Summer in a Bottle

Chapter 14

Opinion: Glamping is the only civilized way to camp.

—Delilah Dune, opinion writer

T he cicadas blared loudly a couple hours later as Lyla sat in a chair and watched the fireflies twinkle in the distance. She looked at Travis, who looked completely at home in the scene. She, however, had fear and worry niggling around in the back of her mind about whether some creature of the night was watching her and sizing her up to be its dinner.

A noise got her attention from somewhere in the brush. “Did you hear that?” She sat up in her chair and strained her eyes trying to see in the dark.

“What is it you think you heard?” There was a healthy amount of amusement playing in Travis’s tone of voice.

“I don’t know. What kind of wildlife do you have around here?” She turned to look at him, noting the twinkle in his brown eyes. She knew that mischievous twinkle well. “You think this is funny?”

He shook his head. “No, I think it’s adorable.”

Lyla looked away and then melted back into her chair. “I’m not used to being out in nature anymore, I guess. I spend a lot of my time inside, behind a computer screen.”

“That’s not healthy, Ly. Fresh air and dirt under your feet is good for the soul. Haven’t you ever heard of grounding?”

She shook her head.

“Look it up. Opinion: Grounding is the earth’s medicine.” One corner of his mouth kicked up in a grin.

Maybe that was what was wrong with her lately. Perhaps she needed more dirt in her life. “So, you do this kind of thing regularly? Camping outside.”

He chuckled as he nodded. “A couple times a week.”

“What? The RV isn’t enough of a camper’s lifestyle for you?” She folded her arms over her chest, trying to pay attention to him and not the strange noises coming from all sides. Nature was noisy and anxiety-inducing when she didn’t know what was surrounding her.

He seemed to consider his answer. “I like to be outside with nature. It’s where I feel most at home.” He looked at her again. “At least, until recently.”

Lyla felt a fluttery feeling inside her chest. “What does that mean?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never considered Echo Cove to be my home, at least not in my adult life. But being back and seeing you, that feels like home. You feel like home.”

Lyla internally warned herself not to read deeper into that statement than Travis intended his words to mean. They had been best friends growing up. Seeing an old friend would, of course, give someone the sense of home. She felt the same way seeing him.

She sucked in a breath and looked out at the scene again. “Our parents had nothing to worry about if we would’ve spent the night together when we were out here at eighteen,” she said, trying to convince herself as much as Travis. She’d had feelings for him, but Travis had never shown any sign that he had feelings too. Maybe that’s what scared her most back then.

“You don’t think so?” he asked.

Lyla’s lips parted for a second. She was surprised at his question. “You do?”

His laughter came easily. “I mean, you were a teenage girl, Ly, and I was a teenage boy.”

“Yeah, so?” She pretended not to have any clue what he was suggesting.

Travis reached for an open soda can on the ground beside him. He lifted it to his lips and took a long sip.

Lyla tried not to notice his mouth, his lips . . . him. It was nearly impossible not to, though.

“I try not to think about the past too much,” he said, avoiding the question. “I like to think about the now. And right now, I’m glad we’re doing this.”

“Me too.” She reached for her own soda, but didn’t take a sip. She just needed something to hold onto, to keep her hands busy. Travis had never made her nervous until that last summer together, when she’d started to feel this undeniable attraction to him. She felt nervous now too.

Travis leaned up now and stared at the brush several yards in front of them. “Hey, did you hear that?” He turned to look at her over his shoulder, his expression and tone of voice suddenly serious.

Reflexively, she pulled her legs up into her chair, trying to make herself as small as possible. “What? What did you hear?”

“I don’t know. Some strange kind of noise. A low growl maybe.” His brows were high on his forehead, and he looked frightened. If Travis was scared, something was wrong because Travis laughed in the face of fear. He was always calling her a scaredy-cat, because she cowered.

“A growl?” Lyla’s voice went shrill. “Are there wolves out here? What else growls? Wild dogs?”

“Maybe it’s those wild hogs I saw out here the other day. Those things can be aggressive,” he said. “I saw some wild turkeys too. They’re territorial.”

