Every Summer After
: Chapter 7

Sam and I walk to the Tavern after finishing our ice creams, and when we arrive at the back door, we stand looking at each other awkwardly, unsure of how to part.

“It’s been so great to see you,” I tell him, tugging at the hem of my dress and hating how phony my voice sounds. Sam must hear it, too, because he raises his eyebrows and jerks his head back just slightly. “I was going to try to hit the liquor store before it closes,” I say. “There’s a bottle of wine with my name on it. It’s kind of a lot being back here.” I wince.

Why did I say that? How is it that I’ve seen Sam for all of an hour and the lock has come flying off my big mouth?

Sam runs his hand over his face and then through his hair. “Why don’t you come in for a drink? Twelve years is a lot of time to catch up on.” It doesn’t escape my notice that he’s already done the math.

I shift on my feet. There’s nothing more I want than to spend time with Sam, to just be near Sam, but I need some time to figure out what I’m going to say to him. I want to talk about the last time we saw each other. To tell him how sorry I am. To tell him why I did what I did. To come clean. But I can’t go there tonight. I’m not prepared. It would be like going into the fight of my life without any armor.

I look around the quiet side street.

“C’mon, Percy. Save your money.”

“Okay,” I agree. I step into the dark kitchen behind him, and when he flicks on the lights, my eyes slide down the slope of his back to the curve of his butt, which is a very big mistake because it is a stupidly great butt. It is at this precise moment that he turns around, catching me mid-ass-ogle.

“Bar?” I ask, feigning ignorance. I brush past him and through the dining room doors, turning on the lights in the main room. With my hand still on the switch, I take in the space. I have to blink a few times to process what I see because it’s wild how little has changed. Pine planks cover the walls and ceiling; the floors are some kind of tougher wood, maple maybe. The effect is of being in a cozy cabin, despite the large size of the room. Historic photos of Barry’s Bay hang on the walls along with antique logging axes and saws and paintings from local artists, including a few of the Tavern itself. The stone fireplace sits where it always did, and the same family photo is placed on the mantel where it always was. I make my way over to it while Sam takes a couple of glasses from the shelf behind the bar.

It’s a framed shot of the Floreks in front of the Tavern, which I know was taken the day the restaurant opened. Sam’s parents are wearing massive smiles. His dad, Chris, towers over Sue with one arm wrapped around her shoulder, holding her tight to his side. A toddler Charlie clutches his free hand. Sue is carrying an infant Sam; he looks about eight months old, his hair is so fair it’s almost white, and his arms and legs are deliciously dimpled. I studied this photo countless times as a teen. I touch Sue’s face now. She’s younger than I am in this photo.

“I always loved this shot,” I say, still examining the picture. I hear the gurgle of liquid being poured into glasses and turn to see Sam, adult Sam, watching me with a pained expression.

I walk to the bar and put my hands on the counter as I take a seat in front of him. He passes me a generous tumbler of whisky.

“You okay?” I ask.

“You were right earlier,” he says, his voice rough as gravel. “It’s a lot having you here. It kind of feels like I’ve been punched in the heart.” My breath hitches. He lifts his glass to his lips and tosses his head back, downing its contents.

I am suddenly one thousand degrees hotter and hyperaware of the dampness under my armpits and how my bangs are stuck to my forehead. There’s probably a cowlick up there. I try to push them off my face.

“Sam . . .” I begin, then stop, not sure what words come next.

I don’t want to do this now. Not yet.

I raise my glass to my mouth and take a large sip.

Sam’s gaze is relentless. His ability to maintain eye contact was something I got used to after I first met him. And as we got older, that blue stare set fire to my blood, but now its pressure is overwhelming. And I know, I know, that I shouldn’t replace him attractive right now, but his dark expression and his hard jaw are unraveling me. He is undeniably gorgeous, even when he’s a little intense. Maybe especially so.

I tip back the rest of the whisky and gasp at the burn. He’s waiting for me to say something, and I’ve never been able to evade him. I’m just not ready to open up our wounds now, not before I know whether we’ll survive them a second time.

