Page 67 of The Summer List

She stares into space before she shakes her head and continues.

“I think maybe I swung too far the other way, because in the end, I was the one who got frustrated and bored. That’s what makes it so confusing. Like, there has to be something in the middle of all that, right? Something like…well, honestly, something like you and your friends have.”

I gawk at her. “Huh?”

She chuckles. “Yeah, you heard me. You, Shal, and Priya are the first people I’ve met who have all these goals and things you’re serious about, but you’re also fun and awesome and weird in the best way possible. You’re pretty amazing, you know that?”

She sounds so serious it makes me squirm on the bench.

“Oh. Thanks. Yeah, I mean, Shal and Priya are great. I…”

I trail off when she leans her head in closer to mine, all the words whooshing out of my head.

“They are,” she says, her eyes boring into mine, “but I specifically meant that you, Naomi, are amazing, and maybe this is a lot to say, but I’m really glad I met you.”

I can count every one of her freckles now. She presses my hand even harder against her thigh, and this time neither of us even blinks when what’s left of my ice cream cone slips out of my hand to splatter on the ground.

In fact, Andrea drops her cone too, or at least I think she must, because one second she’s staring at me, and the next she’s cupping my face with both her hands as her mouth hovers over mine.

“Can I kiss you?” she whispers.

All I can do is nod, and then my whole world explodes with the sweet taste of raspberries, chocolate, and her.

She tilts my head back, kissing me way harder than she did in the water slide, and my hand slides up from her leg to her waist. My fingers curl around the silky fabric of her romper. When my pinkie brushes a strip of her bare skin revealed by the side cutouts, she makes a soft sound in the back of her throat that reverberates through my whole body.

She pulls her head back to break the kiss but her hands stay cupping my jaw. We’re both panting. My heart is slamming against my ribs, and my skin feels like it’s on fire.

“Wow,” I breathe, not caring how dorky I sound.

“Wow,” she echoes.

I’m about to ask her to do it again when the strum of a guitar makes us both turn to look over at the center of the square, where a busker must have set himself up sometimes in the past few minutes.

He’s only a few meters away from us, which should probably have me feeling embarrassed about him potentially seeing us kiss, but I’m too exhilarated to do anything but squeeze Andrea’s hand and grin at the gathering crowd.

The busker looks like he’s in his thirties. He’s wearing jeans and a t-shirt with the name of a band I don’t recognize printed on the front. He spends a couple minutes tuning the guitar. A handful of people have gathered to wait for the show to start, and he gives them a wave once he’s ready.

“Hey there, folks. We’re gonna start things off with an oldie but a goodie. Anyone heard of Neutral Milk Hotel?”

There’s some shrugging and mumbling from the group in front of him. I glance at Andrea to see if she knows the band, but she shrugs too.

“Tough crowd, tough crowd,” the busker says with a laugh. “Well, allow me to introduce you. This is their song, ‘In the Aeroplane Over the Sea.’”

He strums the guitar, and Andrea’s grip on my hand tightens. After a few bars, he begins singing. He’s got a clear and earnest voice, the kind that makes you believe every word he says is pouring straight out of his heart even if someone else wrote the song.

Combined with the chords of the guitar, the lyrics paint a picture of hope mixed with melancholy, kind of like those last few moments before the sunset slips out of view, or the final days before summer shifts into fall.

I shiver against Andrea like a gust of September wind just blew through the square even though we’re not even halfway through August.

She lets go of my hand, and I see her eyes light up with the spark of an idea before she jumps off the bench and tells me to stay where I am. I watch as she scoops up the remains of our ice cream cones and then jogs over to dump them in the nearest garbage bin. When she gets back, she stands in front of me and pulls her phone out of her purse before grabbing my arm and hauling me up to my feet.

“Are we taking a selfie?” I ask as she bends over to set the phone on the bench with the camera facing us.

She straightens up and shakes her head. “No, we’re knocking another item off the bucket list.”

She holds one of her hands out towards me.

“Naomi Waters,” she says, already swaying to the rhythm of the song, “I challenge you to dance with me.”

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