Lyla jumped out of her chair and began running toward his RV when she heard him burst into laughter behind her. Her fear quickly molded into anger, and she turned, marched back over to him, and whacked the back of his shoulder. “I hate you!”

He laughed harder, doubling over in his seat. “No, you don’t. You love me, and you know it.” He reached for her arm and pulled her back toward him. “I’m sorry. I couldn’t resist, Ly. Don’t hate me. Old habits die hard. You know that.”

It was hard to hate him when he was smiling at her like that, all wide with dimples and all.

“Opinion,” he said, continuing to hold onto her arm, “Old habits die hard and old flames never do.”

She narrowed her eyes. “I never wrote that article,” she said quietly. “That’s not one of mine.”

He released her arm. “That’s my own opinion, and I think it’s pretty good.”

She waited for her breathing to go back to normal. “It’s not bad.”

“You can steal it if you want—on one condition.”

She lifted a brow and waited.

“You sit back down and rest assured that whatever’s out there, I’ll protect you.”

She relented and returned to her camping chair, plopping down beside him. “You’re not forgiven.”

“I forgave you for not talking to me for ten years. I think you owe me.”

True.

“So what’s going on in your life, Lyla?” He angled his body in his chair and looked at her with interest.

There was still adrenaline pumping through her veins from the scare he’d just given her and from the words he’d said afterward. ‘Old flames never die?’ Was he talking about her? “It depends on which area of my life you’re asking about.”

“All of it. I want to know everything that’s happened since we’ve been apart.”

It struck her that he honestly looked like there was nowhere else he’d rather be right now and no one else he’d rather be with. When was the last time she’d felt like this? Well, Allison made her feel this way too, but before coming back to Echo Cove, it had been a long time. Too long.

She leaned back in her camper’s chair and crossed her legs. “Let me just skip to the last part. I just got out of a two-year relationship. I’m thirty years old. And the next opinion piece that I turn in to my boss might be my last. I’m back in my hometown, and I have somehow befriended the school’s most annoying cheerleader”—Lyla looked over at Travis—“who, it turns out, is one of the sweetest people I’ve ever known.”

Travis lifted his brows. “Sounds to me like your life has taken a turn for the better.”

She thought he was being sarcastic, but his expression seemed sincere. “For the better?”

“Heck, yeah. Any guy who can’t see what he has right in front of him is probably an idiot. And a jerk. Your old friends are probably jerks too. People change, and from talking to her just once in your house, I can already tell that Allison isn’t who she used to be. And your boss? If he’s thinking about getting rid of you, he’s an idiot and a jerk too.”

Lyla laughed at the absurdity of Travis’s statements. “So everyone in the whole wide world is a jerk?”

Travis dug a finger into his chest. “Except for me.”

Lyla found it hard to breathe for a moment. Travis hadn’t had those mounds of muscle below his T-shirt when they were eighteen. “So if I asked all the women you’ve dated in the last year, they would say you’re not a jerk?”

Travis seemed to find this humorous. “Oh, they would probably say I’m the biggest jerk they’ve ever known.”

“But they’d be lying?”

Travis didn’t answer for a moment. “Opinion: People give you exactly what you expect.”

Lyla shook her head slightly. “What do you mean by that?”

“If you expect someone to be a jerk, they will be. If you expect them to treat you with respect, there’s a good shot they will.”

Lyla waved a finger in the air. “I don’t agree. That opinion would never fly with my editor. I expect everyone to treat me with respect, and that is not how everyone treats me.”

Travis leaned forward in his seat. “You teach people how to treat you, Ly, and the way you expect them to treat you is how you teach them.”

She felt her brows pinch as she tried to process his statement. “That makes no sense.”

“Take us, for example. You expect me to make you laugh, and so you find a lot of what I say funny. At least, you appear to. But I’m actually not all that funny anymore, Ly.”

Just hearing him say so made her laugh quietly. “Yes, you are. You’re the same Travis you’ve always been.”

“With you. Overall, I’ve become more introspective, though. I spend most of my time alone, outdoors, working odd jobs and camping. I’m not the same guy. I’ll prove it. I haven’t pulled a single prank since I was eighteen.”

“I don’t believe that.”

