Page 88 of Summer Love

Harper comes back out of the lodge with two steaming mugs. She hands one to Sierra and keeps the other.

“Green tea. It’s all they had. The rest was fennel tea, and nobody bloody deserves that.”

Sierra takes the mug with a smile. They settle onto the lounge chair across from mine. Harper sits cross-legged. Sierra pulls her braids over one shoulder.

At the edge of the pool, Noah crouches, a pH test vial in one hand. He pulls a cigarette from his chest pocket, lights it, takes a drag, then compares the color of the liquid against the scale printed on the label.

I pull the towel tighter around me.

Breathe.

“You should call someone,” Sierra says gently.

“My dad. He’s all I’ve got.”

Then I remember my phone is sitting on the nightstand in Bungalow 17.

“I’ll go,” Sierra offers.

She sets down her mug and stands before I can protest. I watch her cross the deck, skirt the main building, and disappear toward the bungalows.

Harper takes a sip of tea. She doesn’t try to fill the silence. Good.

Sierra comes back a few minutes later, my phone in her hand.

“My dad’s in Oxford for the summer,” I explain. “Research program at the university.”

I lift the phone to my ear. It rings, then voicemail kicks in. I hang up without leaving a message.

“Will he call back?” Harper asks.

“When he sees the missed call, yeah. He doesn’t usually keep his phone on him…”

It’s not indifference. It’s just Dad. Head in the clouds, heart in the right place, phone on silent in the pocket of some jacket he isn’t wearing.

Poolside, Noah straightens up. He grabs the pool cleaner’s cord and pulls it out of the water. Cigarette wedged between his lips, he winds the cord around his arm and heads for the pool house.

“You got any brothers or sisters?” Harper asks.

“One half-sister. Elena.”

Three years since I’ve said her name out loud.

“You two on the outs?”

“No. Our only connection was my mom. When things blew up between her and me… I lost Elena too.”

Sierra turns the mug between her fingers. Her rings clink against the ceramic.

“Do you regret it?” she asks.

“Yes.”

I’ve known it for three years; it’s the first time I’ve said it.

“What’s stopping you from calling her?”

I sigh. Nothing’s really stopping me.