Summer's Desire

by Olivia Lynde

  But there's no point arguing with Seth about all of that again. He knows the risks just as well as I do. Most terrifying of all, I know he'd be willing to give up his scholarship so that we can stay together. I'll do everything to stop him from making that sacrifice... except leave him. I cannot leave him ever again.

  I feel a tear fall down in a scalding trail down my cheek. "Seth, you know I'll come with you wherever you want. I'll follow you to the ends of the earth."

  Some of the rigidity seeps out of him and he tenderly wipes away my tear. "Thank you, Sunny."

  "Let me go in now, please. Ms. Walker doesn't like it when people are late."

  He inhales audibly and slowly, reluctantly, releases me at last. "Good luck," he tells me. "But don't forget: whatever happens, I'm here for you."

  And even as scared as I am, I feel the corners of my lips tip up in a slight smile. I love this boy so much it's almost more than I can bear sometimes. But then I remember that somehow, incredibly, he loves me just as much—and everything is all right with my world once again.

  * * *

  Forty minutes later, I'm walking away from Ms. Walker's table, drained and shell-shocked. I go down the stairs, then across the first floor area and out the door.

  Seth, who's been pacing beside his car, sees me the moment I step out of the coffee shop. He reaches me in three long strides, his arms going instantly around my waist. My hands rise to his chest, above his beating heart. His eyes are dark and anxious, and when he sees my face, he pales.

  "Sunny, what happened?"

  I flash back to the earlier conversation with Ms. Walker.

  "I thought this town agreed with you, Summer."

  "It does, ma'am." I cringe at how tremulous my voice sounds.

  "Indeed it does. Your eyes aren't red-rimmed, there's no sallow tinge to your complexion, and that whitewashed look you used to have is nowhere in evidence. Why then are you regarding me as if I'm a rampaging dragon about to demand you for a virgin sacrifice and swallow you whole?"

  Unfortunately, just as she says those sarcastic words, I'm in the process of gulping down some water to calm my nerves—and when I hear the word "virgin", of course the water goes the wrong way and I start to wheeze and cough.

  Ms. Walker thumps me on the back, and when she perceives that I'm not really going to die, she leans back in her chair and watches me with a crafty expression. I think she even smiles slightly, then her face sobers completely.

  "After you were orphaned," she tells me, "over the course of six months, three different families filed for your adoption, took you into their homes, and quickly thereafter withdrew their adoption requests. Social Services was at a loss what to do with you."

  I swallow nervously. Where is she going with this?

  "At the age of five-and-a-half years old, you were fostered to one Mrs. Adelaide Lewis. In whose house you proceeded to live for five years and seven months with not a single instance of turmoil being reported to Social Services. According to your file, you were bright, healthy, well-adjusted. And best friends with Mrs. Lewis' little grandson. Seth, I believe was his name, was it not?"

  Her incisive eyes drill into me, making note—I'm sure—of the minutest reaction I show. So there's no earthly way she can miss the blush that colors my cheeks bright-red at the mention of Seth's name. But she refrains from comment, just quirks an eyebrow and continues her matter-of-fact recounting.

  "Then Mrs. Lewis passed away, and your foster care agency sent you up north. Until your file found its way onto my desk, one year and a half later, you had been through seven different foster placements. Followed by another ten, in the ensuing three years and seven months."

  She stops and looks at me as if waiting for some further reaction from me, a response to her factual recap of the best and worst years of my life. I stare back at her with defiance, refusing the bait, and at last she sighs.

  "I can do the math, Summer."

  "So you sending me to Rockford was never a coincidence!" I challenge.

  She smiles coolly. "There are hardly any coincidences in this world." Why, I could swear that was smugness I'm hearing in her voice! Oh my God, I knew it! I freaking knew it.

  "I worked for almost an entire year," she explains, "until I succeeded in arranging a foster home for you in Rockford. A good friend that I went to college with and who's currently employed at a hospital in Grand Rapids helped convince a former colleague of hers to register for foster care and take you in."

  "Greg Anderson."

  "Indeed."

  "But ma'am—why?"

  She sighs again. "As I said, Summer, I can do the math. Five years and seven months of you living perfectly fine in one single home. Then five years of you scraping your way through an endless procession of foster homes. Obviously, there was something in Rockford that you needed."

  "So you thought my former home..."

  "I thought perhaps the house would help, so I concentrated my efforts into securing you a placement with the family that was currently occupying that same house. But if Greg Anderson hadn't agreed, I would've just found you another local family. What mattered most wasn't the home, I believed—but purely the chance of you meeting a certain person again."

  "But ma'am, how could you be sure that...?"

  She shakes her head in seeming impatience. "Naturally, I couldn't be certain of how things would turn out. Nonetheless, I thought the gamble was worth it. You don't realize, do you? How you look now is a thousand miles' difference from the way you looked the last time I saw you. You were wasting away, Summer." The usual lack of inflection in her voice has fallen away, and her words resonate with kindness and worry.

  So I take a gamble myself—the greatest gamble of all.