“It’s the truth. After you left town, I felt different inside. I didn’t want to pull pranks, and the only reason I did anything so-called wrong was to take the negative attention off Bailey. I probably looked like the same old Travis on the outside, but in reality, I was just depressed. My best friend was hundreds of miles away. My sister was miserable, and my parents were fakes.”

“So you left Echo Cove,” Lyla said, filling in the blanks.

“Leaving Bailey was one of the hardest things I’d ever done. She pushed me to go, though. She was older than me. An adult. She said she could take care of herself in Echo Cove, but that if I stayed, I’d continue to suffocate. The only reason I hadn’t yet was because of you, Ly. You were my fresh breath of air.”

Lyla had already wondered but felt guilty asking the question until now. “You had a driver’s license. You could have driven up to see me.”

Travis looked away. “Driving what? That blue truck was my dad’s. He didn’t let me take it with me when I went. I caught a bus and rode my bicycle to my first jobs until I could afford my own truck. Then the RV.” He turned his attention back to her. “By the time I bought that bus ticket, you’d ignored all my emails for six months. You’d even come home for Christmas and somehow snuck past me. You made it very clear that you weren’t interested in being friends anymore. Believe me, I considered using that bus ticket money to go see you, but I assumed you had a boyfriend or something.”

Lyla did have a boyfriend by that time. She’d met Joe. Not that Joe had swept her off her feet. That was probably why she’d let him stay in her life for so long. Joe hadn’t been a threat to her dreams. Not the way Travis had.

“Have your parents forgiven you for leaving yet?” Lyla asked.

“No, they never forgave me. In fact, hearsay is that I became the topic of Dad’s sermons again. At least my leaving took the focus off Bailey and the baby.”

Lyla resisted reaching out and touching his hand. She wanted to, but something told her he was an inch from breaking and maybe one gentle touch would pull the tiny thread that kept his composure together. “I’m sorry. Do you still see them?”

Travis slowly rotated the soda can in his hands. “They passed away.”

Lyla gasped. There was another important fact her mom had failed to mention during their weekly calls over the years. “Travis, I’m so sorry. I didn’t know.” She wouldn’t have brought it up if she had. “What happened? You don’t have to tell me if it’s too painful.”

He stopped rotating his soda can and glanced over, his eyes suspiciously shiny under the scattered moonlight that fell on them from the canopy of tree branches overhead. “Dad died of a sudden heart attack when he was fifty. I did come home for a little while after that happened. I helped my mom as much as I could. I even revived the old Travis pranks to see if I could cheer her up.” He shook his head. “For months, she barely crawled out of bed. She said she just wanted to curl up and die. And that’s what she did. She died from a major cardiac event six months after my dad, to the day.”

Lyla hadn’t experienced much loss or grief in her life. She could empathize but, big as her imagination was, she didn’t think she could imagine just how painful it was to lose a parent, or a child, like Allison had. “I’m so sorry, Travis.”

He exhaled into the night. “I believe my parents were deeply misguided people. You don’t disown your own kid, regardless of what they do or don’t do. Love isn’t conditional. I don’t agree with how they treated me. Or Bailey. I do believe my parents were good people, though. I have to believe that, because they’re part of me and believing otherwise would mean I’m not a good person.”

Lyla didn’t resist anymore. She reached out and laid a hand on his arm. “You’re a great person,” she said, quietly. “One of the best.”

He pointed a finger in her direction. “Now that is definitely a debatable opinion.”

“I’ll have you know I get paid for my opinions. I’m a professional. At least for the time being.”

“Don’t offer that last opinion to your editor. You’ll definitely be unemployed,” he said, probably not understanding just how close to the truth he was.

Lyla tucked her chin as she looked down. Then, after a moment, as gentle as the caress of a feather, his index finger lifted her chin, turning her face until she was looking directly at him.

“You won’t be unemployed, Ly. You’re going to come up with something amazing, and this blip of time where everything seems out of place will be over. You’ll realize that these weeks or months were the best blip that could have ever happened to you.”

She studied his brown eyes with golden flecks. “I’m supposed to be the one who’s better with words.”

