Marissa
When I step through the front door, the house is dark and completely quiet. At first, I’m flooded with a sense of relief. Everything is as I left it. Someone else was in charge for a few hours and nothing catastrophic happened. Rocky said he would step up to the plate, and he did.
But almost immediately, the relief is replaced by panic.
Where is Rocky? Has he gone upstairs and made himself comfortable in one of the bedrooms?
In my bedroom? Co-parenting is one thing, but I’ve come here to put some space between us.
He’s totally blindsided me with this visit, and the last thing I need is for him to get comfortable.
I take a few steps farther into the house, prepared to head to the second floor and confront my unwanted houseguest, when I spot a figure on the sofa.
In the darkness, Rocky’s profile comes into focus, and I breathe out a sigh of relief.
Thank goodness. Of course he gets to barge in here and be the fun parent, but at least he’s taken the hint that I need to set some boundaries.
Now that the initial anxiety has passed, space has been cleared for a new emotion. My body feels lighter than it did this morning, untethered and buoyant. The usual mental cobwebs have disintegrated, and I notice that I’m smiling. Is it possible that I am feeling … happy?
You had fun tonight, a voice in my head whispers.
With a start, I realize it’s true. I can’t remember the last time I really let loose like that, let my guard down and had fun without worrying about everyone else.
It felt good. If I’m being honest with myself, I want more of that feeling.
And if I’m really honest, I want more of that feeling with him.
Another thought strikes me. Why not? What’s stopping me? The kids are asleep and accounted for. The rest of the night is mine. Why shouldn’t I spend it chasing after what I want, for once?
Before I can overthink it, I pull the front door open and step out onto the porch.
I expected Jesse to be long gone by now, but his truck is still idling in the driveway.
I make my way through the muggy night air, punctuated with its chorus of crickets, until I reach the car.
Jesse’s leaning against the steering wheel, chin propped in his hand, his gaze drifting somewhere beyond the windshield.
He must be lost in thought, because he doesn’t notice me approaching.
He startles when I tap on the window, eyes wide as he rolls down the glass.
“You okay?” His shoulders tense as he steals a look at the front door, like he’s ready to fight off whatever evil I’ve confronted inside. Moths. Exes. Ex-moths, maybe.
“I should ask you the same thing,” I say. “Why are you still lurking in my driveway?”
Jesse clears his throat, but the words still come out low and rumbly. “I was just waiting to see you turn a light on. Make sure you got in safely.”
A warm sense of something fills my chest. I can’t put a name to it exactly. All I know is that I’m not ready to say good night to him. Not yet.
“What are you doing right now?” I ask.
Jesse looks surprised by the question. “Uh, I hadn’t really gotten that far. Go home, walk my dog. Maybe watch a movie with him. He likes the classics.”
I lean closer to his window.
“Do you want to make some s’mores?”
Jesse goes still. For a moment, I’m certain he’s going to turn me down. But then he gives me a small smile.
“S’mores sound great.”
“I can’t believe how little this town has changed in the past twenty years,” I say.
I rotate my marshmallow-topped stick over the firepit, taking care to make sure every side is getting evenly toasted.
I haven’t spent much time in the backyard since we arrived here, but I’m immediately cloaked in a warm sense of familiarity.
I lean forward in my Adirondack chair, drinking in the scene around me.
There’s a low hoot of an owl in the distance and the croaking of frogs echoing over the water.
The campfire crackles, flames licking the kindling.
“That’s something I’ve always liked about living here,” Jesse says. “Things stay the same.” He says the next words quieter, and I almost don’t make them out.
“For the most part.”
He leans closer to the fire, the flame illuminating his features.
And what incredibly handsome features they are.
Long eyelashes brush the tops of his cheeks, and a strong, square jaw is juxtaposed with the mop of boyish curls.
Shelby is right: People would watch the hell out of any home-improvement show he starred in.
“I used to spend my summers here, when I was a kid,” I continue. I don’t know why I’m telling him this. Maybe it’s because he feels so strangely, inexplicably familiar. Or maybe it’s this place that makes me feel safe and uninhibited.
“We came every year to visit my grandma,” I continue.
“Well, me and my parents. My brother Matt always went to sleepaway camp. I never wanted to go. I looked forward to my summers here all year. I’d spend the whole day out here on the lake, playing with other kids.