  "Ma'am... Ms. Walker, I found my childhood friend again." My voice is husky with entreaty and sincerity. "And I can't lose him again."

  Her gaze slides from me to the window and focuses on something outside. Then she looks back at me and tells me simply, "Don't lose him, then."

  "He's going to college on a football scholarship. I won't let him give that up because of me."

  Her eyes narrow with understanding. "Well, you should've mentioned that from the start. Where is he going to college? I should be able to arrange a foster home for you—"

  "Ms. Walker... I want to live with him. In fact, I need to live with him."

  She cocks her head slightly, her eyes drilling into me with extra force. "That sounds like sentimental drivel." Her tone is once again unreadable.

  "You know me, ma'am," I tell her huskily. "And you know that I'm being truthful. Believe me: he's the only one who can keep me sane. Who can give me peace."

  "And how does he feel about you?"

  "He loves me, ma'am."

  She averts her gaze once again to the side and out the window. "That's your young man down there, pacing a hole in the sidewalk?" she asks wryly.

  And I follow her gaze and realize that our window provides a perfect view of the sidewalk in front of the coffee shop. And also a view of Seth, who apparently couldn't stay still in his car any longer and instead is pacing outside.

  "That's him," I confirm while a wonderful, wonderful feeling of completeness and joy spreads from my heart and into the furthest reaches of my body.

  When I turn back to Ms. Walker, I find her eyes no longer focused on Seth but on my face, and they glitter with some inscrutable emotion.

  "He loves me more than I could have ever hoped to be loved," I whisper. "Certainly more than I deserve, ma'am."

  And at that, her impassive mask falls down and her face softens with kindness. "Not more than you deserve, Summer."

  Outside on the sidewalk, I refocus on Seth, on his anxious face. Slowly, ineluctably, my lips curl up and up, and I'm smiling the biggest, most relieved smile of my life.

  "I have one word for you, Seth: Supervised Independent Living."

  "That's three words, Sunny. But does it mean...?" He's still strung tight with enormous tension, as if
he can't believe what I'm saying, that we've finally got a good break for once.

  "Yes, Seth! It does mean what you think it means. I can stay with you!"

  I jump up and curl my hands around his neck, and his arms embrace me tighter, lift me up to him so that my feet aren't even touching the ground. And we're spinning round and round... Now he's smiling too and he's kissing me. I'm flying with relief and happiness, and the drugging, sizzling, overwhelming force of his kiss.

  And then he retreats just two inches and his eyes are blue flames of intensity. He whispers against my lips, "Forever, Sunny?"

  "Forever, Seth."

  And we kiss again.

  EPILOGUE

  He was late.

  For the hundredth time in the last half-hour, Summer glanced at the clock on the wall and thought she'd explode with frustration if those wretched clock hands kept spinning much longer without her hearing any news from Seth. She couldn't call him either, because what if he was still in the meeting? If that was the case, there was no way she'd take the risk of distracting him. Oh God, she could hardly believe that it had finally come: the moment that Seth had worked so hard for, the moment that they had both hoped and fought and sacrificed so much for, these last three years.

  Two young men, one dark and one blond, entered the restaurant and sat down in her section. She quickly grabbed two menus and went to hand them to the guests. As she walked up to them, she noticed the blond's gaze travel the length of her bare legs up to the short dark skirt she was wearing, then up her tight-fitting white peasant blouse. Summer bristled in annoyance at that gesture. She still hated drawing attention to herself, but Seth had told her they were going out today, to celebrate—so she had put extra effort into looking her best for him. She couldn't remember the last time they had afforded to go out on a real date, and she was unbearably excited about this one!

  She reached the table, handed the menus, and kept a cool, professional attitude while interacting with the guests. She steadily ignored the blond man's flirting, and finally he got the message and desisted. Luckily, this restaurant was upscale enough that it was frequented by customers who kept to the niceties of polite behavior, most of the time.

  She went to get the drinks for the young men, jotted down their orders after they'd made up their minds, and passed them on to the kitchen. Her section was otherwise nearly empty at this time of day, so she had a few minutes of respite.

  She was fortunate to be working in this restaurant, she knew that. Although it did get very hectic at rush hours, the general atmosphere here was infinitely better than in those student bars where she had waitressed during her and Seth's second year in Ann Arbor—after their little nest egg had long run out, and her stipend from the State had stopped. When life had started to get really difficult.

  The apartment they rented wasn't the greatest, but neither was it the cheapest—not by far. Because it had to be a good enough place, in a good enough location, that Seth could feel safe leaving her alone when he was gone overnight because of football. Of course, he'd also installed a different, more solid door and two extra locks that she was never allowed to forget securing when she was by herself. And whenever he was out-of-town, he always called her at night to make sure she was all right. But still it was progress: that when circumstances demanded it absolutely, she and Seth were now able to spend the one or the other night apart without going crazy with anxiety.

  Seth especially was such a huge old worrywart when it came to her! she thought with an inner smile. But it helped immensely for his peace of mind that, even though she still had night terrors sometimes when she slept alone... these days they were never as bad as they used to be. Not since she'd told Seth the truth about her parents' death... and he'd told her it wasn't her fault.

