Page 3 of A Summer Thing

Chapter Two

Declan

I wake in pure darkness, completely disoriented.

It’s pitch black, but the shower is running, the patter of water making its way down the hallway, and though it’s clearly not morning yet, I feel like I’ve slept for two days straight.

I sit up in the dark, my heart pounding.

The kind of pounding that pulsates through your entire body and echoes like a sound drum, telling you with every beat that you slept way too long.

What time is it?

I pick up my phone and glance down at the lit-up screen. It’s just after eleven p.m. That can’t be right , I shake my head. Or… it is right, and holy shit, but I did actually sleep an entire day away.

Why didn’t Addy wake me?

Because she’s an angel, sent from God to be way too fucking good to me, that’s why. And now I feel like a total asshole for sleeping straight through my first day with her.

Scooting to the edge of the bed, I wipe my hands over my face and attempt to rub the sleep from my eyes, but it feels like it’s settled into my bones somehow.

It’s late, but I’m not sure I could go back to bed at this point.

After… shit, nearly eighteen hours of sleep?

But the shower is running, which means Addy must still be up.

I climb out of bed and walk out into the hallway a few minutes after I hear the water shut off.

The bathroom door opens just as I’m stepping up to it, and I smack into a wall of tattooed muscle. Rows of toned abs and a low-slung towel folded above an impressive— “Ahem,” the wall of muscle clears its throat. I drag my eyes upward into a pair of stormy gray eyes.

My breath hitches. Gets stuck somewhere in my… somewhere, my mind trails off, getting lost in the storm. Looking into this guy’s eyes is like looking directly into the chaos of a hurricane. So much happening within them that I’m sure if he pulled me in, I’d drown completely.

Holy shit. I take a step back.

He doesn’t say anything, doesn’t move. He just stares at me, so I stare right back, because I just woke up like three minutes ago and my brain isn’t functioning at full capacity—and it’s late, and it’s dark, and holy fucking shit this guy is beautiful.

Sharp jawline, full lips, pierced nose. Tattoos that span across his entire torso—his toned stomach and his sculpted chest—and climb all the way up his neck, stopping right at that perfect, chiseled jawline.

I drag my eyes back down his body, wondering just how far past the towel they go. When my gaze reaches his legs, I see that they’re covered in black and gray, too. All the way down to his bare feet pressed against the wooden floor.

He clears his throat again. “You mind letting me by?” There’s the smallest trace of an accent in his words, but I can’t place where it’s from though it feels oddly familiar.

Who is this guy? And where the hell did he come from? And what did he say? Let him by? By what? I pull my gaze away from him and realize I’m standing in the middle of the doorway, blocking his exit. Duh. I feel my blush all the way down to my toes.

Stepping backward, out of the doorframe and back out into the hall, I stumble over my words. “Um—sorry.” I shake my head. “About that.”

He doesn’t make a move, doesn’t acknowledge what I’ve said, and now I’m not even sure the words came out of my mouth. He’s a towering statue of quiet and calm, but when his eyes meet mine again, he cracks just the hint of a smirk, and my insides feel like chaos.

Heart racing, stomach trembling.

Does he belong to Addy?

The thought puts a sour taste in my mouth.

My lips part as I take in a shallow breath, trying to make sense of my muddled thoughts. I don’t know if it’s from the lack of sleep, or from how much I’ve overslept, but I think I might be dreaming. This guy is too… everything to be real.

“Addy’s friend?” he asks, and I nod, my gaze locked onto his. He pauses for a long, heightened moment, and then he breathes out a grunt. “Night,” he says, and he stalks off without another word.

And… What?

______

When I wake the next morning, I register three things in short succession.

First, the familiar smell of Stacy’s famous brioche French toast wafting upstairs.

A wave of nostalgia crashes over me, sweeping me up in its hold—all the memories of sitting in the Masons’ kitchen eating the same meal flooding through me.

A feeling of home I get to live inside of for a few weeks every summer.

Second, I’ve been here for a day and a half now and I still haven’t seen Addy since the night I got here. I need to rectify that asap.

And third, the sound of grunts and hard body hits making their way through the cracked-open window in my guest room.

I come to a stand and throw my arms up above me in a stretch, yawning wide as I make my way over to the windowpane.

