Page 21 of Summer Love

I move closer; the old man walks off laughing. Luke looks up.

“Hey,” I say.

His brown eyes land on me with a shopkeeper’s politeness.

“Hey! Can I help you?”

I wait for him to smile, to frown, to say my name. Nothing.

“Luke?”

He studies my face.

“Sorry, I... Do we know each other?”

I freeze. Okay, I’ve changed. The braces are gone, and my body’s nothing like the lean, flat figure of the skater I was at seventeen. But twelve summers, Luke. Twelve summers eating ice cream together on the pier, shoving each other into the lodge pool, throwing barbecues on the beach. You don’t forget that.

Or you pretend you have.

Last night, Evan was distant. This morning, Jace and his “You’re not dead.” Now Luke. “Do we know each other?”

Of course they blame me. Even Luke, the nicest of the bunch, won’t even bother to recognize me.

“No, it’s... nothing. Sorry.”

Luke opens his mouth to answer, but I’ve already turned on my heel.

I grab a plastic basket and fill it with cold fury. Sponges. Rubber gloves. Bleach. Trash bags, XXL. Pruning shears. Scrub brush. Sandpaper.

“Do we know each other?”

I toss a roller and a pack of brushes into the basket.

Twelve summers—and he looks at me like I’m some tourist passing through.

I look for paint. There’s interior paint—white, cream, beige—but nothing for the shutters.

They blame me for my silence—and they’re right. For six years, I didn’t call. I erased them from my life.

I pass the glass-front fridge again and grab a bottle of water. My throat’s dry.

But they heard Jace’s version that summer. They picked his side.

The basket weighs a ton. I get in line.

Two people ahead of me. Luke rings them up fast, focused, a word for every customer. A woman pays for milk and bananas. A teenager buys a bar of surf wax. Then it’s my turn.

Luke starts scanning my items—an automatic motion, repeated a thousand times. He lifts his head and really looks at me. I flush. He sets down the pruning shears he was holding.

“Summer?” he says, eyes going wide. “Summer Hayes?”

“Yeah, Luke. It’s me.”

He closes his eyes for a second. When he opens them, he looks nothing like the guy who was joking with Ed.

“Shit. I’m sorry. I⁠—”

He runs a hand through his curls—the same gesture as at sixteen—and shakes his head.