His finger continued to hold her chin in place. This felt like a kissable moment, if the person sitting in front of her was anyone other than Travis. Her subconscious asked, Why not Travis? Her mind answered swiftly. Because she wasn’t ready for dating. She wasn’t ready for casual flings and definitely not for anything serious. Because if she and Travis were to become more than friends, deep down she knew she would be all in, and without a doubt, she’d get hurt when Travis left. Yeah, she’d done the leaving the first time, but he was a traveler now. He didn’t put down roots. He’d told her that in not so many words. Travis Painter would leave Echo Cove, just like her.

As her thoughts raced, a firefly lit up in her peripheral vision. “Did you see that?” she asked.

“See what?”

She didn’t answer. All she knew was she’d seen the flash of light and like her tattoo, it meant something. Self-illumination. This summer with its crazy déjà vu-like coincidences were all guiding her to discover something about herself.

Travis lowered his hand from her chin. “You were better with words maybe, but I was best at taking action. Together we were the dream team.”

“Yes, we were.”

“Imagine if we put our heads together now. We could sell your parents’ place, save your job, and marry off my sister to a good guy. All in a week’s work.”

“Assuming nothing else goes terribly wrong with the house.” She leaned back in her chair and tipped her head just in time to see a large, fuzzy blob in the sky. She gasped and pointed. “Do you see that?” she practically shouted.

“Hard to miss.” Travis chuckled. “Amazing, huh?”

“It’s a comet. An actual comet,” she said, unable to believe her eyes.

Travis looked amused when she turned to him. “It’s not like this is the first time you’ve seen one. We saw one”—his bemused expression turned into something serious—“that last summer together.”

She watched as the comet came and went, soaking in the wonderous moment. “Most people never see a comet with their bare eyes. That’s rare, right?”

“I guess,” Travis agreed. “Unless you’re one of those who stalk comets with a telescope.”

“It’s proof that things are repeating from our last summer together.”

His eyes narrowed and searched her face. “What are you talking about?”

Lyla counted on her fingers. “First, I was struck by lightning. Second, the same movie was playing at the cinema. Then there was the rainstorm and my bike’s tire blew out. You pulled up to save me, just like the summer we were eighteen.” She’d lifted all five fingers on her left hand so she started counting with her right, holding up one finger at a time. “Then there was the leak in the roof and the busted bathroom pipe. And I found out Bailey was getting married,” Lyla said excitedly. “Even my dad’s upset stomach is a repeat of what happened that last summer together.” She was holding up nine fingers in the air.

“An upset stomach is not so uncommon, Ly. If you want the truth, I had one after that pickle and bacon pizza.” Concern etched in the lines that veered from the corners of his eyes.

“But my dad’s upset stomach was from an eel roll. He swore them off after that summer, but for some reason he decided this was a good time to try them again. What are the odds he’d try eel rolls and get sick that summer and this one too?”

“Ly, you’re sounding a little . . .” He trailed off. If he was only teasing, he would have completed the sentence. He would have said she sounded crazy. Insane. “Do you remember that time you got your wisdom tooth pulled and you were under the influence of laughing gas?” he asked.

Lyla blinked. “I was eighteen.” And now she was suddenly worried that she’d be having a dental emergency that involved laughing gas in her future.

“You said a lot of strange things that night.” His grin came back.

“Explain the comet,” she said, like a lawyer making her case. The thing about being an opinion writer is that she didn’t need to prove her stance. Opinions were subjective. What she was trying to tell Travis wasn’t an opinion, though. This felt factual. Why couldn’t anyone else see it?

“Explain the comet,” Travis repeated. “Okay. Usually we can’t see them with our naked eye, but sometimes the coma and the tail are illuminated by the sun as the comet passes through the inner solar system.” He gestured around them. “The dust reflects sunlight while the gases glow. It’s called ionization.”

Lyla wanted to be irritated with Travis’s cluelessness, but she was also a little turned on by his nerdy side, something very few knew people knew about Travis Painter. “Seeing the comet makes ten. Ten things have repeated from our last summer together.”

Travis took his time before responding. When he did, his tone was gentler, another clue that he was worried. “I’m an outdoorsman. I’ve seen lots of comets, Ly.”

