Page 23 of The Summer You Found Me

I stiffen. Maybe Kate’s getting her way after all, which is in no one’s best interest—especially not Kate’s, despite what she thinks.

“I thought you guys were skipping through meadows and riding unicorns into the sunset,” says Liam. “Is her ex causing problems again?”

Caleb lets his head fall back against the chair and closes his eyes. “He’s always causing problems, but no, she’s just having some issues with Kate being here.”

My hand grips the edge of my seat. “When did she seeKate?”

“Only that first day on the dock. But there’s just been some other stuff. Kate came to the office to get the separation papers and accidentally got lipstick on my shirt collar when she hugged me goodbye. With everything Lucie’s been through...it unsettled her.”

Caleb’s the only guy here who’d believe Kate did itaccidentally. Liam glances at me.Trouble, that look says. And now that we’ve established Kate’s causing trouble, how am I going to tell CalebI’mthe reason she’s able to cause it?

“She should trust you at this point, though,” argues Harrison. “I mean, you blew off the merger for her.”

“She trusts me. But, you know, she’sseenKate,” he adds. We all understand what he means. Kate isn’t just pretty. When she enters a room, shaking all that long red hair, looking around with those dangerous feline eyes, women watch like she’s a tiger on the loose while the men they’re sitting with just wonder how she can be trapped.

“Why’s she back, anyway?” asks Liam. “I thought she hated it here.”

Caleb frowns. “I’m not sure.” It sounds to me like heissure, he just doesn’t want to admit it to himself or us.

Harrison scrubs a hand over his face. “Did you ask where she’s staying?”

Liam’s eyes shift toward me again. If he keeps this up, the whole fucking bar is going know where Kate’s staying.

“I don’t want to know,” Caleb says. “If I find out she’s with those junkies again, I’m going to get involved, and I just can’t. For Lucie’s sake, I’ve got to make a clean break.”

It’s my chance to step in and tell the truth. Instead, I go refill our pitcher.

Suzanne’s by the bar with her friends, watching me out of the corner of her eye.

“You want to come to my place and hang out once your friends leave?” she asks.

I’d planned to get home early enough to see Kate, but I’m too fucking pissed off to even consider it now.

“Sure,” I tell her.Fuck Kate. Fuck the whole thing. None of it’s my problem.

I want my old, uncomplicated life back already. I want Kate out of my head.

12

KATE

Iget home from yoga on Tuesday night and stumble into the shower. My arms hurt so much that it’s hard to shampoo my hair.

Beck said he’d be home early, but even after I’ve eaten dinner and watched two stupid shows in a row, he’s still not back.

I force myself to go online and look at my dwindling checking account. My lifestyle, at present, is funded by a magical grant I received during rehab, one I hadn’t even applied for, intended to help “addicts who’ve suffered a loss.” A grant whose paperwork was filed byCaleb’sattorney.

It was unbelievably kind of him, but it won’t last forever, especially given the money I’m spending on yoga with Kayleigh and ad campaigns targeting Lucie. So what’s going to happen if no one will hire me? I guess I could start over in a new field. I could get a PhD in economics, simply so the years I lost won’t be so glaring on my resume.

But I’mgoodin my field. Really good. I don’t want another degree, and I don’t want to do something else, and how many people can say that about their chosen profession? How many people would choose to stay in their field over any other?

I glance at the clock again. It’s after ten, which isn’t early at all. Maybe Beck got held up, but he could have fucking texted.

I pull up my mother’s college yearbook online while I wait. It’s been a long time since I’ve done this, but Beck’s questions about my father the other night have been floating around in my head ever since, irritating me like a bruise I can’t stop poking at.

She was in two different clubs—Students Against Apartheid and the Berkeley Drama Club. Though we aren’t all that similar physically, even at the age of eighteen she alreadyexudessex, something I’ve heard said of myself far too many times. And, of course, she liked drugs. We’ve got that in common too. She doesn’t look like an addict, though, so what the hell happened between her arrival at Berkeley and her departure at the end of that year that could have changed everything? Maybe it was me.

Beside her in each of the photos is the same girl. I expand the page large enough to get her name: Sarah Dow. Sarah Dow was good enough friends with my mother to join two clubs with her. Maybe that means she was good enough friends to know who my mother slept with that year too.

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