three
First Summer
Gabe and Zoey broke up just before college graduation, and everything was ruined. Perhaps more accurately, Zoey cheated on
Gabe just before college graduation, and not everything was ruined, but we were. The five of us—Zoey, Gabe, Davi, Laurel, and me—could never be the same again.
the little brick house on the corner across from campus and our departure to different places; new jobs, the next steps in
our lives that would take us away from each other.
But Zoey was officially uninvited after Laurel and I walked into our house to find her naked with a guy that was very much
not Gabe on the couch that I bought for us with the scant savings from my bakery job. We had to watch in horror as the olive-green fabric undulated beneath
them, both entirely unaware of our presence until Laurel—out of sheer panic, I think—hurled her untouched coffee at them,
effectively ending both the act they were currently engaged in and the short life of the couch. Not that I wanted anything
some stranger’s bare ass had been so thoroughly ground into.
Gabe was bringing someone new on the trip to fill the space Zoey left behind in our group. An old friend none of us had met, going on the trip that was supposed to be our last hurrah together. And of course he could, because Gabe was heartbroken, but I was still nervous about it. About someone new.
Davi, Laurel, and I drove up to the resort we’d booked back in February when the idea was first born, Gabe a few hours behind,
catching a ride with his friend.
“Coastal cottages, my ass,” Davi said after we’d checked in at the main building (Spanish Revival, red blooms dripping down
every surface, a man who didn’t look too happy to see us) and made our way along a winding, narrow road to the row of tiny
pastel-colored cottages tucked along the beach.
Laurel’s drooping Herschel duffel landed on the ground with a loud thwack as it dropped from her shoulder. She and Davi squinted
at the structure in front of us, which was drooping about as much as Laurel’s bag, the roof missing more than a few shingles
and the faded blue siding several years in need of a good power wash.
“It’s cute,” I told them, waving a hand at the little flower boxes beneath the windows, out of which some hearty Southern
Californian succulents grew. The effect was a little unnerving, like you might lean out a window hoping to pluck some rosemary
from an herb box and instead wind up with a stab wound to your thumb, but to me, it spelled effort. Someone had tried to pretty
this place up, even if it wasn’t in obvious ways.
“Cute,” Laurel repeated, her pert nose wrinkling.
Five feet of pure energy, Laurel is still someone my Uncle Hank routinely describes as “spunky,” a buzzing whirlwind of ideas who swept me up our freshman year of college and hasn’t let go since.
She is one of a very small handful of people I have let into my life and let stay, Davi and Gabe included.
As such, I would do anything for her, including trying to convince her that the cottage, the front door of which was a little offset on its hinges, was the coastal getaway of her recently graduated dreams.
“Come on,” I said, slinging an arm around both of their shoulders. “Let’s pick our rooms before Gabe gets here.”
“Gabe and whoever,” Davi said. “Why does he get to bring someone again?”
“Because Gabe just had his heart shattered,” I reminded him as I jiggled the doorknob until it gave. “And this guy is his
friend.”
“We’re his friends,” Davi said. “This trip is supposed to be our thing.”
“Stop being so whiny,” Laurel told him as we stepped into the cottage. “You’ll probably love him. Besides, we need a fifth.”
“Not the best way to put that,” Davi muttered as I flipped on the lights and spread my arms in a ta-da! motion, though I’d never actually been to the cottage and had no real idea what, exactly, I was presenting.
It was better than the outside, at least. Small, not much more than one big open space, a bedroom downstairs and a loft with
bunk beds and one twin, and a closet of a bathroom tucked into one corner, but it was cozy. There was a small vinyl-topped
banquette table next to a Pullman kitchen that would serve our purposes that week, and out back—Laurel gasping and clapping
her hands together as she shot toward it—a deck bigger than the whole of the house.
“Look at this,” she breathed as she yanked the doors open, letting in a cool burst of sea breeze.
I dropped my bag on the orange twill couch and followed her outside.
She was standing at the top of the set of steps that led down to the beach, the bottom one buried in the sand.
She glanced over her shoulder at me and Davi as we joined her. “This will make Gabe feel better.”
We looked out at the white-capped waves crashing in, at beachgoers wandering or finding places to settle in to enjoy the late-afternoon
warmth, until Davi broke the silence with what we were all thinking. “I’m so pissed at Zoey.”
I sighed, exchanging a look with Laurel before resignedly agreeing. “Me too.” A hot, angry point needled at me, a reminder
of everything this trip was supposed to be up until a mere forty-eight hours ago. We’d still have a good week, but it—and
college graduation—would now be forever tinged by what happened.
