“I hear it’s a pretty common practice,” I said. Everett grinned, and for a minute it was quiet between us, just the sound of muted conversations and the cool indie music the place was playing drifting in. “I’m glad Gabe chose you,” I finally said.
“For kickball in the third grade?” Everett asked.
“Well, that, obviously,” I said. “And then to replace Zoey last summer.”
Something flickered over Everett’s face, quick, before the same calm, lazily happy expression he usually wore slid into place again. “I am too,” he said.
It felt so much like that first night we’d met as we drove back to the cottage, the briny evening air whipping in through the windows. There were pieces of Everett that still felt new, exciting, that were distinct from who he was with everyone else.
The bedroom I’d shared with Laurel that week became ours for the next two days, and maybe I should have cared about that, but I didn’t. The only thing I cared about was the golden glow of the sunset against the white sheets, Everett’s skin against mine, for once just giving in to something. Not thinking about anynextmoment. Everett’s hand pressed into my hip, his head dipped between my legs, and nothing else mattered.
I wore his T-shirt while we made breakfast the next morning and turned on the Food Network in the background, yet another microtradition we’d established. We ended up tangled together on the couch, breathless and fast compared to last night’s drawn-out exploration of each other. Afterward, we changed and ran across the warm sand to the water, splashing in and ducking under, replacing the sweat dried on our skin with salt water. We warmed up on the beach and swam again, over and over, until our stomachs and the dipping sun dragged us back to the house.
On our last morning together, I turned onto my side to look at him. He was already awake, hair rumpled from sleep and where I’d dragged my fingers through it. “Can we do this again next summer?” I asked.
Everett smiled slowly, eyes still a little tired. “Of course,” he said.
Neither of us acknowledged the pact or other people. Notjust our friends, but other partners, potential relationships that couldn’t be further from our minds in that moment.
I wasn’t sad saying goodbye to him when he dropped me off at the airport that afternoon. We’d spent the drive from Malibu talking about what was next for us, no mention of when we’d talk again or what this meant. We both seemed to tacitly agree that, as soon as the door to the cottage closed behind us, we were back to our usual selves. Friends, or something like it. Just two parts of a larger group.
“See you in the group chat,” I said as Everett hauled my suitcase out of the back seat, setting it on the sidewalk next to me. He had his sunglasses pushed to the top of his head, and for a minute I thought about him driving home from here, pictured him in his life. Traffic and film sets and flights to new places. It was a good image, but one that was quickly replaced by Everett shaking ocean water out of his hair, laughing across a bonfire, moving around a tiny kitchen with me. Summer Everett. The only piece of him I’d ever really known. Funnily enough, summer was just beginning, still around the corner on the calendar. We were each other’s shoulder season.
We hugged each other goodbye, friendly, familiar. “Pencil me in to your calendar,” he said as we pulled away. “Two days next summer.”
“Already have you down in pen,” I said. Everett smiled at me, that brilliant flash that I’m sure had hearts skipping all over LA. It had caught my eye at a party two years ago, after all. He nodded toward the airport. “Get out of here, Hale.”
I grinned. “Bye, Bridges.” I waited for the guilt to show up then, rear its head now that we were back to real life. But it didn’t come.
seventeen
This Summer
Everett and I manage to make it through most of Wednesday without openly—or privately, for that matter—bickering. Whatever truce we struck in the cabin of the sailboat seems to have stuck.
We spend the morning at Laurel’s favorite hiking spot, a few miles down the coast. It’s a trail that takes us far up and away from the road at first, before eventually flattening out and winding its way along a brush-dense path, high above the ocean.
Our second summer here, Everett and I lagged behind, arms brushing as we tried to walk side by side on the narrow trail. We pointed out the dots of people on the beach, tried to make up stories for them. A family here for a reunion, half of them happy with the location and the rest wishing they’d picked a ski trip in the winter. A young couple in an argument over who was supposed to pack the sunscreen and forgot. A lonely wanderer, maybe here from a different time, collecting information to take back to wherever he was coming from.
This summer, we end up at the back together out of sheer coincidence. Or, I’m pretty sure it’s coincidence. Laurel links arms with Davi and calls to Gabe over her shoulder as we reachthe top of the incline, in a move that leaves Everett and me to bring up the rear and that I’m not sure I trust is entirely unintentional. She’s testing us, seeing if we actually worked through things yesterday.
But Everett and I walk in silence. He’s behind me for a while, until I stop under the pretense of taking a long drink of water and he draws ahead. Then he needs to stop to tie his shoe and I prance past him, before I have to peel off my T-shirt to hike in my sports bra, the sun beating down heavier than anticipated, and he overtakes me.
Eventually our game of leapfrog gets boring, and I keep pace with him from behind, attention caught by the way the sun in his hair makes it look almost dark blond. When he turns around, ostensibly to check I’m still there, I just smile at him, ignoring the faint press I feel against my sternum.
That evening, I get ready in Laurel’s room for dinner at Cooper’s. We’re both in front of the mirror above the dresser.
“I’m sorry,” I tell her for what I think has to be the fourteenth time. She’s still been distant today, pointedly avoiding being alone with Everett or me. Laurel pauses, an eyeshadow brush in hand, and meets my eyes in the mirror.
“You don’t have to keep apologizing,” she says. “Just keep not fighting with each other and I’ll forgive you.”
“I know,” I say. “I’m just sorry that we distracted from the week at all.”
Laurel looks away from me and leans into the mirror. “Let’s just focus on making the rest of it good.”
“Of course,” I say. I almost sayI’m sorryagain, this time for things long past, but I don’t.
Laurel and I didn’t talk about what had happened right away. At first, she wouldn’t answer my calls. Then, for a while, I think we were pretending it hadn’t happened at all, until theguilt ofnotsaying anything finally got to me and it just burst out one day when I was visiting her for a long weekend in LA. The thing, even then, was that she hadn’t seemed all that interested in my apology.Thanks, she’d said quickly, and when I asked if she wanted to talk about it, she just shook her head, and that was that.