  It was her fault, of course—he was wrong about that—but still he loved her. And maybe, just maybe, if Seth—who was the one person in the world whose opinion mattered to her—could forgive her and love her regardless... then maybe she could forgive herself too. Maybe she could stop paying penance for her thoughtless actions, after all these years, and allow herself to move on at last.

  It was still a struggle—believing that she might become worthy of redemption one day—but she battled on and she was getting better. She still didn't like sleeping away from Seth, she never would, but she could deal with restless sleep or plain old insomnia infinitely better than she had dealt with the awful nightmares that she used to have. And Seth could now sleep away from her when he had to without tearing himself to shreds worrying about her state of mind.

  She glanced at the clock again, and the pins and needles she was sitting on started to jab her even harder. Her two guests signaled for the bill. She took it to them and they made their payment. They smiled at her before leaving; she thanked them and didn't smile back.

  It had been a constant source of contention with her boss, at first: that Summer didn't smile at the customers. That just wasn't her personality, and luckily her boss backed off when she saw that the customers seemed to like Summer anyway. They always tipped her generously, at any rate. And that's why Summer was working as a waitress—even though it meant she had to interact with lots of people all the time, which she pretty much hated—instead of working in a library or a book shop or someplace with less exposure. But being a waitress was what got her the best pay possible, and so a waitress she was. She and Seth had needed the money.

  Seth's scholarship fully covered his schooling, but what was left barely covered the rent and utilities for their apartment. So once their other funds had been exhausted, they had to do without a great many things. Without new clothes (whatever new clothes were bought at all, Seth always insisted that they be for her), without eating out or going to the movies, without Seth's beautiful BMW. Actually, the BMW had been one of the first things to go, but they still needed a car, albeit a cheaper one, and then there was Summer's college tuition to pay—she didn't have a scholarship at U-M—so even the money from selling the car didn't last long.

  Seth had an enormous course load because he wanted to graduate in three years, before he got drafted by an NFL team. And obviously, Mechanical Engineering was no breeze. College football was extremely demanding as well, so there really was no conceivable way that Seth could hold down a job on top of everything else. Though God, how he had run himself ragged trying, when their money first ran out! Summer shuddered at the memory.

  When his performance playing football (and in school) inevitably started to take a dip, she and Seth had a huge fight: she asked him to quit his job and he refused categorically. As a result, they didn't talk (and didn't make love) for almost three days—which was the absolute longest they'd ever stayed mad at each other during their entire relationship. It nearly killed her but she stood firm. And when Seth saw that she wouldn't change her mind, wouldn't let him touch her, wouldn't even talk to him, he walked around like a wounded bear. He acted as if he'd violently had his heart cut out of his chest and was slowly bleeding out. At the end of the third day, he broke down. He quit his job, and they made up and made love the entire night. Now that was a memory that made her quiver in a wholly different way! thought Summer.

  So afterward, Summer had quit her previous low-paying job in a book shop and started as a waitress, at first in a student bar. There however, unlike in this restaurant, drunk male students and their catcalls and groping attempts had been a constant occurrence. Seth used to always pick her up in the evening when she went off her shift (and she never worked at all when he was gone on training camps or away games). He usually came in ten minutes before her shift ended and took a seat at the bar—and God forbid that any drunk-off-his-butt customer should try and get fresh with her while Seth was around! A bloody nose was the least what he'd get for his trouble. Owing to such incidents, Seth got her fired (or made her quit) from four bars before she finally found this classier restaurant where to work. Here she had lasted for more than one year already, and counting.

  She and Seth ha
dn't lived the easy life these past three years—and even less in the last year and a half. But they'd been together and so they'd been happy. Every endless shift spent on her feet carrying heavy trays of drinks and food, every day when she didn't get enough sleep because there just wasn't enough time in a day for everything she needed to do, every moment spent counting pennies to make sure there'd be enough money left for that week's groceries, every torn pantyhose and every broken heel; each and every little and big disaster of these last three years—they had all been worth it. Because in exchange she got Seth. And today, God willing, Seth would get his dream.

  Strong, muscular arms wrapped around her from behind, and at the familiar touch, her body and mind relaxed at last. Already smiling, she turned in Seth's arms and looked up at him. His blue eyes were bright, happy.

  She smiled bigger. "You came in through the back?"

  "I wanted to surprise you."

  "It went well, Seth?"

  "It went well, Sunny."

  And then he was kissing her—the kind of kiss that he never, ever gave her in public. Except that he was obviously kissing her like that now, open and wet and deep. She leaned closer into him and thought her heart would burst from the excitement that just his wicked mouth and lips and tongue could arouse in her. They were nearing their three-year-anniversary, and still the attraction between them, which had burned so excruciatingly, overwhelmingly hot from the first, wouldn't settle into more bearable boundaries. Summer was starting to think that it never would. If anything, their passion for each other seemed to intensify even further each time they touched and made love.