Page 8 of The Summer House
Three
“There’ssome extra wood paneling stacked in the closet of one of the upstairs bedrooms,” Olivia said, clapping the dust off her hands as Callie came in through the front door with the boxes of burgers and the T-shirt draped over her arm.
Callie lumped the T-shirt on the side table and went into the kitchen to put the food in the cooler they were using until the new refrigerator was delivered.
“Would you help me pull it all out tomorrow so we can take it to the dump?”
“Yes,” Callie said, her mind still on Luke. She walked back into the family room where Olivia was wiping down the etched glass globes from the new chandelier they were putting up in the dining area.
“You okay?” Olivia said, stopping to look at her. “What took you so long?”
“I went out to lunch,” she said. “I didn’t have time to get into it on my text to you—everything went so fast and there was a lady in the restroom rushing me…”
Excitement swelled in Olivia’s face and she set the globe down next to the T-shirt on the only small table in the room. The rest of the furniture hadn’t been delivered. “I know that look. You’re all rosy-cheeked and flustered,” she said. She cocked her head to the side and studied her friend.
“I went to lunchwithsomeone. You’ll never guess with whom,” Callie said, the sound of it still surreal as she rolled the name over in her mind. She and Olivia had shared many conversations like this over the years as they’d grown up, but never had she had an answer like this one.
“Who?”
“Luke Sullivan.” She said the name slowly for emphasis.
Olivia’s mouth dropped open and she covered it with her white paint-splattered hands, the dust rag still entwined in her fingers, before running across the room and snagging a newspaper that they’d been using to protect the hardwoods from falling paint. “This guy?” She pointed to a photo of him, wearing swim trunks and no shirt, standing next to a bikini-clad model of a girl, aboard an enormous luxury boat.
Callie nodded. “He got me this.” She grabbed the T-shirt and held it out to Olivia. They traded the paper and the shirt, Callie studying the photo of Luke and trying not to stare at his perfectly shaped chest as Olivia frowned, attempting to make sense of what was in her hands.
The subtitle of the article read:
Luke Sullivan to take over Sullivan Enterprises. What could this mean for the Outer Banks’s largest real estate company?
With the shirt still in her hands, Olivia pulled the two beach chairs they’d been using for makeshift seating over, setting them up in the center of the nearly empty room—their usual spot for meals. Once the shock had left Olivia’s face, she set the shirt in her lap and pulled her hair out of the rubber band, shaking it free, her long, red ringlets falling across her thin shoulders. “How did you manage to go on a date with Luke Sullivan when you were just running out to get sandwiches?”
Callie was struggling to answer her friend; she was too busy scanning the article.
Luke Sullivan, local playboy slated to take over… Father and founder of Sullivan empire Edward Sullivan having second thoughts about retirement…speculation regarding the motivations of his son Luke. Does he have the drive to take on a company of this magnitude?
Playboy?she thought, confused. What had all that family talk been about then? Had he been just saying things to make conversation? Or had he been saying what he thought she might want to hear?
“Hello-o?” Olivia smacked her leg playfully from her perch on the floor.
“Sorry.” Callie folded the paper and set it on the floor, dropping down into the chair next to Olivia. She only noticed then that Olivia had picked up a few magazines from the stack of mail they’d been gathering on the side table and set them in her lap. They stayed closed as Callie started to tell her the story. The more detail she gave, however, the more unreal it all sounded, and, after seeing the article, she wondered about Luke’s motivations. “He wants to take me out again tomorrow at seven.” She looked back over at the paper, staring at the woman in the bikini until the picture blurred in front of her.
Wyatt came in and sat down beside them, having heard some of the story. “Are you nervous?” he asked.
Callie smiled.
“I’m nervous about starting third grade here. I don’t know anybody,” he admitted, picking at the edge of his flip-flop. “I’d be glad if I met someone.”
His candor warmed Callie’s heart. She wanted to tell him that Luke wasn’t someone she thought could be her new friend. She let her eyes fall onto the photo of him in the paper again, suddenly wondering why she was even wasting her time having dinner with someone when she should be spending that hour or two on The Beachcomber. But she’d committed.
“I know you haven’t had a chance to meet any kids yet, but there’s a whole class of them waiting. You only have a few weeks left!” She raised her eyebrows and stretched her face into an excited smile for his benefit. Truthfully, she and Olivia both wished he’d had other kids around during the summer, but he’d been a great sport through all this, and she assured Olivia that, in time, he’d find his place.
Olivia had tried very hard to entertain him. She’d had kitchen dance parties, she’d made an entire ice cream bar with twenty different toppings, and she’d even had a tie-dye day, where they dyed shirts. When she’d come downstairs the day after that, she’d dyed her hair blue to match her shirt. It washed out, but the whole time, Wyatt had thought she’d used the clothing dye. She didn’t tell him until the very end. He came in with blue stripes in his hair later that morning.
“Have you had a chance to try out your new fishing gear today?” Callie asked. Wyatt had been trying to catch fish since they’d gotten there, but sea fishing was quite different to the freshwater fishing he did back home, and he hadn’t caught anything yet.
“No, but I want to! Maybe I’ll get lucky and catch something! The guy at the shop says fishing and waiting are basically the same thing, but you never know!” he said with pride. Olivia had spent more money than she’d admitted to Callie on fishing gear for Wyatt. She’d gotten him a surf rod with a saltwater spinning reel, circle hooks, a sand spike, and a lesson in surf fishing at the local bait and tackle shop.
“Maybe you could set it up and show me and your mom what you learned in your lesson.” She looked over at Olivia and, in that unspoken language they’d used since they were kids, she told her that the house could wait just a little while. Olivia smiled and took in a heavy breath.