It doesn’t take much of a scan of her backyard to spot the two dozen or so football players running scrimmages in the field just past the horse stables.

I lower myself down onto the ledge of the windowsill and make myself comfortable, getting lost in the view. There’s something hypnotizing about it—the formation of athletes, the ruggedness and masculinity of it all—hard bodies, skill, and aggression.

Maybe the guy I crashed into last night and gawked at like he was my last meal on death row wasn’t a dream apparition after all, but an actual, live human wrapped up in gear and throwing himself around on that field down there.

Or… maybe it didn’t happen, and it was a dream.

Thirty-six hours without sleep, and then sleeping eighteen hours on top of that, can do that to a person.

Make them see things in the dead of night that aren’t there.

Even if those things are a walking, hardly talking, tattooed wet dream.

Logic says it’s the former.

I wonder which one of those guys down there is him.

I try to spot two full sleeves of tattoos out on the field, but I can’t really tell what’s what from up here.

Still, I could sit here all day watching.

A bunch of fit men in football gear, and the way that gear hugs certain areas to perfection? Yeah, I could watch this all-damn day.

“Caught you looking,” Addy says from behind me, and I jump about a mile high, making it impossible not to look guilty as hell. My cheeks are flaming even though I know she’s not judging me for it, proven when she sidles up to the window next to me and makes an appreciative sound of her own.

I snort out a laugh as I come to a stand, walk over to my suitcase sitting on the floor at the corner of the room, and zip it open, plucking some black jeans and a white tee and fresh pair of underwear from it.

“I’m going to go shower and change,” I say, spinning around to face Addy again as I reach the door.

“But I’m torn about something,” I tack on.

“What’s that?” she asks, turning away from the impressive view.

I hold both of my hands up, clothing slung over an elbow, and shift them up and down on opposite sides like an imaginary balancing scale. “Which comes first? Mom’s French toast, or an up close and personal look at whatever’s going on out there?”

Her head falls back in laughter.

“What are they even doing out there?” I ask out of curiosity. Every other summer certainly hadn’t held the same view.

She sighs, her shoulders falling as her features draw down toward her pout. “I hate to burst your bubble, but Daddy’s already warned his players off of us this summer.”

“No.” My eyes widen of their own accord.

“He wouldn’t do that,” I say, but I already know he totally would do something like that.

He takes the whole Protective Dad role seriously—a, “Don’t even look at my daughter the wrong way or you’ll be staring down the barrel of my shotgun,” kind of daddy.

Which warms my heart, honestly, but simultaneously makes me want to…

I don’t know.

It’s not like I have the mental or emotional capacity for Mr. Tall, Tanned, and Tattooed, anyway.

But a dream killed is a dream killed.

I match Addy’s pout as I exit the room, creep my way down the hallway, and slip into the bathroom. Tossing my clothes onto the counter, I reach over and twist the shower handle, water raining down and crashing against the tiled floor of the walk-in.

I undress and step under the warm spray, imagining I’m washing away some of the debris from my soul.

______

“Oh, sweet mother of Jesus,” I mumble through a mouthful of food.

Stacy’s French toast tastes even better than I remembered.

I swear, every time I have it it’s better than the last. The light, fluffy, heaven-in-my-mouth French toast, with the lemon curd drizzle she makes, is the best thing on earth.

“So, are you excited about college?” she asks. Her bright green eyes are wide and animated, showing she truly cares about my answer, and I can’t help the nagging reminder that my own parents never have. They don’t even know I got into NYU.

“Of course I am.” I nod. “I can’t wait to be this one’s roommate.” I tip my head toward Addy, my mouth already full with another bite.

Stacy shakes her head with a smile, pointing her spatula at us. “You girls better not get yourselves into too much trouble in the big city, you hear me?”

“Of course not,” Addy and I say at the same time, with far too much innocence, and the three of us burst out laughing in perfect synchrony. Stacy makes the sign of the cross as she turns back to the stove, and Addy can’t stop giggling, which makes me laugh all over again.

We won’t get into too much trouble.

“So, what are the plans for today?” I ask Addy after I’ve cleared most of my plate.

“I don’t know.” She twists her mouth to the side in thought with a small shrug. “I was thinking we could probably go get our nails done and then hit the mall and get lunch or something.”