At night, we’d run around playing tag while the adults sipped wine in the backyard.
I got my first gig right after my twelfth birthday, and then my schedule didn’t allow for long breaks anymore. ”
I pause, allowing the warm cloak of nostalgia to drape itself around me.
Those summers at the lake house were everything.
It’s no wonder I was so easily convinced to return.
Sitting by the campfire all these years later, it feels like no time has passed at all.
I’ve slid right back in, and it still fits perfectly, easy and natural as a worn pair of jeans.
A muscle in Jesse’s jaw twitches. Am I annoying him with the biography he didn’t ask for? I inwardly cringe. I share so little of my life that I’m not sure what makes me do it now, with him. I worry that it’s too much.
But then he tips his chin toward the distance. I follow his gaze across the lake, tracing the reflection of warm lights on the water.
“You see that house straight ahead?” he asks. “That’s the house I grew up in. We lived there until my sophomore year of high school.”
“The house you grew up in?” I scrunch my brow. “I knew a kid who lived in that house. We used to race kayaks together and…”
The rest of the words fall out of my brain. No way. That’s why he seemed so familiar to me. He’s …
“JJ?” I gasp in disbelief.
Jesse smiles shyly. “Guilty. Although I haven’t gone by that nickname in years.”
“You’re kidding. That kid was tiny and blond.
You—but you look so different!” I search his facial features, seeking out traces of familiarity, but there’s not much to be found.
The little boy I played with was softer, with a round face sprinkled in freckles.
This man is all hard lines and muscle, the sun-kissed cheeks replaced by a heavy five-o’clock shadow and some very sexy eye crinkles.
But now I understand why he’s felt familiar.
He’s got those same eyes, that indeterminable shade of grayish blue.
I squint as I study him, like Belle trying to find her Beast within the transformed human prince.
He shrugs. “I shot up after puberty. My hair was lighter when I was a kid, got even lighter in the sun. But these days, I don’t spend as much time outdoors.”
I blink, still trying to reconcile the man in front of me with the hazy image in my memory. The collision of past and present. No wonder I felt like we’d met before. What a small world this is.
“Why didn’t you say something earlier?”
He drags the roasted marshmallow off his stick, sliding it inside the graham cracker sandwich. “I guess I didn’t know how? You didn’t recognize me, and after a few days, it seemed too late to bring it up. Plus, I didn’t want you to think I was a stalker or something.”
“Yikes,” I say. “Are you a stalker? I probably should have cleared that with you before I invited you into my home, which happens to sit on the edge of a lake. It would be ages before someone drained it and found my body.”
Jesse breathes out a laugh. He hands the finished s’more to me, which I accept happily.
“No, I’m not. And in a town like this, it would take about an hour for people to know you went missing.”
I laugh and then take an enormous bite of my s’more. It’s delicious, and I moan at the smoky, sweet taste. It’s also messy, so I do my best to eat neatly. He catches me and then grins.
“Don’t even try,” he quips. “No one looks good eating one of these. Not even a celebrity like you.”
I kick him lightly with my bare foot as I suck chocolate off my thumb.
He’s still laughing a little as he bites into his, and I think he’s wrong. Because somehow, he does look good doing it.
When I finish my square, I dust off my hands and exhale. “I haven’t had one of those in ages. I forgot how perfect they are. I picked up the supplies for my kids, but we haven’t gotten to it yet.”
I pop a raw marshmallow in my mouth as Jesse leans over to reach for another graham cracker.
He’s close enough to me that I can smell the way the smoke and sugar have settled on his skin.
I move toward him just a few inches, trying to breathe it in, savoring the smells of summer.
Just as I do, he sits up, his shoulder rocketing up into my jaw.
“Shit! Are you—” He sets down the box of crackers and, without hesitating, puts one hand on the back of my head and the other under my chin.
I stare at him with wide eyes for a moment, more stunned by the sudden, gentle physical contact than the painful one.
“Is your mouth okay?” he asks, examining my puffed-out lips.
I nod, pointing up to my face as I explain, “Moshmow.”
He smiles with relief, understanding that I have a marshmallow in my mouth.
I start to say it’s a good thing I did, or I might have chipped a tooth, but it comes out like, “Ers a guhfung I duhd—”