I look down at my empty glass. “I’ve spent twelve years thinking about what I would say if I ever saw you again.” I grimace at my own honesty. I pause, counting four breaths in and out. “I’ve missed you so much.” My voice trembles, but I keep going. “I want to make it better. I want to fix things. But I don’t know what to say to do that right now. Please just give me a little more time.”

I keep my attention on my empty glass. I have both hands wrapped around it so he can’t see them shake. Then I hear the soft pop of the bottle’s cork. I glance up, my eyes wide with fear. But his are soft now, a little sad even.

“Have another drink, Percy,” he says gently, filling the glass. “We don’t have to talk about it now.”

I nod and take a deep breath, grateful.

“Na zdrowie,” he says, touching his glass to mine and raising it to his lips, waiting for me to do the same. Together, we gulp down our drinks.

His phone buzzes in his pocket. It’s not the first time it’s gone off this evening. He checks the screen and shoves it back in his shorts.

“Do you need to get that?” I ask, thinking of Chantal and feeling a pang of guilt. “I don’t mind.”

“No, they can wait. I’ll switch it off.” He lifts the bottle of whisky. “Another?”

“Why the hell not?” I attempt a smile.

He pours more and then comes around the bar to sit on the stool beside me. “We should probably take this one slowly,” he says, tilting his glass. I ruffle my bangs with my fingers, partly from nerves and partly in the hope of making them somewhat presentable.

“You once swore you’d never get bangs again,” Sam says, looking at me sideways. I turn in my seat to face him.

“These,” I pronounce, “are my breakup bangs!” And, wow, am I drunk already?

“Your what?” he asks, swinging to face me with a lopsided grin, brushing my legs with his in the process. I look down where his thighs bracket mine, then quickly back to his face.

“You know—breakup bangs,” I say, trying to enunciate as clearly as possible. He looks mystified. “Women get new hairstyles when we get dumped. Or when we dump someone. Or sometimes just when we need a fresh start. Bangs are like the New Year’s Eve of hair.”

“I see,” Sam says slowly, and it’s clear what he means is I really don’t see and also That’s crazy. But a smile plays across his mouth. I try not to focus on the little crease in the middle of his bottom lip. Booze and Sam are a dangerous combination, I realize, because my cheeks are toasty and all I can think is how much I want to suck on that crease.

“So were you the dumper or the dumpee?” he asks.

“I got dumped. Just recently.” I try to focus on his eyes.

“Ah, shit. Sorry, Percy.” He moves his head down to my level so he’s right in my eye line. Oh god, did he notice I was staring at his mouth? I force myself to meet his eyes. He’s wearing an odd stern expression. My face is burning. I can feel beads of perspiration forming above my upper lip.

“No, it’s okay,” I say, trying to subtly dab at the sweat. “It wasn’t that serious. We weren’t together very long. I mean, it was seven months. Which is long for me—the longest for me, actually. But, like, not long for most grown-up people.”

Oh, good, I’m rambling now. And maybe slurring?

“Anyway, it’s fine. He wasn’t the guy for me.”

“Ah,” he says, and when I look back to him, he seems more relaxed. “Not a horror fan?”

“You remember that, huh?” Delight tingles in my toes.

“Of course,” he says with open, disarming honesty. I smile—a huge, dopey, whisky-fueled smile. “Who could forget being subjected to years of shitty scary movies?” This is classic Sam, teasing but always gentle and never unkind.

“Excuse me?! You loved my movies!” I give him a playful punch on the arm, and, Jesus, his bicep is like concrete. I shake my fist, looking at him in disbelief. He wears a small grin as if he knows exactly what I’m thinking. I take a sip of whisky to cut the tension that’s closing in.

