by Holly Jacobs
“Go on, finish it,” she said, knowing the game. “I look good…for a tomboy? I look good…for a mere peon of a high-school student? I look good for an…” She hesitated, then spat out his annoying nickname for her, “an elf?”
“See, like I always say, you’re way too easy. I don’t even have to think about my gibes. You do all the work for me.”
For a moment, when she’d seen Stephan, she’d forgotten her pout, but now the reasons she’d been in a funk came back to her in full force. “All I wanted was to stay in Cleveland and have fun with my friends. And what did I get? Pokey old Heritage Bay and you.”
“Say that with a smile,” he instructed.
“No, I’m not going to smile for the entire five weeks I’ve still got to be banished here.”
“Oh, you’ll smile all right. You’re going to smile and say, ‘Stephan, I can’t imagine anything better than spending my summer at the lake with you.’”
“Ha.” She was tempted to smile. Her cheek muscles actually twitched and begged to be allowed to contract, but she firmly kept them in check.
“You’re going to say, ‘Stephan, none of my friends are as fun as you are.’”
“Never.” She was pretty sure this time, despite her best intentions, her cheek muscles did indeed twitch, as if they could force her to allow the smile, but she held fast.
“Before the summer’s over, you’ll say it.”
He lifted her to her feet and cocked his head to the side, eyeing her from head to toe. She still barely reached his shoulder. “You haven’t grown any this last year, have you?”
“It’s good to see you, too, Stephan.” She tried to sound disgruntled, but in truth, it was good to see him. Very good.
He looked older. Maybe that’s what starting college did for you, dumped you full force into adulthood. Maybe that’s what would happen to her next year, and maybe her parents would notice and finally admit she was capable of living her own life.
“So, what’s on the agenda today?” He reached for her book still on Spencer’s Rock. “Austen?” He took the book and started walking down the beach. “I’m sure we can come up with something better than that.”
“Better than Austen? I’m not sure I think you have it in you.”
“We’ll see.”
“SO?” STEPHAN ASKED CAROLYN later that afternoon, as the boat drifted lazily on the water.
She was smiling as she stared out toward land, lost in thought. She was distracted enough that Stephan had spent the last few minutes studying her. She’d always lamented her lack of height, and clearly she was hoping that this would be the year she’d grow. She was five two, within a fraction of an inch or so, but that was that.
Though her slight stature was a constant, every summer her hair was a bit different than the last. This year, it was shoulder-length and had a Farrah Fawcett sort of look to it, feathered toward the back.
Despite her stationary height and annual hairstyle changes, she was still his elf. Still his Caro. He took comfort in that because it seemed like everything else around him was changing at an ever-increasing pace, almost taking his breath away sometimes.
His question had shaken her from her thoughts, and as she turned to him, her smile broadened. “Yes, this is better than Austen, unless you’re planning to jump into the lake again? Then Austen wins.”
“I don’t feel the need to show off the way I did back in our purloined-boat-trip days.”
“After I got you back on board, I almost killed you myself. Sometimes I get flashbacks. I never did figure out what you were trying to prove by jumping into the lake like that.”
Stephan could think of half a dozen excuses for that day’s stunt—he’d used most of them over the years—but this time, he wasn’t sure quite why, he went for honesty. “I was trying to impress you.”
She eyed him a moment, then shook her head and started to laugh.
“Seriously,” he said. “You must have sensed I had a crush on you. It’s hard on my manly ego to admit that, seeing as you only ever saw me as a summer buddy.”
Her laughter died abruptly, and she looked genuinely confused. “A crush?”
He’d figured she’d known and had ignored it in order to spare his feelings, but seeing the incredulous look on her face, he realized she’d never figured it out. “You didn’t know?”
“No. I didn’t think of that stunt as your way of showing off to impress me. That last boat ride is a prime example of how not to impress me at all. I don’t know what I’d have done if you hadn’t managed to get back on board.”
“I promise I’m done showing off for you.”
“Because you don’t feel that way about me anymore.” She sighed, and he couldn’t tell if it was a sigh of regret, or relief.
So Stephan carefully weighed his words. “Caro, I’ll always care about you, but I know that a summer romance between us wouldn’t be smart. I’m off to college, you’ll be a senior in high school. We’ll be in different cities, so anything we started couldn’t go anywhere.”
“You didn’t say you weren’t interested in a summer romance, only that it wouldn’t be smart.” There was speculation in her eyes.
Showing a restraint he didn’t know he had in him, Stephan said, “I think it’s time to change the topic. Have you started to think about colleges for next year?”
CAROLYN FELT A JOLT OF something. First came the realization that Stephan had showed off for her, that he’d at one point in their friendship seen her as more than a friend. Then came the realization that those feelings, those more-than-friend feelings might still be there.
The way he’d avoided answering her and quickly changed the subject gave her a sense of power. She thought about hammering away at him to see what, if anything, he still felt for her, but decided against a full-frontal assault.
She answered his question. “I don’t know about colleges. My dad’s keen on my going to OSU. He was a Buckeye and would love to see me be one, as well.”
