Page 124 of Summer Love

The shout tears through the night. Luke comes running across the deck, shirtless, in red boardshorts. He brushes past us and jumps into the pool, knees pulled to his chest, arms around his legs.

A wall of water hits us head-on. My dress, my arms, my face—everything’s soaked. The splash is so loud the whole party goes quiet.

Jace straightens. I jerk back.

Luke surfaces, hair slicked back, with a triumphant grin.

“Eight out of ten,” he assesses, looking at the group.

“Three,” Evan corrects, unmoved.

My heart is pounding—and not because of Luke.

Without a glance at me, Jace slides into the pool, shorts and T-shirt and all. The water closes over him. He resurfaces six feet away, hair in his eyes, and swims toward the middle like it’s normal.

“You’re dressed, Walker?” Luke calls.

“Yumi’ll make an exception for me,” he shoots back.

I raise an eyebrow. Since when does Jace break the rules? From Miles, it wouldn’t have surprised me. But Jace… The guy who never let anyone go surfing without warming up. The guy who showed up fifteen minutes early everywhere—Noah used to gripe that he made him wait in the high school lot every morning…

Jace reaches Luke, grabs his shoulders, and dunks him under. Luke disappears for a second and comes up sputtering, laughing. Some kids jump in the water. The party picks back up like nothing happened.

But my dress sticks to my skin and my hands are shaking. My gaze goes to Jace, in the center of the pool, white T-shirt plastered to his back.

We almost kissed. How did we get here?

CHAPTER 39

Jace

What the fuck just happened? The water closes over my head, warm, chlorinated. My toes touch the bottom and I push off toward the surface.

I almost kissed Summer Hayes.

I swim to the middle of the pool. The lights turn the water pink. My T-shirt sticks to my chest. When I leaned toward Summer, I got hard. Instant, impossible to hide. I jumped in fully dressed. Otherwise everyone would’ve seen it.

Nobody saw it. I repeat it to myself for two laps.

My shorts stay plastered to my thighs—right where they need to stay. Because that’s the real problem. The scar.

Wide. Thick. Ragged. A streak of raised, puckered flesh that starts high on my left thigh and runs almost to the knee. Six years, and it’s still just as ugly.

Nobody sees it. Ever. Mom, Noah, and Miles caught glimpses of it a few times, early on. Even Avery has never seen it. I wear long shorts, full wetsuits, jeans. I’m always careful.

Six years since anyone’s seen what’s under these shorts. Six years since I’ve been with a woman.

Once, I tried. A tourist, at the lodge bar. Brunette, a little older than me, funny. We’d been drinking. We went back to the trailer. And when she pulled off my shorts, her face changed. Disgust. She said something—I don’t even remember what—and she left.

I haven’t tried since.

Not just because of the scar. And because the only girl I’ve ever loved blocked my number, abandoned me, and never came back.

Damaged body. Girl gone. End of story.

Luke pulls up next to me after a sloppy crawl. He spits out water, shakes his curls.

“You see Summer’s face? She looks like a wet golden retriever. Swear to God. Same look.”