“Anyway, no. Sebastian definitely did not like horror movies,” I say, and then I rethink this. “Actually, I don’t know. I never asked. And we never watched one together, so who knows? Maybe he loved them.” I leave out the part about how I haven’t told anyone I’ve dated about this odd passion of mine. That I don’t even watch scary movies anymore. To Sam, my love of classic horror films was probably a basic biographical Percy fact. But to me, it was far too intimate a detail to reveal to any of the men I saw. And, more to the point, after that first summer at the lake, I’ve associated those films with Sam. Watching them now would be too painful.

“You’re joking?” Sam asks, clearly confused.

I shake my head.

“Well, you’re right,” he murmurs. “He’s definitely not the guy for you.”

“What about you?” I ask. “Still reading anatomy textbooks for kicks?”

His eyes grow wider, and I think his cheeks have gone darker under the stubble. I hadn’t meant to bring up that particular memory. Of his hands and mouth on me in his bedroom.

“I didn’t . . .” I start, but he interjects.

“I think my textbook-reading days are over,” he says, giving me an out. But then he adds, “Calm down, Percy. You look like you’ve been busted watching porn.”

I let out a relieved sound that is halfway between a laugh and a sigh.

We finish our drinks in a happy silence. Sam pours more. It’s dark outside now, and I have no idea how long we’ve been here.

“We’re going to regret this tomorrow,” I say, but it’s a lie. I would endure a two-day hangover if it meant I could have another hour with Sam.

“Do you stay in touch with Delilah?” he asks, and I almost choke on my drink. I haven’t spoken to Delilah in years. We’re friends on Facebook, so I know she’s some kind of political PR ace in Ottawa, but I pushed her away not too long after I messed everything up with Sam. My two biggest friendships: gone within months. Both because of me.

I run my finger around the rim of my glass. “We stopped being close in university,” I say. The truth of this still stings, though it’s not the whole story, not even close. I look at Sam to see if he can tell.

He shifts his weight on the stool, looking uncomfortable, and takes a big drink. “I’m sorry to hear that. You two were really tight for a while there.”

“We were,” I agree. “Actually,” I add, glancing up at him, “you probably saw her more than I did since you both went to Queen’s.”

He scratches the scruff on his jaw. “It’s a big campus, but yeah, I ran into her once or twice.” His voice is coarse.

“She’d get a kick out of seeing how you’ve grown up,” my stupid whisky mouth blurts. I look down at my drink.

“Oh?” he asks, bumping my knee with his. “And how did I grow up?”

“Cocky, apparently,” I mutter, squinting at my glass, because somehow there are two of them.

He chuckles and then leans toward me and whispers in my ear, “You grew up pretty cocky, too.”

SAM SITS BACK and studies me.

“Can I tell you something?” he asks, his words running together just a little.

“Of course,” I choke out.

His eyes are slightly unfocused, but he has them set on mine. “There was this incredible used book and video store in Kingston when I was premed,” he begins. “They had a huge horror section—all the good stuff you loved. But other movies, too. Obscure ones that I thought maybe you hadn’t seen. I spent a lot of time there, just browsing around. It reminded me of you.” Sam shakes his head, remembering. “The owner was this grumpy guy with tattoos and a huge mustache. One day he got super pissed at me coming in all the time and never buying anything, so I grabbed a copy of The Evil Dead and plunked it on the counter. And then I just kept going back, but of course I had to buy something each time. I ended up with Carrie, Psycho, The Exorcist, and all those terrible Halloween movies,” he says. He pauses, searching my face. “I never put them on, though. My roommates thought I was nuts to have all these movies I didn’t watch. But I just couldn’t bring myself to. It felt wrong without you.”

This shakes me.

I’ve spent hours, days, entire years wondering if Sam could possibly long for me the way I did for him. In some ways, it seemed like wishful thinking. In the months following our breakup, I left countless messages on his dorm room phone, sent text after text, and wrote email after email, checking to see how he was, telling him how much I missed him, and asking if we could please talk. He didn’t respond to a single one. By May, someone else answered the phone—a new student had moved into his room. I considered driving up to Barry’s Bay, telling him everything, begging for forgiveness, but I thought he’d probably wiped me, my name, and all memory of us from his mind by that point.

