Chapter 15
Ace
The Fourth of July at Aunt Paula and Uncle Brad’s—aka the Winslow family’s—lake house isn’t so much a holiday as it is a generational event.
A full-cast production of chaos and food, laughter and fireworks explosions, and overrun with more relatives and friends than should be able to fit in the cabin.
Everyone’s here.
Julia’s family—Kline, Georgia, and her sister Evie—claimed the guest rooms with lake views. My parents and my lunatic brother Gunnar, who set up a floating beer pong table in the shallow end of the lake the instant he got here.
Finn’s whole family—his mom Helen and his siblings Reece, Jack, Travis, and Willow—rolled in with enough snacks to feed a teenage militia.
Of course, the Winslow clan descended in full force. Wes and Winnie are here with their kids, Lexi and Wes Jr., plus the Winslow brothers—Remy, Ty, Jude, Flynn—and their spouses and kids.
And Scottie and my good buddy Blake Boden are here too.
It’s loud. It’s crowded. It smells like sunscreen, burgers, and the practice fireworks my dad and Gunnar have already shot off.
In the water beside me, Julia floats on a pink flamingo inner tube, looking like summer incarnate.
The corner of her mouth curls up as she laughs at something Blake says, and I watch in awe.
The sun reflects the lake water in her blue eyes, and her blond hair looks lighter by the day from all the time we’re spending outdoors this summer.
She has it loosely tied on the top of her head, and her bright white and red-striped bathing suit sticks partially out of the water as she continues to float on the bright-pink inner tube.
Finn, Scottie, and Lexi have posted up on the deck, watching us through keen eyes and shaded sunglasses, and all the other Hayes siblings are on a mission to the grocery store two counties over for more beef since we’ve already bought out everything within a twenty-five mile radius.
I feel badly for Scottie—wondering if it makes her sad to think about how she would have been in the water with us, swimming, if things were like before.
She’s handling it well, and Finn would more than willingly hold her in a doggy paddle of his own for sixteen straight hours if she wanted him to, but I can’t help but feel like this is one of those reminders of her rapidly changing world because of her tragic spinal injury.
Nothing is promised. Nothing is guaranteed.
And if you’re me, you might just realize you’re in love with a girl you’ve known since you were born in one flash of an instant.
She’s been texting whatshisface on and off today, and I’ll be fucked if I can’t come up with a way to distract her completely.
I need to be funnier. I need to be more interesting. I need to make big moves.
I need to move on to the next phase of Ace’s Plan to Woo Julia.
Especially given that our families are practically the fucking Hatfields and the McCoys since my dad tried to give Kline Brooks a crocodile for his birthday last week.
After the big blowout at the Brookses’ house, I ended up taking Crocky to a reptile habitat in the city, where he is now safely living his best life.
My dad was annoyed—the big bastard thought we could just keep the fucking crocodile—but when I explained that our pig might end up bacon, he gave up on the wild plan.
Truth be told, the fact that both of our families are even here together is a minor miracle all on its own, one I spent many days and nights facilitating in every way possible, but I am officially behind the curve in the race to be the guy Julia Brooks ends up with one day.
And I don’t like it. I don’t like it one bit.
I swim over to the edge of Julia’s flamingo, my arms draped over a pool noodle, and look up at her as she tips her sunglasses down the length of her nose. “Your shoulders are getting a little pink,” I tell her. “In a few minutes, we should get out so I can put more sunscreen on for you.”
“Okay,” she agrees easily. “I’ll put some on your shoulders too.”
“Thanks.”
“Who’s going to put sunscreen on my shoulders?” Blake complains, glancing up at the deck to, I assume, Finn and Scottie. I imagine he’s feeling kind of third-wheelish, seeing as all the friends around him are falling in love and stuff.
I laugh a little and jerk my chin up at Lexi, who’s so smart she makes chatting people up while leaning on the deck rail look like a way to tell IQ. Scottie and Finn, God love ’em, look hopelessly dumb compared to her. “How about Lex?”
From the deck, Lexi glances my way at the sound of her name but doesn’t engage.
Blake looks like a pig in shit at the suggestion, though, since he’s been crushing on Lexi from the first day he met her at the beginning of fall semester last year.
Think brilliant, older woman running the Double C show and in her last year of grad school and the sophomore star quarterback smitten from the moment she didn’t give a shit about who he was, and you pretty much get the gist of Lexi and Blake.
“Now, that’s an idea, buddy,” Blake says with a grin. “One I approve of wholeheartedly.”
Obviously, he’s still very much smitten with Lexi Winslow.
Julia laughs and rolls her eyes, and it makes me wonder if she would do the same if someone told her I was in love with her. For the first time since watching Blake pursue Lexi to great ruin at a Double C event, I find myself rooting for him.
So what if he’s the underdog? So what if Lexi is too smart for him? So what if it’s the longest shot since the first person brought up going to the moon?
