Our Secret Summer

Chapter 23

CHAPTER 23

Three days was nothing. Three last days with Raffo might as well have been three minutes for how quickly they vanished.

After dinner on their final evening together, Dylan wanted to stretch out the night as long as possible, because she didn’t want morning to come. She had a whole life in Los Angeles. She had friends—and a son she had missed the hell out of. She had a house with neighbors who believed she’d been living it up in Europe all this time.

Maybe it was the time pressure they were under or maybe it was the simple fact that Dylan had fallen deeply, hopelessly, and recklessly in love with Raffo. She’d only fully admitted this to herself the day before, when Raffo had revealed the painting of the lake house, and Dylan had felt it so bone-deep, so clearly, it simply could no longer be ignored. She had to ask.

“What if we did tell Connor?” Suddenly, even for Dylan, it was a viable option to be explored.

“What?” Raffo turned away from where she’d been silently gazing into the fire. “Where does that come from all of a sudden?”

“Raffo—I—” But Dylan couldn’t put that kind of pressure on Raffo. This was never supposed to be amorous . It was a summer fling—all the ingredients had been present. She shook her head. “Forget it. It’s crazy.” Though she’d admitted to having feelings weeks ago, Dylan couldn’t confess she’d fallen in love. Raffo’s heart was still raw from Mia, even if her ex’s name had barely crossed her lips this past week. Moreover, Raffo was thirty-two years old and things were happening for her, while Dylan was considering her final professional hurrah before retirement. And Connor would never accept it. What would they even do? Go on dates in LA? Have Sunday brunch with her son? None of it seemed remotely plausible.

“I’m going to miss you,” Raffo said, her voice rough. “So fucking much.” The smallest smile touched her lips. “It’s okay to be sad it’s over. It is sad. But it’s only sad because we had such a great time.”

“Yeah.” Dylan took in Raffo’s face, the gravity of it—and how different it looked to when they were in bed together.

“Have you figured out what you’re going to do?” Raffo asked. “Get a job or sell this place?”

Dylan shook her head. Right now, as they were sitting by this glorious lake, on their last night together, Dylan couldn’t fathom selling her Big Bear house, and all the memories they’d made in it. First, she would tell Connor about losing her savings. Then, she’d try to pick up her life in LA, after which she would try to make a decision.

“Can I ask you something?” Dylan didn’t know how Raffo would react, but she still thought it a fair question for their last night.

“Sure.” Raffo nodded.

“What if as soon as you’re back, Mia comes to see you and claims she made the biggest mistake of her life when she left you.”

Raffo scoffed. “Fuck that.” That, too, was such a Raffo response—economical with words even now. Still, Dylan gave her time to elaborate. Raffo looked into the fire again. “Maybe, one day, I will be able to accept that she fell out of love with me. Rationally, I know that is something that happens to couples all the time. That it can just be over like that. I can forgive her for that but never for how she handled it. For how she treated me.” Raffo shook her head. “It’s not going to happen, anyway, because she doesn’t love me anymore.”

But I do, Dylan thought, the words burning in her chest. I’m so stupidly, crazily in love with you.

When Raffo woke, Dylan was no longer in bed. She groaned as reality washed over her. Dylan was leaving today. Fuck, fuck, fuck. Raffo had suggested it, but now that it was about to happen, she wished she’d never proposed this particular compromise. Because their last night together hadn’t just been sensual and explosive and passionate—it had cracked something open between them, something raw and honest and terrifying.

Raffo would never get the image out of her head of a naked Dylan straddling her underneath the sheet, like some super-sexy ghost who couldn’t get enough of her, with breasts so improbably perfect, Raffo might just have to paint them all over again. Maybe that’s what she would do as soon as Dylan left. Paint her. A full-body work this time—completely naked.

She could already see it in her mind: Dylan stretched out on the lounger, sunlight playing across her skin, those knowing eyes fixed on some distant point across the lake. The painting would capture everything—her strength, her vulnerability, her impossible grace. But Raffo would have to keep it hidden away, like so many other memories of their time together. Another secret to carry home.

“Where are you?” she shouted, because, for one final minute, she wanted Dylan back in bed with her.

“I’m here.” Raffo couldn’t make out where Dylan’s voice was coming from, but she appeared in the room a moment later. “I’ve been awake for a while. Going home jitters. So much to pack.”

“Come here, please.” Raffo opened her arms.

Dylan was already fully dressed in crisp linen pants and a blue blouse that made her eyes look like pieces of sky—maybe that was for the best.

Raffo pulled her into a fierce hug. Because she didn’t know what to say she sighed deeply into Dylan’s soft, sun-streaked hair. They lay like that for long seconds, moments Raffo never wanted to end.

“It’s so hard.” Raffo breathed in Dylan’s familiar scent—expensive moisturizer, coffee, and something uniquely her—trying to memorize it. In a few hours, this would all be just another memory, like the way Dylan looked in the morning light, or how she laughed when Raffo said something unexpectedly funny. All these little details that had become so precious. “Why is it so hard?”

“You probably can’t imagine life without access to my breasts,” Dylan joked, but there was a clear sadness to her tone.

“That must be it.” Raffo held onto Dylan a little tighter. “Why are you Connor’s mother? Why can’t you be someone else?” It wasn’t a rational question. Nothing about this was rational. It was all emotion.

“Why?” Dylan’s voice was muffled because her face was pressed against Raffo’s neck. “Would you ask me on a date in LA if I weren’t his mother? Am I not too old for you?”

Raffo didn’t reply because it was futile, although she didn’t consider Dylan too old for her in the least.

“I will never forget our time in Big Bear. Thank you for everything. For all the meals and the excellent company and the mind-blowing orgasms.” Raffo loosened her embrace a fraction.

“Thank you for the amazing works of art.” Dylan pushed herself up and gazed at Raffo, her eyes all moist. “And for being my third woman.” Dylan swallowed something out of her throat. She swept at her cheek. “Sorry. I’m just, um—you made me feel good about myself again, Raffo. That means so much to me.” Tears streamed down her face. Dylan didn’t bother catching them any longer. “I’m going to miss you so much.”

“Me too.” The tears that pricked behind Raffo’s eyes soon rolled along her cheeks, onto the sheets of this bed where everything had changed.

They sat still, looking at each other, only the sound of sniffling between them. Then there was nothing left to say, though a thousand words pressed against Raffo’s lips. This was it. It was all over. The vacation. The time-out from life. Their red-hot and strangely restorative affair. Their secret fling in Big Bear and whatever feelings it may have produced. As soon as Dylan’s car rolled off the driveway, it was all over and done with.