There’s always been a small, hopeful part buried inside me that felt he must sometimes replace his mind drifting to me, to us. He was everything to me, but I know the same was true for him. Hearing him talk about the video store dislodges that deeply hidden sliver of hope, just a little.

“I don’t watch them, either,” I admit in a whisper.

“No?”

“No.” I clear my throat. “Same reason.”

We’re looking at each other, unblinking. The tightness in my chest is almost unbearable. The temptation to lean into him, to show him what he means to me with my hands and my mouth and my tongue, is almost impossible to ignore. But I know that wouldn’t be fair. My heart is a stampede of animals escaping the zoo, but I sit still, waiting for his response.

And then Sam smiles and his blue eyes glint. I can feel what’s coming before he speaks, and I’m already smiling.

I know you, I think.

“You mean you finally got decent taste in films?”

His smart-ass comment chases away the heaviness looming over us, and we both fall into a fit of laughter. Clearly the whisky has taken its full effect because my cackles are broken up with hiccups, and tears are streaming down my face. I put my hand on Sam’s knee to steady myself without realizing that I’ve touched him. We’re still cracking up, and I’m taking big gasping breaths to try to calm down, when a woman’s voice silences our outburst.

“Sam?”

I look up and Sam turns toward the kitchen doors, my hand falling from his knee as he shifts. In the doorway stands a tall blonde. She looks like she’s around our age, but she’s dressed immaculately in white sailor-style trousers and a matching sleeveless silk blouse. She’s thin and crisp looking, her hair pulled back into a low bun at the nape of her long neck. I am suddenly fully aware of how crumpled my red dress is and how disheveled my hair must be.

“Sorry to interrupt,” she says, walking toward us, car keys clenched in one hand. Her expression is cool, and I feel rather than see her sizing me up because I’m looking to Sam in confusion.

“I tried calling you several times,” she says, her hazel eyes oscillating between us. I met some of Sam’s cousins when we were kids, and I’m trying to place this woman among them.

“Shit, sorry,” he says, the words of his apology blurring together. “We got a bit sidetracked.”

She purses her lips. “Are you going to introduce us?” she asks, waving toward me. She has the fair Florek coloring but definitely not the warmth.

Sam turns and gives me a crooked smile that doesn’t reach his eyes.

“Percy, this is Taylor,” he says.

“Cousin?” I ask, but Taylor answers for him.

“Girlfriend.”

SAM IS INTRODUCING me to Taylor. His girlfriend. Not his cousin.

Sam has a girlfriend.

Of course he has a girlfriend!

How had I not considered this? He is a hot doctor. He’s tall and he’s got those eyes, and the messy hair is working for him. I’m pretty sure whatever hard surface he’s keeping under his T-shirt would make me weep. The Sam I knew was also kind and funny and brilliant—too smart for his own good, really. And he’s so much more than all that. He’s Sam.

Taylor is standing in front of us, her hands on her hips, looking fresh and stylish and imposing in her all-white outfit while I am sitting with my mouth hanging open. What normal person wears all white without getting some kind of stain on the front, anyway? Come to think of it, who wears dress pants and a matching silk top on a Thursday night in Barry’s Bay? On any night in Barry’s Bay? I want to squirt her with one of the restaurant’s ketchup bottles.

“Taylor, this is Percy,” Sam says as though he’s mentioned me before, but Taylor looks at him blankly. “Remember? I’ve told you about Percy,” he prods. “She had a cottage next door. We hung out all the time when we were kids.”

Hung out? Hung out?!

“How cute,” Taylor says in a way that makes it sound like she doesn’t think our childhood hangouts are very cute at all. “So you two are just catching up?” She directs the question to Sam, but her eyes flash over to me, and I can see the assessment she’s making: threat or no? My dress is wrinkled and possibly sweaty. There’s an ice cream stain on my boob. And there’s no way I don’t smell like whisky. Her shoulders relax a little—she doesn’t think there’s anything to worry about.

