Page 69 of The Summer List

“I know not being ready for sex at eighteen is kind of weird, and I mean, who knows? Maybe I’ll feel different soon, but the truth is…well, the truth is that before yesterday, I hadn’t even kissed anybody since the sixth grade, and that only happened because of a game of truth or dare. I don’t know how this whole summer fling thing works, or what you want, or what you expect. I’m not very good at knowing what people expect in general, and I just…I wanted to tell you I’m not ready yet. Just so you know.”

She takes a big gulp of air and then sits perfectly still with her eyes still scrunched shut.

The last thing I want to do is laugh, but she just looks so freaking cute I have to let a couple seconds tick by in silence while I fight the chuckle trying to climb up my throat.

“Naomi,” I say once I’ve got myself under control, “thank you for telling me. That means a lot. I really don’t have any expectations at all when it comes to sex. I guess you don’t know this, but I’ve never had sex with a girl. I’m not sure if I’m ready for that either.”

She opens one eye just enough to peek at me. “You…oh.”

Now I do let myself laugh. “Yeah. Oh.”

She opens both her eyes and tucks her hair behind her ears.

“And just so you know,” I tell her, “I don’t think there’s any official rule about needing to have sex with someone for them to be your summer fling, so we’re still meeting the bucket list requirements.”

An expression I can’t read flits across her face for a second before it disappears.

“Right,” she says. “The list.”

The list.

The whole reason we’re doing this. The whole reason I even bothered to stay more than a few days at this house.

At least, that’s what I’ve been telling myself.

“Come here.”

I crook my finger to beckon her closer. I need the distraction. I need the excuse to shut my thoughts off and forget everything except how good it feels to wrap my arms around her and press my lips to hers.

I’ve watched the video of me and Naomi dancing in the ByWard Market so many times over the past week I’ve probably sat through the equivalent of an entire movie’s worth of footage. That doesn’t stop me from pressing play again as I sit out on the deck with my guitar resting by my side while I give my fingers a break.

On the screen, I watch as Naomi places her hand in mine. I pull her to me fast enough to make the skirt of her dress flare before we spend a couple awkward seconds figuring out what to do with our arms.

A bird nestled in the bushes across the backyard tweets loud enough to make me lift my head and realize I’ve been smiling at my phone like an idiot. A couple more birds start trilling high-pitched notes to signal the start of the sunset.

The mosquitoes will be descending any second now, but I can probably get a little more practice in before I’m forced back inside.

Naomi is at her parents’ place for dinner, and I’ve been out on the deck since she left a couple hours ago. Something about being alone in the giant house was making my skin crawl. I hadn’t realized how much I’d stopped noticing all the photos of Sandy’s sons on the walls.

With Naomi and her friends filling the rooms and hallways, I felt like I could get swept up in the house sitting fantasy too. Using some huge estate as a summer playground with nobody to keep tabs on us and nothing but some hairless cats to worry about has some serious escapist appeal.

Only it’s not a random rich couple’s house. It’s my father’s house, and everything in it is a reminder of the life he’s built without me and my mom. Everything is a reminder of the code I just can’t crack, the one that keeps him behind glass and out of reach, always distant, always leaving me with a ‘just ask your mother instead’ no matter how hard I try to get a different answer.

The thought of my mom has me swiping through my phone to get to our text conversation before I can stop myself. As usual, she’s been trying to get me to phone her for days, but I don’t know what new information she could so desperately need to give me after the last time I worked up the nerve to call her back.

That was just before we went on the road trip to the water park. I got the usual speech about how ‘baffled’ and ‘exasperated’ she is by my life choices, as well as a reminder that my ‘real life’ is waiting for me in Toronto.

I know the texts will just keep coming if I don’t do something, so I groan loud enough to make the birds go silent and then lift the phone to my ear. She picks up midway through the second ring.

“Andrea, it’s been days,” she says, skipping right past the part where a normal person would say hello. “I cannot keep chasing after you like this. You are going to be part of a professional team soon. People are going to depend on you, and you need to learn how to handle that. It might be my company, but not everyone there will be as forgiving as me.”

If I’d been in the middle of drinking something, that comment would have had me doing a full-on spit take.

“Forgiving. Right.”

“You can drop the sarcasm right now,” she shoots back. “Now, onto the reason I’ve been trying to get you on the phone all week. I want to make sure this gets through to you loud and clear. I have a meeting in Ottawa next Friday, and I’ll be picking you up from your father’s house that Saturday so we can fly back to Toronto together. I’ve already bought you a ticket.”

My spine stiffens like someone has crept up behind me and poured a bucket of ice water down the back of my shirt.

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