Page 122 of Summer Love

Uno.

Miles kicks off the game by dropping a +4 on Jace—house rule—who drops one on Luke, who drops one on me, and I end up with twelve cards while everyone laughs.

“This is a coalition,” I sigh.

“It’s Uno,” Jace corrects.

It’s the first thing he’s said to me all night. He’s not smiling. But his eyes are.

Flip wakes up, stretches, and crosses the deck in slow motion to the table. Miles tosses him a too-salty cracker. Flip snaps it up, licks his chops, then goes to drink from the pool, dunking half his muzzle in.

“Flip, no,” Jace says without looking up from his cards.

Flip ignores him. Sushi comes out of nowhere and darts between the chairs. The dog’s head snaps up, ears pricked, then he tears off after her, knocks over a chair on the way, and disappears into the dark beyond the deck.

“Your dog’s a public menace,” Luke teases.

Jace doesn’t answer. He lays a +2 on Maya.

After a while, I stand up.

“Sorry, I’ll be back in fifteen.”

Nobody asks questions. Maya waves at me. Miles is miming a flamingo for a new round of Time’s Up and doesn’t hear me.

I move away from the group and follow the edge of the pool, the deep end, where there’s no one. The lights shift to blue and the water becomes a rectangle of liquid neon.

I sit at the edge, slip off my sandals, and let my feet slide into the warm water. I hike my light cotton dress up over my thighs.

The night is mild. Behind me, the laughter and music form a reassuring wall of noise. In front, the palm trees, the pool house wall, and the cloudless sky.

I take out my phone and type “Pacific Ice Showcase San Francisco.” I find the stream and tap the link. The image takes a few seconds to load, then a rink lit up in blue fills the screen. Rows of half-empty seats line the ice: it’s a summer gala, not the World Championships.

After a few minutes, Elena steps onto the ice. I recognize her high ponytail, her posture, the line of her back that my mother sculpted for years. She’s wearing a silver skating dress and she strings together spins with a fluidity that makes it look like gravity doesn’t apply to her.

I haven’t spoken to her in three years. I don’t know what music she listens to, or whether she has a boyfriend, or whether she sleeps enough. But I know her double axel, her triple lutz, the way she drops her shoulder just before setting up a jump.

I watch her as if through glass.

“Is that Elena?”

I jump.

Jace is behind me. I didn’t hear him come up. He’s looking at the screen over my shoulder. The purple light from the pool catches one side of his face.

“Yeah,” I say. “She’s doing a gala in San Francisco.”

Elena links a double axel into a triple toe loop.

“You could’ve gone…” Jace says.

He’s right. San Francisco is less than four hours away. I could’ve left at noon, been there tonight, sat in the stands and seen her for real. The thought never even crossed my mind.

“I do the same thing with Avery,” Jace goes on.

“You watch her competitions?”

“All of them. Surf, skate. Streamed, or in person when I can.”