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“All right. I won’t sing, if you agree to have dinner with me.”
“Michael, we’ve been through this.”
“You can cook dinner for one and I’ll eat half.”
“I’m in love with someone else!”
“I know. Chad Bates. Your mother told me.”
“Well then.”
“Well then, what? You broke up. I know Barry Manilow, you know.” Michael shook his guitar mock-threateningly. “And I’m not afraid to use him.”
> Summer burst out laughing. “My God. You don’t take no for an answer, do you?”
“It’s a family trait.”
“Fine. I’ll have dinner with you. But as an old friend, nothing more. Now for heaven’s sake go home and let me get some sleep.”
Michael De Vere went home. But Summer Meyer didn’t sleep. She lay awake thinking about Chad, Chad whom she’d loved so hard for so long and whom she really believed she was going to marry until he’d told her back in May that he “needed space” and never called her again. Chad was serious and cerebral and a genius. Chad was going to be an important journalist one day.
Then she thought about Michael, in his leather bomber jacket with that ridiculous guitar slung over his shoulder, Martha’s Vineyard’s answer to John Mayer. Michael was sexy and immature and impulsive. Michael had given up Oxford to become a professional partier.
There’s your answer, Summer told herself. Michael De Vere is not the sort of man I need in my life.
Absolutely, categorically not.
“I wrote you a poem.”
They were having dinner, not at Marco’s but at a little, nondescript café by Eastville Point Beach. Summer had finished a delicious burger and fries, washed down with two Sam Adams, and was just starting to relax about the evening (Of course, two old friends can have dinner together. It doesn’t have to be a big deal) when Michael pulled the envelope out of his pocket.
Summer’s face fell. “A poem? I thought we agreed. I meant it when I said I’m not ready to start dating again. And even if I were, I’m not really a poetry sort of girl.”
“How do you know? You haven’t read it yet.”
Summer opened the envelope and read aloud.
“There once was a loser named Bates.
Who danced the fandango on skates.
But a fall on his cutlass
Has rendered him nutless,
And practically useless on dates.”
Summer grinned. “Very romantic.”
“You like that?” Michael smiled back. “I made up a whole bunch of limericks, but I thought that was the best. He never deserved you, you know.”
“How would you know? You never even met him!”
“I know, but come on: Chad. What kind of a name is that?”
“It’s a perfectly normal name.”
“Let’s be honest, it’s not a name one can imagine screaming in ecstasy, is it? ‘Chad! Oh, Chad! Harder Chad!’”