The worst part, aside from Gabe’s complete heartbreak, was the fact that Zoey had been the fifth person in our tight-knit
group of friends. Gabe and Zoey officially declared their love for each other at the end of freshman year, and only then after
a lot of discussion and agonizing over the fate of our friend group should things ever go south between them. None of us had
seen any reason to worry: They were perfect together. Until, it turned out, they weren’t.
Gabe had told us in his trademark sweetheart way that he didn’t want this to tear us apart, that we should all still be friends
with Zoey if we wanted, but we’d all felt betrayed by what she’d done to him, too. By what it meant for all of us.
Even so, it was strange not having her there. It’s a little lopsided without her, isn’t it? Gabe had asked me just the previous night, our last in the house. I’d nodded, but in reality, I didn’t know if I totally agreed.
Yes, it felt off. But somehow, what she’d done hadn’t surprised me.
I was livid, to be sure, but I understood, on a fundamental level, that most people would disappoint you.
It was just a matter of time until Zoey did something to screw up what had been her perfect track record.
It didn’t mean I wouldn’t have happily thrown her to the sharks for Gabe.
But it did mean she’d just lived up to what I already knew was her inevitable potential.
“Maybe the friend Gabe is bringing is hot,” Laurel said.
“Laurel, no,” I said. “What did we just learn? None of us should be dating our friends.”
“But what if he’s dreamy?” Laurel asked. I scoffed.
“I don’t care if he’s Ryan Gosling. This trip is not about romance.”
“What if he’s Idris Elba?” Laurel asked. I ignored her in favor of grabbing Davi’s hand and dragging him toward the sand.
“Oscar Isaac?” she called after us. I broke into a jog with Davi, headed straight to the water. “Sutton!” she shouted. “What
if he’s literally Aragorn shoving the doors open in The Two Towers? You wouldn’t even consider him then?”
“Aragorn is taken!” I called over my shoulder, just as she sprinted after us and we splashed into the water, the sun sparkling
off of it everywhere.
I was slicing a baguette in the kitchen when Gabe and his mystery friend arrived that evening. Davi walked outside to help
with bags, something patently unlike him, but the only thing stronger than Davi’s desire to not help was his curiosity.
“Where are you going?” I called after Laurel when she hopped up, nearly upending her second glass of boxed Moscato.
“Recon!” she shout-whispered in my direction before scurrying out the door.
I laughed, shaking my head before lifting the lid off a pot on the stove, stirring the simmering pasta sauce inside. Laurel
was back quickly, running into the kitchen and practically colliding with me.
“So,” she said in a hushed tone. A car door slammed outside, voices floating in through the screen door. “Do you want to know?”
I shrugged a shoulder as she grabbed a slice of bread off my cutting board and broke off a bite. “Whatever.”
“Whatever,” Laurel said. “Sutton, he could be our new fifth.”
“I echo what Davi said earlier about referring to us like that,” I said, pointing my spoon at her.
“He’s hot,” Laurel hissed as feet sounded on the front step. I just rolled my eyes, but she pulled me deeper into the kitchen, continuing.
“But, like, not in an intimidating way? He’s, like . . . a little rumpled. But expensively rumpled. Like, put him in a navy-blue
coastal knit sweater and a pair of round glasses and he’d be your favorite hot nineties dad, if your favorite nineties dad
could also whisk you off to Spain for the weekend and keep you in bed the whole time.”
I thought for a minute, trying to conjure up this image. “What?” I finally asked, just as the front door swung open.
“Laurel, you know that your whisper carries like a fucking foghorn,” Davi said as we fell into a line, Laurel holding her wineglass in front of her face to hide
her abashed grin. Gabe walked in behind Davi. His face was as familiar to me as Laurel’s, all kind eyes and short brown hair,
and as he hugged me to him it felt like our week there was clicking together.
Except. There was still the person walking in behind him, head ducked as he dropped the luggage Davi wasn’t actually helping
to carry by the front door. For a minute all I could see was the top of his head, but then he was straightening, and it was
like all sound in the room died.
I don’t know if I’d use Laurel’s exact words to describe him, but not because she was wrong—because I’d already seen him in a well-loved navy-blue sweater at a party two months ago.
I already knew what that tousled, golden-brown hair felt like under my fingers, soft and thick and inviting.
I already knew what it was to have those eyes homing in on me, the sharpest shade of gray-blue I’d ever seen, speckled toward the middle like the nexus of a storm cloud.
I already knew the sound of his breath in my ear.
“Hi,” he said, a grin just curling one corner of his mouth as he looked at me. I could tell he was thinking the same thing
I was, gaze locked on mine even as the others stared at him like he was the newest attraction at a museum.
“Hi,” Laurel and I echoed, judges before him. He was game, though, and stepped forward, holding a hand toward me to shake,
the cheeky grin on his face growing.
“I’m Everett Bridges.”