Sam is saying something in response to Taylor, but I have no idea what because I’m suddenly so nauseated that I have to hold on to the counter.

I need air.

I start taking deep breaths. Iiiin one, two, three, four and ouuut one, two, three, four. The whisky, which was warm and honey-sweet moments ago, now tastes stale and sour in my mouth. Puking is a very real possibility.

“You all right, Percy?” Sam asks, and I realize I’ve been counting out loud. He and Taylor are both looking at me.

“Mm-hmm,” I hum tightly. “But I think the whisky is catching up to me. I should probably go. It was nice meeting you, Taylor.” I get down from my spot at the bar and take a step forward, and my foot catches on the leg of Sam’s stool. I stumble right in front of Taylor, who, by the way, smells like a fucking rose garden.

“Percy.” Sam grabs my arm, and I close my eyes for a brief moment to steady myself. “You can’t drive.” I turn back to him, and he’s got this look on his face like he feels sorry for me. I hate it.

“It’s okay,” I start. “No, I mean, I know I can’t drive. But it’s okay because I didn’t drive. I walked here.”

“Walked? Where are you staying? We’ll give you a ride,” Sam offers.

We.

We.

We.

I look at Taylor, who is not doing a very good job at hiding her annoyance. Then again, if I found my hot doctor boyfriend drunk with a strange, clumsy woman who thought I was his cousin, I would be annoyed, too. And if that boyfriend were Sam, annoyance wouldn’t cover it. I would be murderous.

“Clearly you both need a drive,” Taylor says. “Let’s go. My car’s out back.”

I follow Taylor and Sam. I can picture them together on a date—both tall and fit and stupid good-looking. She could be a ballet dancer, with her willowy limbs and her hair pulled back in that neat bun. He’s built like a swimmer—broad through the shoulders, narrow at the hips, with legs that are muscular but not bulky. His calves look cut from marble. He probably still runs. They probably run together. They probably run together and then have the kind of sweaty, post-run sex that fit, happy people have.

Taylor leads the way out the kitchen door, and Sam holds it open for me to pass through. I wait for him to lock up while Taylor slides into her white BMW. I notice that her handbag and loafers are also white. This woman probably shits white.

“You okay?” he says quietly.

I’m too drunk to think about how to answer his question with a convincing lie, so I smile at him weakly before walking to the car.

I sit in the back, feeling like a child and a third wheel and also very dizzy.

“So how did you two meet?” I ask even though I really do not want to know the answer.

What is wrong with me?

“At a bar, of all places,” says Taylor, giving me a look in the rearview mirror that tells me she doesn’t spend a lot of time picking up guys over a few beers. The idea of Sam just being out in the world, out in bars, looking for women to meet, is so horrifying that I need a moment to collect myself. “It was, what, two and a half years ago, Sam?”

Two years. Two years is serious.

“Mmm,” Sam offers by way of a reply.

“And what do you do, Taylor?” I ask, quickly changing the subject. Sam looks over his shoulder, sending me a funny look, which I take to mean, What are you up to? I choose to ignore it.

“I’m a lawyer. Prosecutor.”

“Are you kidding me?!” I squeak. I don’t know if it’s Sam or the alcohol that has so thoroughly removed my filter. “A lawyer and doctor? That should be illegal. You two are, like, taking all the rich, hot people away from the rest of us.”

Oh, I am so very, very drunk.

Sam erupts with a big, booming laugh. But Taylor, who clearly doesn’t appreciate my inebriated sense of humor, remains quiet, giving me a puzzled look in the mirror.

The drive is short, and we’re at the motel in under five minutes. I point out room 106, and Taylor pulls up in front of it. I thank her for the drive in a cheery (possibly demented-sounding) voice and, with zero grace, tumble out of the car and shuffle to the door, getting my key from my bag.