“Well, I haven’t. I’ve only seen two.” From her peripheral vision, she saw another flash of firefly light. She didn’t dare ask Travis if he saw it too because it was clear that this experience was solely hers.

He scratched the side of his head. “Let me get this straight. You think our last summer together is repeating? You’re being serious? This isn’t some practical joke?”

She inhaled, filling up her lungs with fresh air. “I’m not the Lyla of Old, or whatever it is you keep saying. I don’t joke around anymore.”

“That’s tragic,” he said, a teasing tone in his voice.

He was going to make light of this, but she needed him to hear her. She needed him to believe what she was saying. “I know it sounds insane, right? The events of one summer repeating.”

“A little bit, yeah.” He let out a low, nervous-sounding laugh. “It sounds a little bit like you’ve been slipping a little extra something in your Coca-Cola. Or maybe hitting that laughing gas again.”

Lyla felt herself deflate on the inside. This was no use. He couldn’t see what felt so clear to her. “Well, I haven’t. Although I wouldn’t mind some of that laughing gas, except without the tooth extraction.” She wasn’t losing her mind, although she was certain she sounded that way. Backtracking, she said, “I guess I’m just tired.” She added a yawn for good measure.

“You don’t have to make excuses to me. You okay, Ly? I mean, really.”

“Yeah. Of course. I’m fine,” she said while contradicting her words and shaking her head just slightly. “It’s just been . . . a weird year, if you want the truth.” Which she’d only shared in part this evening. “I’m okay.” Her voice was shaky. Her hands too. Travis didn’t seem to be buying the theory that moments from their last summer together were repeating, and she couldn’t blame him. She wouldn’t believe him if he brought this same story to her. It wasn’t rational. “I’m just tired,” she said again.

He gave a small nod and returned his attention to the sky. “Did you make a wish?”

“I thought that was just for shooting stars.”

“In my book, wishing on comets is even more lucky. Go ahead. Try it,” he said, his tone coming out as almost a challenge.

Feeling foolish, not for the first time tonight, she closed her eyes and offered up the first wish that came to mind. She wished she could do things differently with Travis. That this time, this summer, she could somehow make him stay. That she could stay, as well. Putting her feelings in a bottle, keeping them shut in all this time, hadn’t done her any favors. The attraction between them was still there. She still wanted more from Travis than friendship, and it still terrified her.

Her eyes popped open, and she turned to Travis. “Did you make a wish too?”

“I’ve wished on a million shooting stars and half a dozen comets in my lifetime.”

“And none of them came true?” she asked.

The corner of his mouth quirked softly. “One of them did.” The way he was looking at her made her wonder if that wish was about her.

She cleared her throat. “So, this camping thing? Is this all it is?”

“What do you mean?”

She looked around. “We just sit around this fire and talk all night?”

“You don’t know anything about camping, do you?” He reached for something off to his side. “S’mores. Not making them would be a waste of a good campfire.”

“We’re making s’mores?” The thought made her laugh. “I’m not sure I’ve ever had one before. I mean, I’ve had a S’mores Pop-Tart, of course.”

Travis looked at her in disbelief. “How were we ever best friends and you’ve never had a real-life s’more?”

“You failed to put it on one of our bucket lists, I guess.”

“I failed big-time. We’ll fix this. Tonight, you are having the world’s greatest s’more. It’s going to be the best thing you’ve ever put into your mouth, aside from the pickle-bacon pizza.” He waggled his brows, making her laugh harder, which felt amazing. Laughing with Travis felt like air right now. Like life.

“You’re still a preacher’s son, right?”

He side-eyed her. “You and I both know I was never any good at that role.”

August 5

Dear Diary,

Travis is adamant we finish this last summer bucket list before I go, but have you seen what’s written on it? He wants me to jump off the Pirate’s Plank. Is he crazy? I almost died last time.

Travis says it’s bad luck if we don’t finish the list. I’ve always thought that was baloney. I’m more scared that if I tempt fate too many times, I’ll die young and never leave Echo Cove and follow my dreams. Well, first I have to find a new dream because according to that editor, pursuing a career as a bestselling author is a lost cause and waste of time.

Lyla