A man in love deserves a chance. A man in love—
“What time are the fireworks set to go off tonight?” Julia asks, interrupting my runaway delusion. “The real ones, I mean. I heard plenty of verbal ones between your dad and mine in the kitchen this morning before the rest of us got up.”
“My dad says at dark.”
Julia nods toward the dock, so I swim and hold on to her flamingo at the same time, bringing us both close enough that she can climb out while I hold her float steady.
She grabs the mesh bag of sunscreen while I heft myself onto the hot Trex surface of the dock and set my pool noodle to the side.
She hands me the bottle of SPF 30, and I squeeze a blob into my hand to rub on her shoulders.
Down the dock, Jude unties the canoe while chucking in a pair of oars, and from the house, my dad and Gunnar burst through the back door like a cartoon duo.
My dad’s in swim trunks that say FUCK YEAH across the crotch, and Gunnar’s sporting a full Joe Dirt mullet.
Naturally, they’re carrying a box of fireworks so big it requires co-parenting.
There’s a verbal exchange between my dad and my mom that only God knows the meaning of, I’m sure, and then they head toward us and Jude and the canoe.
Jude screams something. Thatch barks. Gunnar howls.
It’s like watching the evolution of man in reverse. Frankly, it’s the most insane exchange I’ve seen from men of their age and wealth, and as I gaze into the future, it shrivels my balls a little bit. I’m going to be responsible for all of them for the rest of my life.
“We’d better watch that Julia’s dad doesn’t rig the canoe to explode when Thatch rows out to set the fireworks off,” Blake says as Thatch and Gunnar make their way down the dock stairs toward us.
Julia and I both laugh, but internally, I groan.
I’m more than ready for the feud between the two of them to be over, so I can restore some glory to the Kelly name.
Right now, I don’t think Kline Brooks would let me propose marriage to his fucking driveway, let alone make a bid to spend the rest of my life with his daughter.
“Things are easing up,” I say, my tone blatantly hopeful.
Julia pats my shoulder. “They’ve been friends since before we were born, and your dad hasn’t changed. My dad is temporarily tired, but he’ll get his energy up again. It’s going to be okay. I mean, we’re all here together, aren’t we?”
I nod, even if it’s just to make Julia feel better. She doesn’t know the fast-talking I’ve been doing behind the scenes or the promise I made to my dad to handle anything that comes up with Gunnar for the next month if he could just behave himself while we’re here to keep the peace.
“I’m glad you decided to come, Blake,” I say, spinning around to face him.
The change of subject and direction are both warranted—to cure my depression and my growing hard-on.
I swear it’s like my dick’s never seen Julia in a bikini before.
“Seeing as you’ve been too good for us the rest of the summer. ”
He chuckles, unoffended. “Listen, Ace, some of us have shit to do other than bounce from party to party and hang out with our friends.”
“Oh, please. I bet you’ve been sleeping your way through Manhattan.”
He pauses briefly, glancing to Lexi before his shade-covered eyes come back to me and move back and forth. “Nah. I’m laying low. Focusing on football and academic pursuits.”
“Academic pursuits?”
“Oh yeah. I’ve been broadening my knowledge base on a lot of topics…primarily the viability of takeout spots around campus.”
Julia groans. “Now, that’s research I can get behind. I’m starving, but I’m scared to go up to the house while our moms are still talking on the deck. They’re being…suspiciously civil.”
I think it’s a good sign that our moms are still sitting with each other and talking despite our dad’s rift, but the opportunity to show off some of my boyfriend-worthy qualities is too good to ruin by sharing that with Julia.
“I’ll go up and get you some food. Anything you want in particular, or should I just surprise you?
” I ask, making sure to touch on all the positives of our lifelong relationship—I’m both considerate of her wants and needs but knowledgeable enough to get something good if she doesn’t want to have to think.
“Really?” She squeals. “That would be so great. Maybe some berries? Or something refreshing? But honestly, I’m not picky.”
She leans over and kisses me on the cheek before flopping back on her towel, arms outstretched like a sun-soaked goddess.
It’s almost the fantasy.
Except in the fantasy, she confesses she’s been secretly in love with me for years and wants to elope immediately.
Still, I’ll take it. For now.
“Do some recon while you’re up there,” she adds. “See if forgiveness is in the air.”
“Copy that.” I nod and slide my sunglasses on my nose to hide my eyes as they wander over the droplets of water dotting her skin. She is perfection in every humanly way possible.
Blake clears his throat.
I turn and find him smiling knowingly behind his shades.
Shit. Right. I’m probably giving myself away in more ways than one. I adjust my shorts and my gaze and my soul accordingly.
“You want anything while I’m up there, man?”
He shrugs with a laugh. “I wouldn’t mind if you could talk Lexi into coming down here for a little while.”
I laugh from a deep, dark place of understanding. “You got it.”
We’re just two saps on a dock, in love with girls way out of our league, yearning, pining, and trying to look casual while drowning inside.