“Percy!” Sam calls from behind me, and I close my eyes briefly before I turn around, the full weight of my humiliation pressing down on my shoulders. I want to crawl into bed and never wake up. He’s rolled down the window and is leaning over his muscular forearm that’s resting on the edge. We look at each other for a second.

“What?” I say, my voice flat. I’m done pretending to be perky Percy.

“I’ll see you soon, okay?”

“Sure,” I reply and turn back to the door. Once I’ve got it unlocked, the headlights move, but I don’t look back to see the car pull away. Instead, I run to the bathroom and throw my head into the toilet bowl.

I LIE IN bed blinking up at the ceiling. I know it must be well into the morning because the sun is already high. I haven’t turned my head to look at the clock because I don’t want to wake the beast of a headache that lurks in my temples. My mouth tastes like I spent the night licking the floor of a roadhouse pub. Yet I smile to myself.

I found Sam.

And I felt it. The pull between us. The one that had been there since we were thirteen, the one that only got stronger as we got older, the one I tried to deny twelve years ago.

I didn’t break it. I broke us. I can fix it.

And then she emerges through the fog of my hangover in a white pantsuit: Taylor. Blech. I replace a small petty pleasure in her name. Taylor is one of those used-to-be-trendy names that now sound dated and pedestrian. My mother would replace it vile.

We met, what, two and a half years ago, Sam?

I scrunch my nose at the memory of Taylor’s forced casualness. I would be shocked if she didn’t know how long they’ve been together down to the second.

Sam has a girlfriend. A beautiful, successful, presumably intelligent girlfriend. Someone whom I’d probably like under different circumstances.

I need a distraction.

I chance tilting my head toward the clock and am relieved that the pounding doesn’t get worse. I spot two purple chocolate bar wrappers on the bed beside me and remember taking them from the mini bar after I puked. It’s ten twenty-three. I groan. I should get up. I booked today off, so I don’t need to work, but I need to shower. Even I can smell me. Taylor probably wakes up in a pressed pantsuit. She probably keeps a bar of 75 percent fair-trade dark chocolate in her kitchen drawer and eats a single square on special occasions. As much as I can mix with pretentious interior designers and architects, or recommend a trendy new restaurant that actually has good food and service, or spend the evening in heels without showing pain on my face, I’ll always be messy underneath.

Usually I do a good job of keeping that side of myself under wraps. But now and then it’ll come out, like the time I called Sebastian’s progressive-seeming bearded best friend “the worst kind of misogynist” over dinner after he’d repeatedly looked down our server’s shirt and asked me whether I’d go to part-time or quit work entirely after I had children. Sebastian looked at me slack-jawed, having never seen me snap like that, and I apologized for my outburst, blaming it on the wine.

Still in yesterday’s sundress, I ease out of bed and inch toward the bathroom. I’m stiff, but I’m not nauseated. I loosen my belt and pull the dress over my head, take off my underwear, and then step under the hot spray. As the soap and water lift the smog from my brain, I make a plan to head over to the public beach after breakfast. Sam and I never swam at the beach when we were young. Once or twice we bummed around the nearby park with his friends, but the beach was reserved for town kids who didn’t live on the lake. I know there’s no dock and no raft, but I am desperate for a swim.

After my shower, I towel dry my hair until it’s damp and run a comb through it. I chance a look at my phone.

There’s another text from Chantal: CALL ME.

Instead, I write her back: Hey! Can’t talk right now. No need to come here. I’m OK. Ran into Sam yesterday.

I can picture her rolling her eyes at my response. I know I’m probably not sneaking anything by her, and I feel guilty for not calling, but being here and seeing Sam yesterday feels so surreal, I can’t imagine having to put it in words.

I press send and then put on my bathing suit, a bright red two-piece that I have rare occasion to use, and a pair of denim shorts. I’m about to throw on a shirt before heading to the motel restaurant, when there’s a knock at the door. I freeze. It’s too early for housekeeping.

“It’s me, Percy,” says a deep, scratchy voice from outside.

