Page 33 of Cool for the Summer

“Done.” Donovan glances at me. “You in?”

I shake my head. “I don’t know. I should stay with Cleo.”

“I think she’ll be fine for a few hours on her own. She’s not a baby,” Donovan says, surprisingly persistent.

“You mentioned music. Is there dancing?” I ask Kingston.

“Yeah, there’s a dance floor. Sometimes they have live music, but they get good DJs the rest of the time.”

Watching Donovan hit on strangers doesn’t exactly sound like a good time, but it might be fun to get out of the house, and I do like dancing. “I’ll think about it,” I say finally, and Donovan seems satisfied with that.

Sergio and Kingston leave pretty soon after. We’ve graduated from handshakes to hugs, and Kingston compliments my poker game, which makes me feel pretty good.

“Shoulda suspected a Texas boy would know his way around a deck of cards,” he says, clapping me on the shoulder.

“I’m always up for a game. We need more players, though.”

“True. I’ll see what I can do. Now, can I ask a huge favor?”

“What’s that?”

“Can I get a doggie bag with some of those outrageous chocolate cookies?”

“Oh!” I run to the kitchen and shove half the batch into a paper bag and run back. “Here you go.”

He peeks in the bag, and his brown eyes widen. “This is too many, but I’m not giving them back. Thanks, Beck.”

“Thanks for coming over, guys,” Donovan says. I wish I could stop noticing how handsome he looks, all rumpled and smiling easy and relaxed after however many beers he drank.

After he closes the front door, I set the alarm. He gives Cleo fresh water and takes her out one last time while I put the empties in the recycle bin and make sure the lid on the cookie jar is sealed tight. We have a routine by now, and we move easily around each other as if we’ve done this a thousand times before, even though it’s only been six.

Finally, I switch off the light in the kitchen and bend over to give Cleo a goodnight kiss on her soft nose.

Donovan’s hovering by the kitchen door when I stand back up, half illuminated by the light from the hall.

“Fun party,” he says, hands shoved in the pockets of his jeans. “Thanks for baking, and, well, being generally awesome.”

“You’re welcome,” I say, taken aback at the praise. “It was fun to have people over.”

“You’re good at it,” he says. “A good host, I mean.”

“Thanks.”

We just stand there for a second and I wonder if there’s something else he wants.

“I was thinking about what you said before—about not having a direction, about being ready to make a decision.”

He was thinking about our conversation in the kitchen? About me? The idea warms my belly.

“And I was remembering when I decided I wanted to be an actor—it didn’t just happen overnight. I had to take classes, audition for shows, apply to school. It’s tempting to think we can just make snap decisions and change our lives, but I think getting what you really want takes time. I don’t know. Maybe that’s not what you’d like to hear. But I guess what I’m saying is there are things you can do now—small things, maybe—and in a few months, in a year, five years, you’ll be somewhere completely different. But you’ll be building what you really want.”

I arch an eyebrow. “So you’re saying it’s the journey?”

He laughs a little at my sarcasm. “Jerk. But yes. It’s the process. It’s taking a small step and then taking another small step after that. You don’t have to be stuck, not if you have an idea of what you really want. There’s got to be some steps you can take right here and now.”

I think about that storefront, about the blue house with the peeling paint. I think about Rosedale and my cousin, and I think about how of all the things I want out of life. Kissing the beautiful man who’s saying such lovely, encouraging things to me has suddenly risen alarmingly close to the top of the list.

“Thanks, Donovan. That’s good advice.”

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