Page 60 of Power Play

This felt the way summer vacations were supposed to feel. Chill and happy. Like there was time enough to do anything, and if getting ice cream was all we did, then it was a good day.

I pulled into the far side of the square and parked in a diagonal in front of a shop that sold sand buckets, umbrellas and towels.

“What do we do first?” Kit asked.

“Bookstore,” Tess said at the same time I said, “Ice cream.”

“Bookstore and then ice cream,” Kit decided, and we jumped out of the truck. The sun was hot and the breeze was cool. I stretched my body, lifting my arms up over my head. Sea gulls squawked around and the air smelled like sunscreen and something fried coming from the food trucks around the park. We would be checking those out after the bookstore and before ice cream.

“This is awesome,” I said and Kit looked my way. She wore a pair of cut off shorts and a blue tank top, big glasses and sandals. There was nothing provocative about that outfit even a little bit, and yet, I was provoked. I wanted to slide my hand up theback of her strong thighs under the ragged frayed edge of those shorts. I thought about the kiss I’d made her promise me.

A bad idea? Probably. I was good at those. But the only way I could reconcile the woman from Nashville and the woman in front of me right now – might be a kiss.

“This feels like a real summer vacation,” I said.

“You must have had a lot of vacations like this growing up,” she said, and for some stupid reason that library story of hers came back to me and I found myself shaking my head.

“No, actually. I mean, we lived in the woods so summer vacation was already pretty epic. But we only did a vacation once. Fort Lauderdale when my brother and I were in high school.”

“Was it fun?”

“Total disaster,” I said with a smile that didn’t stick. “My mom wasn’t great at traveling and my dad wasn’t great when my mom wasn’t great. So my brother and I spent a lot of time eating out of vending machines and hanging out at the hotel pool.”

“Thank God for your brother, huh?” she asked. Those glasses of hers were so big I couldn’t read her expression. “You always had someone to hang out with.”

“Yeah. I didn’t know your mom died.”

“I was young,” she said with a shrug that wasn’t at all convincing.

“Hey!” Tess shouted, pulling open the door to the bookstore with her entire body weight. Her back foot in her rainbow sneakers was coming up off the ground. “You coming or what?”

“Coming!” Kit said and helped her open the door. The two of them disappeared into the bookstore and I stood there trying to remember the last time I was even in a bookstore.

Then I tried to remember the last time I’d felt like this. So easy. So…excited about something that wasn’t hockey or my brother or partying.

This is what Harrison’s life is like. With Denise and the kids.

It dawned on me that every time he left a party to go home, I thought he was sacrificing his fun. When he knew the whole time, this was more fun.

“Liam?” Kit asked, standing at the door. “You coming?”

“In a minute,” I said. “I am going to pick up some beach supplies.” I jerked my thumb at the beach shop and Kit nodded.

“Good idea. Get lots of sunscreen. Maybe a beach umbrella? And some good beach towels.”

I nodded and she went into the bookstore.

Yeah. All of this was weird. But a good weird.

Kit

Tess was a bookstore pro.She picked up every book she was interested in and read the back cover. Then she read the first page.

“How many can I get?” She asked, holding two books in her hand.

I’d already collected some nature books about the birds of Maine.

“Liam’s buying,” I said with a shrug. “All of them?”

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