Chapter Seven
Avery
Avery parked her car and popped open the trunk.
After dropping Lily at the airport earlier in the morning, she’d spent a couple of hours at Marden’s Surplus and Salvage tackling the list of requested supplies for various departments at Montressa.
The store had everything: clothing, flooring, cosmetics, hardware, and home goods at dirt cheap prices.
Maintenance needed driveway markers. Housekeeping needed sponges, travel-sized toothpaste, and shower caps.
She’d bought her entire list and more. Avery left items for the lodge in her trunk and loaded all the bags containing items for the Boathouse on one arm.
With Lily’s school year ending soon, and now that things were tolerable with Miles, Avery looked forward to spending her summer at the lake.
She’d bought inflatable floats in anticipation of long afternoons chatting with Lily in the cool water.
Her giant loon float was pretty accurate, but Lily’s “moose” was more of a mythological hybrid with the rounded head of moose and the pointy antlers of a deer. A doose. Lily would love that.
On the way to the airport, she and Lily had discussed the bachelorette party.
Lily decided on an early August visit to puffin-cruise-renowned Boothbay Harbor.
Between Sam’s heart attack, Nate’s prolonged absence, and her duties as junior class sponsor, it had been a stressful spring.
A couple of days relaxing and poking through a seaside town with Avery and a few friends from high school and college sounded perfect to Lily.
After the bachelorette party, Avery had a week to settle into an apartment in Hanover before starting her MBA at Tuck, Dartmouth’s business school.
She needed to find a place to live, yet kept putting it off.
Spending a summer with Lily was more fun to think about, but Avery needed to start her apartment search.
She’d vowed to forego her usual Netflix binge and spend her evening making reservations for the bachelorette trip and scoping out apartments online.
Avery squinted in the late afternoon sun as she lumbered along the path to the Boathouse.
The shopping bag handles looped around her wrists cut off the circulation in her arms. Maybe she shouldn’t have taken all the bags for this project in one trip, but she hated to be inefficient.
If memory served, she’d purchased the perfect linens for the Boathouse.
Finding the door locked, she put the bags down and massaged her sore forearms. She hadn’t grabbed the key earlier because she hadn’t expected to come here first. Since the Boathouse sat at the edge of Montressa’s property, it would be a long walk up to the lodge to retrieve it. She texted Wes, hoping he was nearby.
Avery: I’m locked out of the Boathouse. You close by?
While she waited for his response, Avery walked to the end of the Boathouse’s private dock, shielded her eyes, and studied the Red House.
Ladders were everywhere as a crew removed the manufacturer’s stickers from the new windows and cleaned the glass.
If she couldn’t own the Red House, she was content seeing the quaint A-frame getting the love it needed.
A jingle of keys pulled her out of her thoughts.
“You should see the countertops they installed yesterday.” She’d expected Wes and his raspy grumble, not Miles and his deep, syrupy voice.
Avery scrambled for a plausible reason for gawking at his house.
“Oh, I was just checking to see if the loons were nesting yet.”
“Funny you didn’t see me, since I was in the cove looking for them. I waved at you. They haven’t come yet.” He pulled out his keys and unlocked the Boathouse door. “It looked like you needed the master key.”
Avery busied herself picking up her bags to hide her embarrassment. Miles leaned down to help, and she could have sworn his hair tickled her temple. This close, he smelled like chocolate milk. The scent of warm pine after an August rain hit her a second later.
“Whoa. Was all this on the list?” Miles peered into a bag.
“Sometimes I deviate from the list.” She laughed. “And there may be returns. I haven’t been in here yet, and I bought things for the Boathouse I remember.”
He stepped inside and flicked the light switch. “Well, let’s test your memory.”
Avery hesitated, unable to will her feet to move forward.
Going in there with Miles might bring old feelings to the surface.
She could still picture them ten years ago.
Tearing off each other’s clothes. Tumbling onto the scratchy lace bedspread.
And Miles so close she could count the golden stars in his beautiful chestnut eyes.
He’d asked if she was sure. She had never been so sure of anything in her life.
But now…
She shook her head. They were adults, and that night would always be a part of her. She needed to stop avoiding their past and learn to live with it.
Avery stared straight ahead and crossed the threshold.
