s reaction. Last year, she got me a signed copy of Murder on the Orient Express, and the year before, it was a swimsuit I had pointed out in a boutique that makes me feel like a mermaid every time I wear it.
I take what looks like a board game out of an iridescent gift bag.
“It’s a cold case. They give you all the clues, and you decide who to arrest. It’s just like all your mystery books,” she says.
I have never been good at solving the ones in books, but it’s worth a shot. Nothing can happen if I accuse the wrong fictional character.
“I was so jealous when Mom said that wasn’t for us. Promise you won’t do it without me,” Bennett begs.
“Ok, Detective Sorenson, I won’t even take a peek.” I hold out my hand to seal the promise.
Three days later, it’s pouring. It isn’t the type of rain you can dance in, enjoying the coolness as it seeps through clothes and drenches hair. No, this is the type with violent drops falling so fast they sting a little bit when they hit you. Perfect weather for solving a mystery.
Bennett braves the fifty feet between our houses. Mom was off on a day trip to an alpaca farm. Or maybe that was last week, and she’s doing a pottery intensive. I’m unsure why she needs a full weekend for either of those, but it means the house is empty.
“I’ve brought provisions.” He holds up a bag holding frozen pizza and hot chocolate mix.
“I’ll get the oven ready and heat some milk.”
“Absolutely not. I am a professional beverage creator, and unless you’ve forgotten, you’re still in training. There is a wrong way and a right way to make hot cocoa, and I would bet good money that you can’t tell me the difference.”
“Isn’t the wrong way just using water instead of milk?” I’m bad in the kitchen, but I at least know that.
“Watch and learn,” he says.
He sifts through the cabinets, pulling out vanilla, cinnamon, and marshmallows.
I watch as he heats the milk I set out and throws in dashes of cinnamon and a splash of vanilla.
“If you had just told me, I could have done everything myself. I don’t see why you had to make it,” I protest, even though the drinks are already being poured into mugs. I always wish we had fun touristy mugs with cartoon renderings of the beach, but instead, we have a plain set in a deep blue.
“I had to add the secret ingredient.”
“I swear if you say, love, I will shove you right out back into the rain-” I say just as he finishes his thought.
“Love.”
I attempt to wrestle him to the door, but I can’t even move him out of the kitchen. He’s solid as I shove against his chest. Breathless, I looked up at his smug face.
“Don’t talk shit about my recipe until you try it,” he says.
I snatch the mug from him and sip the steaming chocolate. He’s right, just like he has been about all his drink creations. I preheat the oven for the pizza, and we head to the living room.
“Now, for the real reason I’m here.” He walks over to the entertainment console to grab the cold case game. “I have waited months to play this. I swear Mom would leave it on the counter just to taunt me.”
“I see. You had a hidden agenda, lulling me into complacency with sweet drinks and company.”
“I am a gentleman; I would do no such thing.” He fakes a wounded expression holding his hand over his heart. We lay out the contents of the box on the coffee table. It’s an assortment of fake documents and papers curated to tell the story of a murdered heiress.
Bennett is inspecting the direction pamphlet, “Let’s make this a game.”
“It’s already a game.”
“You know what I mean. Let’s see who can solve it first.” I want to tell him that I need his help to solve this, that I’m no good at sifting through clues. I’m a person meant to read mysteries, not solve them. But I can’t say no to the twinkle in his eye. After all, these things are designed to be solved. From the age range on the box, they expect fourteen-year-olds to have a fair chance of figuring it out.
“Ok, but what do I get when I win?” I ask, laying on a thick layer of false confidence.
“You’ll just have to wait and see.” He claims a stack of papers and a notebook.
I sort through the remaining documents and pull out a newspaper clipping. Scarlet Valentine, yes, that was the name they chose, was the heiress to a diamond empire. She was found dead the morning before the company announced she was taking her father’s position. The coroner’s report says that it was poison.
The only people who knew about the will were the interim CEO, her father’s best friend. Scarlet’s bodyguard, her secret lover. Her stepmother. And her assistant. Each profile had been designed to be suspicious, with fragmented alibies and plausible motives.
As I inspect the papers I’ve collected, I go in circles. I lean into a gut feeling that it was the assistant. She is the least likely, so I’m even more apprehensive about why she’s in the mix. When I lean back, I glimpse something under the couch.
“Cheater!” I call out, breaking the silence as I grab the document near Bennett’s feet.
“That is a wild accusation, Detective Danes,” he says, trying to snatch the paper from my hands. I duck under his arm and run around the couch to put a barrier between us as I scan what he was hiding. The paper makes my line of reasoning click into place.
It’s a paternity test for the assistant that proves that she was the half-sister of the dead heiress. Which means the assistant is next in line to inherit everything.
“I’ve got it. I win!” I’m practically jumping up and down.
“Not so fast. I have just finished building my own case.”
