Page 96 of Summer Love

I wake my phone again. 4:39 a.m.

Yesterday shook me: the waves, the bracelet, Jace’s hand… My stomach’s still in knots.

I won’t fall back asleep.

I push the sheet back, plant my feet on the warm floorboards. Better to go for a run than lie here counting the fan blades turning. I pull on leggings, a sports bra, a T-shirt, my sneakers. The motion is automatic—years of training.

The bungalow door closes without a sound behind me.

The lodge is still asleep. The air is cool, heavy with moisture. Mist wraps the bougainvillea and blurs the outlines of the nearby bungalows. Not a sound, not a voice. Even the cats have vanished.

I head down the gravel path, phone in hand. Dad texted me at four in the morning—noon in Oxford.

Sorry, sweetheart—conferences all day. All good? Call me tomorrow.

I type “All good” and slip my phone into my leggings pocket.

On the step of one of the cabins, I notice a still figure. Boxers, no shirt, a mug in one hand, a cigarette in the other. The orange ember is the only color in all that gray.

Noah.

I stop in front of him. He looks up at me, bored.

“Hey,” I say, surprised.

He drags on his cigarette, exhales, nods at me. The smoke blends into the mist.

He lives here. In one of the long-term cabins. The full ashtray on the step and the chipped mug in his hand are enough to say so.

“Run with me?” I ask.

He stares at me like I just suggested a marathon. Then he takes a sip of coffee before answering.

“I’m busy.”

“Busy doing what? Moping in your boxers?”

The corner of his mouth pulls down. He grunts, looks at his cigarette, then the gray sky, then me.

“No, Summer.”

“Come on, like old times,” I press.

“Old times…” he sighs.

Just as I’m about to give up, he sets down his mug, stands, and disappears inside. I hear a drawer open, a muffled curse, the sound of someone wrestling into clothes.

He comes back in shorts, sneakers, and a black NASA T-shirt that’s way too tight. The one from the Lighthouse Diner, the one he wore that day under his apron. Back then, he swam in it.

He’s still got the cigarette in his mouth.

Without a word, I take it from his lips. I crush it under my sneaker, on the wood slats, next to the full ashtray.

Noah looks down at the butt, opens his mouth, closes it. Then he falls into step beside me.

We start to run.

Well—I run. Noah survives.