I unlock the door. Sam is looming in the doorway with damp hair and a fresh shave. He’s wearing a pair of jeans and a white T-shirt, a coffee cup and a paper bag in one hand. It’s every straight hungover woman’s fantasy standing at the entrance of my room. He holds them out and then looks me over, slowing down over the one-shouldered bathing suit top I’m wearing. His blue eyes are somehow brighter today.

“Want to come to the lake?”

“WHAT ARE YOU doing here?” I ask, grabbing the coffee and the bag. “Never mind, I don’t care why. You’re my hero.”

Sam laughs. “I told you I’d see you soon. I figured you’d forgive me for overserving you if I came bearing food, and I know you don’t like sweets at breakfast. Or at least you didn’t used to.”

“Nope, still don’t,” I confirm, sticking my nose in the bag. “Cheese and ham croissant?”

“Brie and prosciutto—from the new café in town,” he replies. “And a latte. Barry’s Bay is fancy now.”

“I noticed a more refined air yesterday.” I grin, taking a sip. “Taylor won’t mind if I come to the house? She might feel uncomfortable since we hung out all the time when we were kids.” And this is the problem with seeing Sam before I’ve had time to figure out how to talk to him or at least before I’ve had coffee. Words come into my head and then out of my mouth with no lag time between—it was that way when we were teenagers, and clearly that hasn’t changed, no matter how much I’ve grown, no matter what kind of successful woman I’ve become. I sound petty and childish and jealous.

Sam rubs the back of his neck and looks over his shoulder, thinking. In the two seconds it takes for him to shift his gaze back to me, I’ve melted into a sticky pool of embarrassment and reassembled myself into what I hope is a normal-seeming human.

“The thing about Taylor and me—” I cut him off with a frantic shake of my head before he finishes the sentence. I don’t want to know about the thing with him and Taylor.

“You don’t need to explain,” I say.

He stares at me blankly, blinking just once before pressing his lips together and nodding his head—an agreement to move on. “At any rate, something urgent came up with a case she’s been working on. She had to go back to Kingston this morning.”

“But the funeral is tomorrow.” The words come out in a burst, thickly coated with judgment. Sam, rightfully, looks taken aback by my tone.

“Knowing Taylor, she’ll replace a way to come back.” It’s an odd response, but I let it slide.

“Shall we?” he asks, pointing his thumb over his shoulder at a red pickup truck I hadn’t noticed until now. I look at him in shock. There’s nothing about Sam that says red pickup truck, except for being born and raised in rural Ontario.

“I know,” he says. “It’s Mom’s, and I started driving it when I moved up here. It’s a lot more practical than my car.”

“Living in Barry’s Bay. Driving a truck. You’ve changed, Sam Florek,” I say solemnly.

“You’d be surprised by how little I’ve changed, Persephone Fraser,” he replies with a lopsided grin that sends heat where it should not.

I turn around, discombobulated, and throw my towel and a change of clothes in a beach bag. Sam takes it from me and tosses it into the back of the truck before helping me climb in. Once the doors are closed, the rich smell of coffee mixes with the clean scent of Sam’s soap.

As he starts the engine, my mind begins racing. I need a strategy, ASAP. I told Sam last night I’d give him an explanation for what happened all those years ago, but that was before I met Taylor. He’s moved on. He has a long-term relationship. I owe him an apology, but I don’t have to unload my past mistakes on him to do it. Do I?

“You’re quiet,” Sam says as we head out of town toward the lake.

“I guess I’m nervous,” I say honestly. “I haven’t been back since we sold.”

“That Thanksgiving?” He glances at me, and I nod.

Silence falls over us. I used to twist my bracelet when I was anxious. Now I bob my knee up and down.

When we turn onto Bare Rock Lane, I roll down the window and take a deep inhale.

“God, I missed this smell,” I whisper. Sam puts his large hand around my knee, stopping its jitterbugging, and gives it a gentle squeeze before moving his hand back to the wheel and pulling into his driveway.