“I guess whoever figured it out wins.” I’ve never been nearly as competitive as him, but I am determined to win this time.
“Ok, present your case to the jury.”
“It was the assistant. She came to the city from the middle of nowhere to seek out Scarlet less than a year before her murder. She was trying to find her half-sister. And this paternity test.” I wave the paper in my hand, “This proves that they are related. The assistant killed Scarlet to take over the fortune as the last remaining descendent on the father’s side. She would have plenty of means because she had access to Scarlet’s schedule and location at all times.” I’m proud of what I figured out until Bennett starts.
“You’ve got it all wrong. That’s all pure speculation. It was the stepmom. This is the amended will.” He holds up a paper just like I had, “It says that if his children are no longer alive at the time the will is executed, his fortune falls to the wife. And there is no evidence that she knew the assistant was a long lost daughter. Also, her alibi has a two hour gap, right when Scarlet was supposed to have been poisoned. Your suspect was at a gala that entire night and was spotted frequently throughout the night.”
“Well, we won’t know until we open the last envelope.” The last document is sealed and will reveal if we have succeeded at our task.
We huddle together, opening up the folded pages. We read in silence, taking in its contents.
“You’re kidding me,” he grumbles. As it turns out, we are both wrong.
“It really is always the boyfriend, or I guess, in this case, husband.” The bodyguard and the heiress had gotten secretly married days before. Despite the video footage of him standing outside of her room the entire evening and morning, he had slipped poison into her room service coffee. Somewhere in the pile are security pictures of him with the coffee. “I guess we both lost.”
“Yeah, this sucks. I was really looking forward to winning.” He turns to me. His thigh brushes against mine. My eyes fix on where we’re touching. I attempt to steady my breath. The rain and his proximity are making my head dizzy. I should pull away. I should go get more hot chocolate. But I can’t convince my legs to move.
“You never told me what the prize was.” I meet his eyes. We’re nearly nose to nose.
“This.” He closes the gap between us and presses his lips against mine.
I pause, letting my mind register that this isn’t a dream. I have to convince myself that I didn’t just conjure this up from wanting it so badly. I’m fully awake, and Bennett Sorenson is kissing me.
My hands find his back and pull him in as close as possible. I could live a thousand lives in this moment, tucked away with him, the rain crashing down around the house, isolating us from the rest of the world.
We only pull apart when a deafening crack of thunder rings out.
It isn’t my first kiss, which belongs to Michael in seventh grade after a school dance. There were a few more kisses and things with other boys that went further, but none of them were Bennett.
This is the first kiss that matters, a kiss to measure all future kisses against.
His eyes search my face, “I’ve been wanting to do that for so long.”
“I’ve been too scared to ask you too.” I reach up to hold his face in my hands. There is no more guessing, hopelessly attempting to untangle the meaning behind his touch and stares. “What about Nicole?” The question escapes before I can stop it.
He jerks back, “What does Nicole have to do with this?”
“I just thought that you two had something going on. That maybe you didn’t want to tell me for some reason. You were just getting along so well, and she’s like model gorgeous,” I’m rambling, rattling off all of the anxieties that have been building up over the first month back. I had texted them all to Cammie, but no one was here to actually say this stuff to.
It’s not like I could have gone up to Tanner to ask Sorry, I turned you down last year. By the way, is your brother dating anyone?
“Whoa, slow down. Nicole and I are just friends. Even if she wanted that to be different, you are the only person I look at that way. It’s been you for so damn long. I can’t explain what you’ve done to me these last few years. After that first year, summer only starts when you get here.” He’s holding my face rubbing away a tear that I don’t remember falling. His touch is grounding, helping oxygen reenter my lungs. He kisses my nose and pulls back.
“There’s no summer without you for me either,” I say.
“Good. I was starting to think my obsession with you was one sided.”
We spent the rest of the day curled around each other. We forget about the pizza until I go into the kitchen to grab water and see the preheated oven. The storm makes us feel like the only people on the beach, in our own bubble of happiness.
I already thought that we were inseparable before. Now, there is time for nothing else but him.
Every day becomes a cycle of running from the café into the water and then to my house to become tangled in each other. His kisses taste like coffee in the morning and like the ocean in the afternoon.
We keep things between us for the first week. It’s like we were in on a huge secret. At his house, he pulls me around corners into a kiss or holds my hand under the blanket while watching movies with Tanner and his parents. I like having this version of us all to myself.
Even though she’s not at the beach, I don’t tell Cammie. I like the secret, but also telling other people makes it more real. Making something real means risking it falling apart. I don’t doubt what I feel for Bennett. But feelings this consuming terrify me. I don’t know how to contain them.
Our secret finally slips at dinner one night when Tanner drops his fork and notices our interlaced fingers under the table when he bends to pick it up.
