“Even my dad hated that.”
“The different plaid patterns with palm trees were truly horrendous.”
She’s silent for a few minutes, relaxing into me. “What do you think they’d say about us?”
“That they’re glad we’re finally getting along so well?”
She punches my thigh. “I’m serious. Would they be super angry?”
“I don’t know. I really don’t,” I lie.
I know my father would be enraged. Even after his death, I struggle with the heavy weight of disappointing him.
“Clara wouldn’t mind.”
“No, she wouldn’t. She loved you,” she says. “She never cared for Andrew. She used to tell me you’d make someone a great husband one day.”
“Hmm. I didn’t know that.”
She nods, leaning back against my chest. “Yeah. I kind of wonder now, looking back … I don’t know. Maybe I’m just thinking she was trying to tell me something because I want to make myself feel better about having sex with you.”
“She and I talked about you a lot.”
Summer sits up, turning to face me. “Really?”
I trace my finger over the tie at her hip. “I called her every Sunday.”
Her eyes widen, but she waits for me to continue.
“She would tell me what she and my dad had been up to, but it was like she knew that I was mostly calling to get an update on you. So, after ten or fifteen minutes, she’d just casually segue into your life and how things were going. She definitely did not like Andrew.”
Summer scrunches her eyes together thoughtfully.
“I’m hungry,” she finally says.
“I brought the ingredients to try a new recipe for brunch.”
She studies me. I get lost in her pale green eyes. They’re the color of the inside of a lime, bright and beautiful. The delicate spatter of freckles across her nose gives her a youthful look.
“Come on. I’ll cook for you while you set up the Scrabble game.”
After making her shakshuka and playing a game of Scrabble, where she completely annihilated me, we began the hike to Hidden Cove.
I’m wearing a backpack with bottled water, granola bars, sunscreen, and her camera.
Summer insisted we keep our swimsuits on so we can swim in the waterfall. She stole my white T-shirt to put over hers, which is somehow even sexier than the bikini.
We pass by Juniper and Mia while we’re still in town. They wave at us with knowing grins on their faces. When we see Silvie and Cal walking the beach, he gives me a subtle thumbs-up while the girls are talking.
The walk to the entrance isn’t difficult, but when we make it there, the path becomes more of a jungle with an incline. Rocks and tree branches litter the trail ahead of us, which is only marked with pink ribbons tied around branches. Summer is in front of me.
“If you had traveled for pleasure in the last ten years, where would you have gone?” she asks.
“I did go to London once, but it was on business.”
“That doesn’t count.”
“I think a safari would be my first choice.”