“And you, what do you want?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. I’m torn between wanting to leave Cleveland, to start life on my own, and wanting to stay at home where everything is familiar. There’s a certain comfort in the status quo, in keeping things the same.”
“I understand the feeling, wanting two different opposing things at the same time.”
She found her moment and struck. “Like you wanting to keep things the same between us, and yet wanting me to see you as something more than a friend?”
“Let’s just drop it. I don’t know why I brought it up.”
She moved closer to him. “I’m glad you did.”
He’d started to slide back on the boat’s seat, to keep distance between them, but at her words, he froze. “You are?”
“What if I said I’d like to experiment with us being more than friends?”
She hadn’t thought about Stephan in that way in years. Not since they were younger and she believed he’d never see her as anything more than a temporary neighbor. His admission brought back all the excitement of that long-ago crush.
“I’d say it would be foolish. We’ve only got a few weeks, then we’ll both be going our separate ways. I treasure your friendship and wouldn’t want to see anything happen to it—”
She surprised him—surprised herself even—when she silenced him with a kiss.
As her lips touched his, she wondered if loving a friend might be the best way to go. She’d had boyfriends in high school. She’d experienced the nervousness, the sweaty palms that came from being with them, but as she fell into the rhythm of kissing Stephan there were none of those jitters, just a feeling of comfort.
Of coming home.
“Wow,” he murmured when they finally broke apart.
“Wow yourself.” Feeling a momentary spurt of insecurity, she asked, “Do you still think this would be a mistake?”
He grinned. “If it is, then it’s a mistake I’ll gladly make as long as we both go into it knowing it ca
n’t be anything more than a summer thing. I’d never want to hurt you. We’d have to go into this knowing that it would end.”
“Just for the summer,” she promised, and while she truly believed that they could walk away still friends, a small whisper of doubt tried to make itself known—if she let herself love Stephan, even a little, how would she ever stop? She ruthlessly shut the doubts out.
This was Stephan. Her Stephan. Nothing could ever damage their friendship, not even a summer fling. It would be fine.
He looped an arm over her shoulder, as if he’d always done so. “So, if we’re a summer item, I supposed I should ask you out on a real date.”
“Are you asking?” she teased.
“I guess I am. Anything in particular you’d like to do?”
She wanted to say, “More kissing,” but settled for, “A movie in Port Clinton?”
TWO MAGICAL WEEKS LATER, Carolyn was wishing summer vacation would never end. What she’d envisioned as long, ponderous days had turned into something else. The days, the minutes, flew by. She and Stephan had taken the ferry over to Put-in Bay and rented bikes, they’d spent long afternoons on Stephan’s father’s boat supposedly fishing. They’d gone into Port Clinton and seen the movie Grease twice, once that first night, and once just last night. The song “Summer Nights” seemed especially poignant the second time around.
It was a half hour until sunset as Carolyn spread a blanket in front of Spencer’s Rock. She was sitting waiting both for the sunset and for Stephan. In the short space of time together, it had become a ritual—meeting at the rock every night to watch the sunset, sheltered away from prying eyes, pushing boundaries, exploring each other in new ways.
She found herself humming the end of the Grease song, when all the frivolity had faded. Danny and Sandy had let the audience glimpse their true feelings about their summer relationship in those few lines, and humming that part made her feel like crying.
She’d never felt so alive…so in love.
Love.
She hadn’t said the word to Stephan yet, but that didn’t mean she hadn’t weighed it on the tip of her tongue, acquainted herself with its heft.
She realized just how easily it would tumble off if she let it.
I love you.
She practiced saying the words to him over and over again in her mind.
I love you, Stephan.
I love you, Stephan Foster.
Love you.
Love.
Yes, it all boiled down to that four-letter word.
She’d known Stephan all her life. They’d been summer buddies, cohorts in terror his mother used to call them. It made perfect sense that she’d fall in love with someone she knew so well, someone she had always loved as a friend.
She saw him walking along the edge of the water toward her. He waved as he drew closer, and she stood up and waved back.
“Sorry,” he said when he finally reached her. “Frank and George were late to dinner and Mom held it up. I don’t think I’ve ever eaten as fast. My mom kept shooting me those what-on-earth looks she’s perfected over the years.”
“Stephan, having seen you and your brothers eat, your mother is justified in whatever what-on-earth looks she shot you.”
“Hey.” He looked insulted. “I’m not as bad as the gruesome twosome.”
She smirked. “You just keep telling yourself that if it helps.”
“Ow. You’ve picked on me before, but comparing me to my brothers, that’s below the belt.”
“Your brothers aren’t that bad.”
He kissed her then, not possessively, but as if to clarify for both of them, that his brothers might not be too bad, but he was better. At least better for her. That she was his, at least for the summer.
At-least-for-the-summer seemed to be the way she qualified everything between her and Stephan. Even thinking about loving him a few minutes ago should have been qualified by at least for the summer.
He asked, “What did you mean by my brothers aren’t that bad? Should I be jealous?”
