7
Only, we weren’t kissing. I was amazed by how much I wished we were. I wondered if he had a girlfriend. He hadn’t mentioned one. But would he get this close to another girl if he did?
On the other hand, I hadn’t mentioned my date with Chase. But a date…well, dates came and went in my life.
“Want to give it a try?” he asked.
He held the brush in front of my face. I made a fist to stop my hand from shaking before I took it from him.
“It’s okay to paint over the stencil,” he said.
I nodded quickly. “I think I’ve got it.”
“Are you afraid of heights?”
“No, why?”
“Because you’re shaking.”
“I’m just a little cold. Not used to the weather yet.”
Cold? What a lie! I was practically burning up.
“Then I definitely don’t want you on my snow volleyball team.”
“Snow volleyball?”
“Yeah, me and the guys are gonna play later this afternoon. You could come watch us.”
Was he asking me out? Should I tell him about Chase?
“You know,” he added, “meet people. Besides, studies have shown that staying indoors can lead to depression.”
“And emergency rooms have shown that staying outdoors can lead to frostbite, loss of limbs, and freezing to death.”
“Only if you’re careless.”
I shook my head. “It’s so cold out there.”
“Not once you get used to it.”
“You know, if you ever went to Texas you’d probably complain about the heat.”
“I never complain about weather. It is what it is.”
“You’d complain.” I twisted around slightly to make a point—and I’m absolutely certain it was a very valid point and would have nailed his butt—but he was so close and his blue eyes were sparkling as if he were amused…
And then they weren’t.
They got totally serious. And he dipped his gaze to my lips. That started them tingling. My body got hotter. How would I explain being taken to the ER with a case of heat stroke?
I wanted to laugh, but this wasn’t funny. It was, like, maybe we both realized that being up there on the ladder together, so close together, wasn’t a smart move.
Because we had nowhere to go except toward each other and then figuring out if we preferred the dab or the swirl.
And we’d barely had a conversation, but here I was, certain he was going to kiss me.
I watched as his Adam’s apple slid up and down.
“Um, so, think you’re okay with the stenciling?” he asked.
His voice sounded like he hadn’t had anything to drink in years. Dry and scratchy.
I nodded. “I think so.”
To my utter mortification, I didn’t sound much better.
“Okay, then, I’ll leave you to it.”
Only, he stayed where he was, looking at me like he’d never really seen me before. Like maybe he was under a spell. I didn’t want him to go, but I didn’t want him to stay. For the first time in my life, when it came to a guy, I was confused about what I wanted.
“Are you afraid of heights?” I asked, to jar us out of whatever was happening here.
“What?”
“You’re not leaving.”
“Right.” He shook his head, grinned. “Right.”
Then he climbed down the ladder.
I took a deep breath, not realizing until that moment that I hadn’t been breathing.
It got really quiet as I worked on the stenciling. He went back to painting the wall. It was kinda weird because I kept thinking that this would always be our room, even when strangers stayed in it. It was the room where we’d talked and worked together. The room where a spark between us almost got started.
But since the spark hadn’t ignited, we shared an awkward silence.
“So, this snow volleyball…What do you do? Toss snowballs at each other and swat them back and forth?” I asked.
He laughed a little too loudly, like maybe he was as uncomfortable with whatever had almost happened on the ladder as I was.
“No. It’s just volleyball. You know volleyball, right?”
“Yeah, I know volleyball. But it’s never included the element of snow, so I’m just trying to picture how it works.”
“You know anything about beach volleyball?”
I glanced over my shoulder. He was watching me instead of painting. I felt a small thrill at the realization that I had his attention.
“Yes, I know beach volleyball.”
“So imagine snow instead of sand.”
I went further than that. I imagined everyone bundled up, rolling around trying to get the ball. Athletic ability was certain to be lacking. I snickered at the thought. “I don’t see how it can be very competitive.”
“It’s entertaining, if nothing else. Come and watch us play,” he said. “We’ll be on the beach—”
“There is no beach,” I reminded him.
“There is in the summer. We use the beach volleyball nets. You’ll be able to see us from your window, but it’s better up close.”
It had definitely been better with him up close on the ladder.
He suddenly seemed nervous, maybe thinking the same thing I was, and started rolling the paint over the wall very quickly, almost obsessively, like get this done and get out of here.
“I think Mom’s planning on us practicing to have a tea party this afternoon,” I said.
“Oh, that’ll be way more fun,” he said, his voice dripping with sarcasm.
I laughed, because he was so right. And what girl in her right mind would willingly choose watercress and cheddar sandwiches over watching hot guys play volleyball, even if they’d look like the Michelin tire guy while doing it?
He turned to look at me. “I like your laugh.”
Which made me stop laughing, because something in his eyes told me he liked more than just my laughter.
As though neither of us knew quite what to do with this attraction, we both returned to painting—furiously.
We’d be finished before teatime.
Thinking about watching Josh play volleyball gave me very little patience for sitting down for tea. Afternoon tea is supposed to be calm and relaxing, but all I wanted was for it to be over with.