Like their relationship, the Boathouse had deteriorated. No wonder the Coopers hadn’t been renting it. Sunbeams gleamed through the dirty windows of the quaint cabin, dust floating aimlessly through the light. They placed the bags on the desk beside the door.
Once Montressa no longer needed a working boathouse, Sam and Laurie had transformed it into a small cabin.
That had happened about twenty years ago and to be fair, most of the work remained in good shape, but it could use an update.
Avery took inventory. To the right of the desk, the same couch sat in front of the stone fireplace.
A tiny bathroom and wet bar divided the back wall, and to the left stood the bed, its frame worn and chipped.
Part of the Boathouse’s charm was that one could lie in bed and watch the lake.
The entire wall facing the water had French doors that opened onto a small deck, and below it, the dock.
It needed some paint and a thorough cleaning to clear out the musty smell.
“It looks exactly the same,” she gasped, trying not to reveal how self-conscious she’d become.
“I asked the Coopers to preserve it, given its historical significance,” Miles said.
“You what?” She finally looked at him. He shrugged with a half-smile. The gleam in his eye confirmed he meant it as a joke.
“Oh, Miles.” Her voice croaked. Sweat beaded on her forehead and upper lip.
Miles paused and searched her face. When she studied him in return, he shoved his hands in his pockets and looked at his feet, perhaps a delayed realization at the unlocking of a time capsule. Avery’s stomach clenched.
“Do you need help, or should I go?” he asked.
Avery wanted to prove being here with him wasn’t a big deal. Plus, at six-two, his height might be helpful.
“I have a couple of things to check. Could you hold up a curtain for me?”
She peered inside the nearest bag. She could do this. He could help with one minor project, and they could both go on their way. No harm, no foul.
“Look, a gift from Mimi.” Miles pulled a giant box of condoms from one of the other bags. Of course, the universe pointed him to that bag.
The heat of embarrassment burned in her cheeks.
Lily had desecrated Avery’s tidy list on the way to the airport, writing CONDOMS - MEGA BOX with a Sharpie, in huge letters.
She’d said Miles came up with the idea to make Montressa a sex positive resort, and Avery had fallen for it, resulting in another heated blush.
And to be fair, it had been wonderful to hear Lily’s laugh.
“Lily put them on my list. I pinkie swear!” Avery lifted her pinkie finger and wriggled it.
Miles studied the gold box with a roaring black tiger on the label and quietly placed it on the dusty desk between them.
“No matter how we try, there seems to be no escaping this.” He fiddled with the sleeves of his Henley. “Should we talk about what happened in here?”
“I, um… Miles, I—”
She couldn’t understand why she could plan this whole discussion when she was by herself, but couldn’t articulate any of it whenever they were together. Maybe his deep woods aroma wiped her brain clean. She let out a ragged breath.
He touched her shoulder, and she flinched.
“I want you to know I don’t regret that night or any of our other ones,” he said. Miles’s eyes searched her face. He wanted an answer she couldn’t find the words for. On a topic she wasn’t sure she’d ever be ready to talk about.
“I don’t want you to regret it,” he said, taking another step closer.
She picked a loose thread off the folded duvet cover in her hand.
He’d taken gentle care of her every time they’d slept together, but that first night he’d been especially respectful.
She’d felt loved. Knowing how it ended, she’d go back and do it again.
But she would never tell him that. At least not now.
“I just don’t understand what happened after that.” She shook her head.
“Truth is,” he said in a weakening voice. She straightened up and faced him. If he was finally going to apologize or give her a reason for his abrupt departure, she wanted to watch him say it, despite being on the verge of tears.
He didn’t finish. Miles Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed his words in one gulp. His eyes flicked to the door.
“Oh, you got in.”
Avery spun to find Wes by the door, toolbox in hand, taking inventory of the tiny cabin. His eyes landed on the box of condoms. He walked over and picked them up with his free hand.
“Two hundred and fifty Golden Tiger condoms,” he said, setting down his tools. “Rawr.”
Wes waved the box at Miles.
“How long does one of these last you, Miles? A month?”
Miles grabbed it mid-air, as if it were a pesky fly.
“It’s not mine,” he grunted, shoving the box into the desk drawer. “And finishing that box in a month would take eight a day. That’d be really hard.”
“That’s what she said.” Wes laughed at his own joke.