“After a kiss like that? I don’t think a question like that is really necessary. You see, your brothers might not be that bad, but they’re not as good as you.”
He grinned. “I’m good?”
She pulled him down onto the blanket. “I don’t want you to get a swollen head, but yes, there are a couple of new skills you’re very good at, a fact that I’ve discovered this summer.”
“Such as?” He wrapped his arms around her.
“Wow, your brothers really have done a number on you tonight. You don’t normally fish for compliments like this.”
“Maybe a guy likes to hear nice things now and again.”
“Nice things. Well, I could say that these last few weeks have been amazing. Would that help?”
He nodded. “That’s a good start. What about those new skills I possess that you’ve discovered?”
She pretended to think a moment. “Okay, so there’s kissing. If you’d asked me last year, I’d rather have kissed a fish than you, but I’ve discovered that you kiss better than a fish.”
“That’s a compliment?” He jokingly started to pull his arm from her shoulder.
Carolyn tugged it back into place. “I don’t want you to feel you don’t have to keep trying.”
He pulled her closer. “Should I try now?”
“I thought we came here to watch the sunset.”
“We’ve watched it set every night for that last two weeks. I think tonight we could see if I’m able to move up in your kissing estimation.”
“Before we do, I just want to say that I can’t imagine anything better than spending my summer at the lake with you,” she parroted the words he’d told her she’d say that first day at the rock.
He recognized them. She could see it in his smile.
“Told you that you’d say them,” he said as he held her tightly in his arms.
The sunset was quickly forgotten as their kissing led to more exploration, taking them both further than they’d ever gone.
Only for the summer.
The words played in Carolyn’s mind, reminding her she should stop, not go too far, but even in the heat of the moment, she knew that tonight, there was no pulling back.
If this summer was her one chance with Stephan, then she wanted this. She wanted Stephan to be her first. She’d come to that conclusion earlier in the day, when she’d visited a Port Clinton pharmacy and bought condoms. She was old enough to know what she wanted, and what she didn’t want.
She wanted Stephan Foster.
She didn’t want a pregnancy.
Now that they were here, there was no indecision, no hesitation. She knew in her heart that it was the right choice for her and she lost herself in the moment. Enjoying the new, previously unknown sensations.
She knew wherever life took them after this summer, she’d always treasure this time with Stephan. And he was right, she couldn’t imagine anything better than this…than being here with Stephan.
STEPHAN REMEMBERED JUST what else had happened at Spencer’s Rock and smiled at Carolyn across the bed. “I always stop by the rock when I go visit my parents.”
“I’ll confess, I still love to go sit there to watch the sun set and think of you. Stephan, I loved you so much that summer. If only…” She let the sentence die off.
But Stephan understood. “Yeah, if only. We were young and both had plans—plans that couldn’t include each other.” He shook his head.
“It was easy to believe that we could hold it together then. I thought I could keep things light, just a summer’s fling. But in the end, it didn’t work. By the time I watched you leave, I really thought that we’d be able to make things work, even though you were off to college, and I still had my senior year in Cleveland.”
“Long-distance relationships…” He shrugged and tried to look nonchalant, but the pain came back sharply. It wasn’t acute, just a small pointed reminder that what he and Carolyn had had was over. “I
’m glad we found a way to stay friends.”
Stephan looked from Emma to Carolyn and hoped that some summer magic still existed, as well. That it would work not only to bring Emma back, but also to help Carolyn, his elf, his Caro, rediscover those feelings from so long ago.
Because as he looked at Carolyn Kendal, he knew that it wouldn’t take much for him to fall for her all over again.
As a matter of fact, he was already more than halfway gone. Maybe he’d never fallen out of love with her. Still, it hadn’t been their time.
And circumstances being what they are, now wasn’t the time, either. She had enough on her plate with Emma’s condition. She didn’t have the time or energy even to think about falling in love.
But that didn’t stop him from wondering, what if?
CHAPTER FIVE
LIFE HAD FOUND A NEW NORMAL since Stephan had arrived in Cleveland.
It hadn’t happened all at once, but one day Carolyn recognized that she’d developed a routine. That what had once seemed so horribly abnormal, now felt familiar. It felt almost comforting, knowing what was coming next.
Feeding Emma via her G-tube, therapy, doctor consultations…she was a pro. So was Stephan. He’d become as well-versed in the hospital rhythms and requirements as she had.
She’d told him time and time again to go home, to go back to his life, but he refused. He said his primary job was contracts, and he could do that here just as easily as in Detroit.
Carolyn didn’t believe him, and knew that not only Stephan, but the whole office must be reorganizing their lives to deal with his absence, but try as she might, he wouldn’t do more than go home occasionally for a couple of days a week.
They’d started trading the nights. One going back to her house to sleep, the other staying with Emma. Last night had been her turn to stay at the hospital. She’d woken up, had gone through her personal morning ablutions, then turned her attention to Emma’s.
She pulled over the tray with a basin of warm water and began Emma’s sponge bath. She realized it was March. It had been four weeks since the accident.