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“Yes, ma’am,” Poppy answered, reaching for the cooler in its floatie in the center of our tubes.
Daisy shielded her eyes and scanned the river. “Where’s Jo?”
A whoop from the rock face above preceded a Jo-shaped shadow passing over us. She hit the water with a crack and a splash that sprayed all the way to the riverbed.
When she surfaced, it was to yelling and retaliatory splashing. When she tried to grab my tube, I dunked her ass.
She came up laughing, dodging me before climbing into an empty tube. “Shit, that’s cold.”
It was crazy how many people had shown up. This part of the river was slower and deeper than the rest, and knots of tubes floated on their own anchors on both sides of the river. Every couple of minutes was marked by a shout and a splash as the guys took turns on the rope swing.
“Where’s Sebastian?” Poppy asked.
I glanced to the rope swing, smiling when I saw him swinging toward the middle of the river. I pointed. “Right there.”
On cue, he let go into a flip and dove into the water like a goddamn professional.
We cheered.
There was something about being in this place. It reminded me of all those summers when the worst thing happening to any of us was a matter of who gossiped about whom and who kissed who’s boyfriend. But now we were adults. We could come out here and forget about our responsibilities for a day, enjoy a taste of those easier days when we were free. When we didn’t have things like kids and bills and failed dreams. When there wasn’t a town for us to save or a love lost to the few dreams that we still held on to.
It’d been weird with Sebastian all week. Not weird-weird, just heavy with the things we weren’t saying.
Do you want me to stay?
I don’t know.
I didn’t know what else to say. Did I want him to stay? One hundred percent, absolutely, yes. Did I want him to stay for me? Ten thousand percent no. And if I said yes, he’d do it. He was deep in the honeymoon with Priscilla, and me too. On some level he had to know that.
I believed we could be happy. I believed we would stay together. But I also believed that one day not too far from now, it was very possible he’d wake up next to me and wish he’d gone. Priscilla and I wouldn’t be enough—he was a world-eater, a man who devoured experience. And he’d done everything in this town that there was to do at least a dozen times.
If he left us with his heart full of regret, it really would be forever. At least this way, he could go and make sure.
So we’d avoided talking about it all week, at great lengths. And I felt both relieved and disappointed that he didn’t argue with me. But that conversation was coming whether we wanted to have it or not. We were in too deep to avoid it much longer, even with the business of the town to deal with.
Sebastian surfaced and made in our direction, his long arms cutting through the water, the muscles of his shoulders rolling and bunching as he ate up the distance between us. When he reached me, he hooked his arms in my tube and nearly sank us trying to kiss me.
I felt my cheeks flush hotter than the warmth the sun had left there. Because I knew everyone was watching. Including Marnie, who lay on the beach with her friends.
“You got some serious air on that one,” I noted.
The tube squeaked when he adjusted his grip. “You ever gonna try it?”
“If I wouldn’t do it at sixteen before I knew how to be afraid for my life, what makes you think I’d do it now?”
“Oh, come on. You don’t even have to flip or anything.”
“Well, that changes everything.”
He chuckled and glanced around. “Man, it’s gorgeous today. I kinda wish Cilla was here. Pretty sure she’d be impressed with my rope swing skills. I mean, ninety percent of learning flips was to impress girls, after all.”
“She’s impressed with everything you do. Can’t say I blame her.”
Someone yelled from across the river, “Asshole!”
Everyone—literally everyone—looked in the direction of the beach where the word had come from. The cluster of women near Marnie were the only ones looking in our direction. Marnie was doing her best to disappear into the shade of her big floppy hat. It hadn’t been her—her style was much more subtle. One of her friends shot the bird in our direction.
“What the fuck?” Sebastian started to push off in their direction, but I stayed him with my hand on his forearm.
“Leave it. And maybe let’s reserve any kissing until we’re not in the eye line of your ex.”