“Finally!” Tanner nearly knocks his head as he sits up. I start to pull away, but Bennett squeezes my hand in reassurance. “I thought I was going to have to suffer through another summer of him sighing every time you walked by in a swimsuit.” I blush. “You know he always looks like a sad puppy the day you leave? He just mopes around and reads whatever books you’ve left behind.” My heart flutters, learning that he does practically the same things I do.
Diane playfully hits her middle child with a dish towel on her way back from the kitchen. “Don’t embarrass them, or we’ll have to wait another three years.” She gives me a smile, “I’m happy you finally made the move on our Emma. I was also tired of waiting.”
“How do you know it was me? For all you know, she jumped me for a kiss and professed her undying love!” Everyone trades glances and breaks into fits of laughter. It’s not like I hadn’t considered it, but he’s the brave one.
A heat advisory drives us inside during the stickiest part of the day. The type of scorching, humid air that even submerging in the ocean can’t provide complete relief from. Bennett and I are hiding at my place, cranking up the AC and stealing kisses as we watch sitcom reruns.
It doesn’t take long until we grow to progressively needier touches. I’m on his lap, pressed against him. His hand runs up and down my leg. Each touch makes my stomach dance. Before long, our shirts lay discarded. This is the point where we usually stop or get interrupted. I don’t want to stop, and from the feeling beneath me, he doesn’t want to either.
“I want all of you. Do you want that too?” He asks, looking up into my eyes. I stare back into liquid pools of amber and dive in.
“Yes.” I kiss him softly on his jaw, my lips grazing the barest hint of stubble.
“Will this be your first time?” He cups my cheek, and I lean into the soft touch.
“No,” I say like a confession. We didn’t really talk about the people we had met between summers. I had never told him that I had sex for the first time after Sophomore year Homecoming. Harvey Young and I had gone together, and it felt like the right thing to do. Despite the fact that it was terrible and awkward, I don’t regret doing it. “But this will be the first time with someone I care about.”
“It’s mine. It’s always been you for me. It never felt right to be with anyone else.” He must see the guilt flash across my face. “I don’t care that you have been with other people before. I don’t need to be your first. I just want to be the last person for you.” I want that too.
I’m relieved he hadn’t built up this moment for us together. If he had, I wouldn’t have been able to give that to him, and I want to give him everything.
The movements are less sloppy than my first time, but still hesitant. We move like any wrong touch could hurt the other, despite the ferocity of everything we’d done leading up to this. It isn’t perfect; the best things aren’t.
Girls at school had talked about how it was normal for sex to be better for the guy the first couple of times. I don’t reach the same euphoria as Bennett, but I can tell we are going in the right direction.
“Sometimes I think I was born just to spend summers with you,” he whispers. His hand tucks a curl behind my ear. Somehow, whenever he does it, they stay in place, molding to his touch as much as the rest of my body.
“I want to spend every single one of mine with you,” I say.
The second most important development of the summer is that Tanner finally got his boating license. The Sorensons have a boat that’s been largely unused and had needed repairs. Tanner spent every day until his 19th birthday making sure it was seaworthy. We pack sandwiches and beers tucked in the corners of the cooler that can only be noticed if someone makes a close inspection.
The wind whips my hair behind me as the shore becomes a distant speck. The subtle rocking of the boat is foreign and has me bracing against the edge, taking deep breaths, slamming my eyes shut to steady myself. This is what people probably mean by getting their sea legs. I will adjust, I repeat to myself. I hear the rustling of the guys and their muttering about bait and fishing rods. Still, I can’t open my eyes. We’re set in one place, but my stomach still does somersaults. I sit, listening to the swish of the fishing line. I don’t know how long this continues before I hear the cooler crack open.
“Anyone want lunch?” These word break whatever control I had over my body. I lurch to the side, expelling the contents of my stomach. As I crumple to the floor, a form blocks the sun as I curl into myself, too aware of the gentle movements of the water.
“Hey, are you ok?” I know it’s redundant, and I can’t answer even if it isn’t. Who loses their breakfast and is ok? A hand makes soft circles on my back. The conversation above me consists of shouts about getting back home and packing up.
Diane meets us at the dock. The boys must have called her on the way back. She shoves a small glass into my hands and tells me to drink. I do, and the taste of ginger burns down my throat. I cough after finishing the entire thing, and it feels like I’m about to breathe fire.
“I think I’ll stay on land from now on,” I say, and everyone chuckles.
From then on, I see the boys off on the days they go fishing or just want to be on the water. Diane never goes with them either, insistent that she needs to be available for emergencies at Early Bird. I’m not sure what type of emergencies can take place at a café, but I don’t question it because it means I have company while everyone else is away.
She teaches me how to make different pastries. We get coated in clouds of flour, and when it comes to cleaning up, we stand back and wonder how the brownie batter got on the ceiling.
Each day, she shows me some tricks, like how to get a cake to not stick to the pan and the perfect amount of sugar to help yeast bloom. I learn that orange zest is a magic ingredient for so many recipes.