I stood in the kitchen, cutting crusts off the bread of our cream cheese, cheddar cheese, and watercress sandwiches.
“I want to find a summertime drink to offer in the afternoons,” Mom said.
“How ’bout lemonade?”
“That’s so unoriginal. I was thinking something more unique.” Mom took a bite of the sandwich, which she’d cut into little triangles.
Any other time, I probably would have thought the tiny sandwiches were cute. But I had watching-a-cute-guy on the brain. And cute guy always wins out over cute sandwiches.
“It’s pretty good,” Mom said.
I took a bite. It was.
Mom took a Post-it note and drew three stars on it. She had a cookbook system: three stars—like it, want to serve it again; two stars—it’s okay in a pinch; one star—tried it once, never again. She slapped the Post-it on the page in her Teatime cookbook. “One down, about two hundred to go.”
I was horrified. “We’re not going to make all those sandwiches, are we?”
“Well, no, not all of them, but we need to have a nice selection, and I certainly don’t want to serve something I haven’t tasted. And then there are all the yummy desserts.”
Speaking of yummy…
Now was probably the time to tell Mom that I wanted to cut the teatime short.
The doorbell rang.
“I’ll get it,” I said, hopping out of the chair.
“Wonder who it could be,” Mom murmured.
It was Nathalie.
“Heard there was going to be a tea party. Thought you could use rescuing,” she whispered.
How had she heard that? Had my
mom talked to hers? Not that it mattered. She was as welcome as a Saint Bernard, following an avalanche.
She peered around me into the hallway. “Hi, Ms. Sneaux.”
“Would you like to join us for tea?” Mom asked.
“Uh, no, actually, the guys are playing volleyball. I thought Ashleigh would like to watch. Is that okay?”
“Of course,” Mom said. “Y’all go have fun.”
“Thanks, Mom.” I gave her a quick hug before grabbing my parka from the hall closet. I pulled my knit cap down over my ears and put on my gloves as I followed Nathalie outside.
“Thanks so much,” I said. “We were making finger sandwiches.”
She laughed. “Wait until your mom decides to have a tea tasting.”
We went down the steps. “Excuse me? A tea tasting?”
“Yeah, it’s like a wine tasting, except you serve tea.”
“Don’t you have to make each type of tea in a different teapot?”
“I guess.”
I couldn’t think of anything that would be more boring.
“Wait until you see my boyfriend play,” Nathalie said as we crossed the street. “He’s really athletic.” She bumped up against me. “And hot. Quite honestly, he’s the hottest guy on the island.”
Someone hotter than Chase and Josh? I couldn’t wait to see this guy. I wondered if some sort of mutant gene had developed on the island that made all the guys good-looking. I mean, really, what were the odds that there wouldn’t be any dorks around here? Let’s hear it for gene mutation.
We went over the knoll and down toward the beach. I could see some guys on either side of the net, playing very seriously. None of them were wearing coats. I wondered which one was Nathalie’s boyfriend. With the exception of a boy who looked like he was about twelve, they were all boyfriend-worthy.
Chase, Josh, and two guys I didn’t know were on one side of the net. Not only were they not wearing coats, they weren’t wearing shirts, either!
How insane was that?
“They have to be freezing!” I said, trying not to notice how buff Josh looked. But it was a little difficult to miss.
And it made sense that he would be totally in shape. Construction work required a lot of heavy lifting. I already knew he was strong. I just didn’t think he’d look that great.
Chase wasn’t bad, either. Stirring fudge was apparently excellent exercise.
I felt a tad guilty that my attention kept going back to Josh.
“It’s too hard to play in coats and gloves,” Nathalie said. “The games don’t last long.”
No kidding.
Corey and Shanna stood nearby, and we joined them.
“Still not used to the cold?” Corey asked me.
She was holding another coat in her arms. I thought about asking if I could borrow it. It was colder on the beach, because a breeze was blowing off the water.
“I don’t know if I’ll ever get used to it,” I confessed. “Are you using that coat?”
She laughed. “It’s Chase’s. I’m being a good sister, so it won’t be covered in snow when he’s finished playing.”
“Is your boyfriend playing?”
“Oh, yeah.” She pointed to a guy on the other team wearing a red sweatshirt with the sleeves cut off. “That’s Adam. I’d be holding his coat, except he didn’t bring one. And that guy”—she pointed toward a guy who was at least wearing a long-sleeve T-shirt—“is Rand, Shanna’s boyfriend.”
“Are there many guys without girlfriends?” I asked.
“Nope. Just Chase and—”
“Watch out!” someone yelled.
A volleyball came soaring at us. I ducked. The girls laughed.
“Their hands get so cold they can’t control where they hit the ball,” Nathalie said.
“Isn’t there someplace where they could play inside?” I asked.
“What would be the fun in that?” Shanna asked.
But the way the guys were shivering, I wasn’t certain this method was much fun either.
I turned back to Corey, so she could finish giving me the official list of girlfriendless guys, but her cell phone rang and she moved away to answer it.
