The Days of Summer. Jill Barnett

Or if it’s my lucky night maybe you’ll take me instead of someone else. I’m quite the catch by the way—my name’s Cale Banning.”

      “Cale?” she repeated dumbly, his flirting so unexpected. She sounded like an idiot, which was probably the real reason she had no dates.

      “Yeah.” He shoved his hands in his jeans pockets. “Like the vegetable, only with a C.”

      She laughed. “You’re not going to believe this.”

      “Why? Are you Cale, too?”

      “No.”

      “Cabbage?”

      “No.”

      “Eggplant?”

      She shook her head.

      “Broccoli.”

      “I’m Laurel …”

      “… like the tree,” they both said together.

      “Laurel Peyton,” she added.

      “Well, Laurel-Like-the-Tree Peyton.” He took her hand. “Is this my lucky night?”

      She melted right there. In a long, awkward silence, he studied her with sharp focus and made her wonder what he saw when he looked at her. Did she look empty and lost and clinging to his words?

      “Since you didn’t say no, come on.” He pulled her with him.

      “Where are you taking me?”

      “Over there.” He nodded somewhere but she couldn’t see because of the crowd.

      “Wait. Please.”

      He stopped. “Don’t ruin my night and say no now.”

      “I can’t see over this crowd. Where is ‘there’?”

      “You don’t trust me.” He was teasing her.

      “I don’t know you. And I don’t trust you.”

      “Smart girl.” He grinned and suddenly trust was no longer an issue. “Close your eyes, Laurel-Like-the-Tree Peyton, and just take ten more steps with me. We’re on the beach with a few hundred other people, so you’re safe. Just ten steps. Give me your hands.”

      “I can’t believe I’m doing this.” She held out her hands and closed her eyes. His fingers were callused, and with her hands in his she felt light inside, a balloon someone had to anchor to keep from floating away.

      He pulled her gently along. “You’re cheating, girl. Keep your eyes closed.”

      “I’m not cheating.”

      “Just making sure.” He took her hand again. “Okay, here we go. One, two, three …” He pulled her faster. “Four, six, eight, ten.”

      “Wait!” She dug in her heels, laughing. “Now who’s cheating?”

      “I’m counting, not cheating. Close your eyes.”

      She crossed her arms. “You call two, four, six, eight counting? Where did you say you went to school?”

      “I didn’t.”

      “Oh, that explains it. You didn’t go to school.” With every comeback, she laughed a little more, their banter the spun gold of a seminal moment, words she thought she would still remember in fifty years.

      “I’m a senior at Loyola.”

      “Is that how they teach you to count after almost four years at a university? You should ask for your tuition back.”

      “No, that’s how basketball players count. We count in goals—twos and threes.”

      “Basketball. You’re so tall. I should have guessed.”

      He laughed. “If you are tall, then you must be a basketball player? That’s discriminatory.”

      “Oh. I see now. Loyola? You’re headed for law school.”

      “No.”

      “Well, we both know you sure aren’t a math major.”

      “Let me count for you again. Two kidneys. Two lungs. Two hundred and six bones. I’m premed. We’re here. Now you can open your eyes.”

      His face was the first thing she saw. She felt something odd looking at him, the actual weight of air on her exposed skin, hypersensitive, hypersensual.

      He put his hands on her shoulders, turned her, but kept his hands there. “This is where I was taking you.”

      She had to lean back to look up at him. “Me and my two hundred and six bones?”

      “You and your two hundred and six bones.”

      Just inches apart, they stood near the edge of the pier, where couples danced to live music. She was acutely aware of his hands on her shoulders; it felt as if it were the most natural thing in the world for them to stand together that way. One minute she had been alone, and the next a stranger was quickly changing into something more. Odd, how in a mere heartbeat life could change. She closed her eyes and gently swayed to the music, then remembered this same wonderful feeling from the boat yesterday.

      “I’m seventeen,” she blurted out.

      He didn’t say anything.

      “I thought you should know. I’ll be eighteen soon.” She turned toward him then, and his hands fell away. In the absence of his touch, she felt exposed.

      His expression was unreadable. “But you’re seventeen now.”

      She nodded, waiting for him to say “Nice knowing you kid.”