He rolled his eyes and changed the subject. “What isHidden Gemsabout?”
“Plucky young assistant basically steals her sexist real estate broker boss’s job by being better at it than he is, all while maintaining her girlish charm.”
He nodded, trying to process the idea of his childhood friend being so influenced by a movie starring his… adult friend.
“Why were you so zoned out in there?” Allie asked. “Your lady friend noticed, I think. She offered to pay me, by the way, for this visit.”
He let thelady friendcrack pass. “I was zoned out because I was… surprised by what I remembered from being here and what I didn’t. Why wouldn’t I remember exchanging letters in the tree?” To cite one example.
“Probably because that happened at a traumatic time for you.”
What? “It did?”
He would have expected a witty rejoinder, or for her to inform him about something else he didn’t remember, but once again she surprised him by saying, quietly, “It was. You might not have realized it at the time. You might not even realize it now. But yeah.” She flashed him a sad smile.
He didn’t know what to say to that because he didn’t know what she was talking about.
The moment was gone. Allie threw her purse into the car, turnedback toward him, punched him on the shoulder, and said, “Anyway, I told your lady friend that I don’t require payment from her, just from you. You’re not allowed to ghost me for another decade.”
Jack found Blair on the deck that overlooked the lake. Yet again he was assaulted by a mix of strange and familiar. The deck had always been red, but he remembered the paint as more faded and peeling. This was a brighter, cleaner red. The stairs that led down to the lake used to be semirotted, but they’d been replaced with new pressure-treated lumber. But the clothesline that Allie had referenced, which retracted from a rickety, rusty pole, was the same, as was the hammock strung between two trees a little ways off. He had spent many an afternoon reading on that hammock. And there was the bell Mr. Jensen used to ring when it was time for dinner and Allie and Jack were out on the lake.
Blair glanced his way as he approached but returned to staring at the water. “There’s something about a lake. You’d think an ocean would scratch the same itch.”
“I wouldn’t think that.”
She chuckled.
He didn’t know what to say. He didn’t know how to be. How to process the last twenty-four hours. Not just the onslaught of memories he had been utterly unprepared for, but the fact that he and Blair had slept together last night and had plans to do it again.
“I have so many questions,” she said.
Good. Questions would be a distraction. “Hit me.”
“Where’s your dad’s place?”
“You can’t see it from here.” Thankfully. “This is a bay. The big lake—that’s what the locals call the main part—is around that corner.”
“Are you going to go see your dad while you’re here?”
“No.” And here he had invited her questions, had thought they would be a distraction from the memories swirling in his brain. “Don’t ask me why not. I don’t have a good answer.”
“OK. I have easy questions, too.”
He made a bring-it gesture.
“What is a foot bucket?”
He turned around and pointed to the plastic dishwashing bucket on the ground next to the door. “It’s empty now, but it’s usually filled with water.” Gross water, as it had never been changed frequently enough—no one ever wanted to walk around the side of the house where the spigot was, fill it up, and manhandle it back. “You’re meant to dip your feet in it after swimming or running around barefoot. Rinse off the sand and dirt before you go inside.”
“Lest you track it in to the orange shag carpet, the absence of which I lament. I have already texted Tiff and asked her if there is such a thing as CGI shag carpet.”
“Wouldn’t it be easier to get some actual carpet? Put in the shag, then replace it with whatever flooring Allie wants?”
“You’d better cool it with these logical ideas, or you’re going to end up with a producing credit against your will.”
He rolled his eyes. “Next question.”
“Why is this door”—she turned and pointed—“cut in half?”