I thought about asking Shanna or Nathalie but I didn’t want to appear to be obsessing about getting a boyfriend. I mean, I didn’t want a boyfriend. I was just trying to figure out how many dates I could have before I ran through the menu. Chase. Maybe Josh. I knew he didn’t have a girlfriend. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have invited me to come watch him play. I hadn’t considered that Chase would be here. I hoped it wouldn’t get awkward after the game. I probably should have mentioned to Josh that I had a date with Chase.
Josh hit the ball over the net. Another guy slapped it back at him.
“My boyfriend is so good,” Nathalie said. “I love watching him.”
So the other guy was her boyfriend. He was okay-looking, not what I’d call the hottest guy on the island. But of course, Nathalie would think that about her boyfriend.
It suddenly occurred to me that she always referred to him as “my boyfriend.” Like he was a thing, a status symbol. Maybe he was in this small community, where there weren’t many guys to choose from.
“Game point!” Chase yelled.
He served the ball. The wind off the cold lake caught it and sent it out of bounds.
All the guys groaned. The one who looked like he was about twelve ran over, grabbed the ball, and threw it to Chase. He adjusted where he stood, tried again, and got it inbounds. After a couple of volleys, it went to Josh. He spiked it.
No one was able to move fast enough to return it. I was surprised they could move at all.
“Game!” Chase yelled.
“My boyfriend needs warming,” Nathalie cried, and she ran toward the players, unzipping her jacket.
Josh turned. He saw me. He grinned. I grinned back, raised my hand—
Nathalie leaped at him, her coat opened wide. Slipping his arms around her, beneath the coat, he lifted her up and kissed her.
8
Okaayyy…I had not expected that.
I tried not to look surprised, shocked, stunned. But the truth was, I was all three. And maybe even a little hurt.
I remembered Nathalie saying that her boyfriend could paint my room. Oh, yeah. He could do a lot of things. He was a handyman.
“I could use some warming,” a deep voice said.
I tore my gaze from the couple playing tonsil hockey. Chase was grinning at me like a fool.
“That’s what coats are for,” Corey said, shoving the heavy coat she’d been holding into his arms.
“That’s not as much fun,” he said, but he put the coat on anyway.
“Come on, everyone, let’s go!” Nathalie shouted.
She was walking toward us awkwardly, since Josh’s arm was around her, keeping her anchored to his side. He’d thrown on a bulky sweater and a jacket that he hadn’t bothered to zip.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“To my house, to get some hot apple cider and warm up these guys,” Nathalie said.
Josh gave me an odd look as he walked by with Nathalie. The old furrowed brow, like he was trying to figure me out. What was to figure out? Other than why he hadn’t told me he had a girlfriend.
“You’re coming, right?” Chase asked.
“Oh, sure.”
He walked beside me as we trudged toward Nathalie’s house.
“I hear you’ve been hanging out with my sister,” he said.
“Not really hanging out. We went to the mall together.”
“Like I said, hanging out. Don’t take anything she might say about me seriously, though, okay?”
“You mean I shouldn’t take it seriously when she said you’re the best brother in the whole world?”
“If she said that, then we’ve both dropped into an alternate universe. She’s more likely to tell you to steer clear of me. We have this whole sibling rivalry thing.”
“But she was holding your coat
.”
“Yeah, but I paid her to do it. So you have any sisters or brothers?”
“Nope.”
“Yeah, neither does Nathalie,” he said. “I think she gets lonely. I think it’s one of the reasons she hooked up with a boyfriend so fast, before anyone else had a chance to audition for the role.”
It seemed an odd thing to say, until I realized that he was watching her back, more than he was watching anything else. I briefly wondered if his asking me out was to make her jealous.
Up ahead, Nathalie laughed. Josh looked down at her and gave her a quick kiss.
I was beginning to wish I’d stayed at home making finger sandwiches.
Nathalie’s house was warm and cozy, but still I kept my cap and coat on. I didn’t plan to stay long. I did finally remove my gloves, but only because I wanted to wrap my bare hands around a warm mug of apple cider. I’d never had apple cider that tasted like maple syrup. Nathalie had dropped a blob of spiced butter into it. Standing at the edge of the kitchen, with my hip pressed to the counter, I stared at the melting butter, wishing I could disappear as easily.
All these people knew one another. They were laughing and talking about things that didn’t include me, like the first time Josh ever dared to play snow volleyball sans shirt, and the guys on the other team had tossed him into a snow bank.
Laugh, laugh, laugh.
Or the time that old Mrs. Hooper—whoever the heck she was—paid Josh and Chase to clear her attic of bats.
Or how when a group of tourists came over for the day and…
Ha! Ha! Ha!
All I could do was smile, nod, and pretend I knew what they were talking about.
Finally, I got tired of listening and backed into the living room. A fire was crackling in the fireplace. My hands were still cold so I walked over to it and knelt. I put my mug on the floor and put my hands near the dancing flames. The wood-burning fire generated a lot of heat. It felt really good and smelled even better.
I knew log fires were a lot of trouble, but I wondered if Mom would consider converting our gas fireplaces to wood-burning ones, for the atmosphere…and the warmth.
I was so absorbed that I didn’t know anyone was near until I heard knees pop. Josh crouched beside me.
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