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Meanwhile, my insides are thrumming, my armpits prickling with a flight or fight response that has nothing and everything to do with him. And it’s fucking irritating.
The more time I spend with him, the more it feels like I’m shifting toward the open door of an airplane with tissue paper for a parachute. All the work I did over the years pushing him from my mind has come apart at the seams in the last few weeks.
While I worried about Lucas from time to time, that worry never attached itself to the trauma of losing Jeremy. Now it has. The proof is the faint tremor in my hands, my still-elevated heart rate.
I know what it means—and that’s the scariest part. I care about him. Still. Too much.
Lucas eventually turns, peaceful expression shifting as his eyes lock on my face. Then he’s out of the water, half-running to my little outdoor office consisting of a blanket under the shade of a tree.
“What’s wrong?”
He looms over me, dripping water on the edge of the blanket. His voice is sharp, demanding, his gaze scanning my features. My face feels like wet plaster as I shift it into a smile. His wince tells me I failed in my efforts.
“I’m fine.”
His gaze narrows, dissecting me before he glances back at the lake. When he turns to me again, understanding and sympathy swim in his eyes.
He knows.
I can’t stand it. Can’t stand that he can read me so well. All these years later. Like nothing has changed between us, like we’re kids again and I’m pretending my feelings aren’t hurt because a girl in our class told me I’d always be flat-chested like a boy.
I reach for my laptop to pack it away, my movements jerky, but before I can carry out my hissy fit, Lucas says, “Get your shit and meet me in the Art Barn.”
Without waiting for a response, he strolls toward his clothes.
23
The air in the barn is cool and musty. I took my time following Lucas, and by the time I step inside, he’s pulled on shorts and shoes sans socks. His hair drips on his bare shoulders, which flex as he drags open the back doors to let in more light and a fresh breeze.
Still a bit off-center, I look around. Dust motes dance in the stale air. Five of the six central worktables are covered with drop cloths, their surfaces lumpy from protecting who knows what the last few years. Probably junk.
To my right is the ‘expert only’ area, a fenced space with a padlock that used to hold two old kilns, along with saws, drills, and paint. Basically anything sharp or toxic. It’s empty now, the gate hanging open and listing toward the ground.
The left wall of the barn used to be a staging and display area for art in the drying process, but now piles of trash obscure it. Chunks of wood, broken furniture, old paint cans, rotting sheets and towels. My nose wrinkles at the sight of animal droppings and about a billion spiderwebs.
“Should’ve ordered another dumpster,” I note as Lucas approaches me.
“We will,” he assures me.
I look up at him, feeling a jolt when I find his gaze already on my face. “What are we doing here?”
He smirks. “Unwrapping presents.”
He rips off the nearest drop cloth, sending a ton of dust into the air. We both sneeze and say, “Bless you,” at the same time. I have a coughing fit and he pounds my back.
“Ugh, Lucas, what the hell!”
He chuckles and sweeps an arm toward the table. “Ta-da!”
Eyes watering, I blink at what’s been revealed. Small cardboard boxes, sagging and half disintegrated, with faded marker on the sides denoting years. I immediately look at the oldest boxes, with buckled and warped sides, the cardboard almost paper at this point. Then I find it. Our year.
Not the last one, the one where everything changed, but the one before that. Our sophomore summer. The golden year.
Lucas sees it at the same time I do. His arm brushes against mine—warm, electric connection that makes me twitch—as he pulls the box from the table. It’s heavy, his biceps straining as he carries it outside and puts it down carefully in the sunlight, on the small cement landing before the barn.
Then he plops down cross-legged in front of the box and grins up at me. “Do the honors?”
I nod eagerly and sit opposite him to peel back the loose layers of the box top. Even half-knowing what I’ll find, my jaw still drops. “I can’t believe these were kept.”
