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She throws her napkin down on the table. “You two deserve each other.”
“Here’s the thing, Sammy,” I tell her. “You can still be friends with guys without dating them.”
“I don’t want a friend, I want my first kiss,” she declares heatedly. “Dad was thirteen when he had his, and I’m almost thirteen.”
“Thirteen, huh?” I ask him. No wonder he’s such a good kisser. He’s had a lot of practice.
“How old were you?” he asks me.
As embarrassed as I am by the answer, I opt for full disclosure. “Seventeen.”
“Seventeen?!” Sammy throws herself back against the booth like I just punched her in the lungs. “Were you ugly? I can’t imagine you were ever ugly.”
“I don’t think I was ugly,” I tell her. “I just had standards. I wasn’t going to let just anybody be my first kiss.”
“Who was the guy you finally kissed?” she wants to know. “A movie star? The captain of the football team?”
“His name was Josh Handler,” I tell her. “He wasn’t a football player that I know of. He was a guy who was a summer visitor to Elk Lake. We’d gotten to know each other the summer before.”
“So, you kissed him, knowing nothing could ever come from it?” Jamie asks.
I shoot him the most penetrating death glare in my arsenal. “That seems to be a recurring theme in my life.”
Sammy doesn’t seem aware of the undertones of our exchange. “What did he look like?” She wants to know.
“He was tall,” I tell her. “With wavy dark hair and blue eyes. He had the best smile I’ve ever seen.”
“He sounds like Dad,” she says. And just like that, I realize she’s right. I have no idea what Josh looks like now, but I’m guessing he might look a lot like Jamie.
I decide to tease him. “You didn’t by chance come to Elk Lake fifteen years ago and pretend to be a teenager named Josh, did you?”
“I would have never pretended to be someone I’m not,” he says. That simple comment feels like it’s cloaked in some hidden meaning. I don’t have a chance to guess what that might be before he says, “I would never tell you one thing and mean another.”
Oh, I get it. He’s saying that he would never tell me he couldn’t have a relationship with me if he thought we could. He’s letting me know that no matter how much he might want to be with me, he never will.
And I’m finally starting to believe him.
CHAPTERTHIRTY-SIX
JAMIE
Dinner with Sammy and Melissa feels like I’ve just gone twelve rounds with Muhammed Ali. It’s all periods, dating, and dirty looks whenever I have an unpopular opinion. Which appears to be all of them.
After our plates are cleared, I ask, “Would you two like to skip bowling?”
“Why would we want to do that?” Sammy wants to know.
“I think your dad is a little annoyed with us,” Melissa says. I’m glad my mood isn’t a mystery to her.
“Why?”
“Probably because we spent the whole meal making him feel left out.”
Sammy turns to me. “Did you feel left out?”
“I certainly didn’t feel like you wanted to hear anything I had to say,” I tell her.
“Yeah, but Dad, I’m not always going to agree with you. I mean, I’m a kid, not an old dude.”
