Page 17 of The Summer You Were Mine
“You should,” she said, still looking at him.
“Wait a minute.” He leaned toward her and seemed to be searching her face for evidence. “You believe me, right? You don’t think that I would intentionally take something that was banned and then go lie about it?”
“Let’s pretend I don’t know anything about you, Cris.
I only know that you need to rebuild trust with people.
” It sounded bizarre. There was a time when she would trust him above anyone else in the world.
The summer they were eleven, they’d read an article in the Levante News that said a Spanish galleon had been found underwater a short distance from the coast of Chiavari.
They became obsessed with the idea of finding treasure and began trying to dive down as far as their lungs and plastic snorkel masks could take them.
When Ellie had gotten water in her mask and panicked during one of the dives, she didn’t want to go down anymore, treasure or no treasure.
“What if we hold hands the whole time? Will you come then?” he’d asked.
Before she had a chance to say no, he added, “I won’t let anything bad happen to you.
” She was still scared after that, but they’d devised a system of communication: two hand squeezes meant I’m okay, let’s keep going , and one tight squeeze meant Get me out of here now , so he’d tug her right back up to the safety of the surface. It never failed.
But she had also trusted him once to take the leap with her from friend to something more and was left to fall alone.
That was why it was so much easier to put him out of her mind entirely: she could convince herself that she didn’t know this new version of him that couldn’t be trusted.
His mistakes became the rule, not the exception, allowing her to draw upon purposefully biased evidence to convince her that he would only bring trouble into her life.
But it wasn’t really who he was. She knew it. She just didn’t want to admit it.
“Fair,” he said, stepping back. “And you’re sure this won’t mean you’re sticking your neck out there?”
“I’ll risk it.”
“For me?” He waggled an eyebrow at her. She allowed it.
“No, Cris. For me. Believe it or not I have a few demons of my own to slay,” she said, examining one of the partially submerged shells under her foot she had been intent on unearthing during this conversation.
“Got it. Not that I believe you on the demon thing, but it’s good that you have your own reasons for doing this.
The last thing I’d want you to do is have to focus on me too much.
” Cris pulled off his T-shirt. Gone was the fat-free version of elite athlete body composition.
This version was definitely 2 percent. Cris had filled out in all the right places since retiring, all right.
His chest, shoulders, and arms were thicker, wider, and commanded even more space.
His midsection looked like he could take a roundhouse to the solar plexus, get up, and curl his fingers at the kicker, beckoning for more.
A fine dusting of dark hair covered his chest, collected in a patch, and dipped down into his board shorts.
In the split second when the fabric of the T-shirt was up over his face, she screamed internally.
Thank goodness he had a very serious, very successful, very cover model-y girlfriend or she’d really be in trouble.
Where was she, anyway? It was slightly odd that he hadn’t mentioned her yet.
Maybe when a couple had been together for so long they were comfortable enough to not need to talk about each other.
Or maybe he figured mentioning her would bother Ellie?
That concern would be a waste of neurons , she thought, dragging her blurry gaze away from him.
There was no way she could be jealous. He was so not a possibility, he may as well have been another species.
“You coming in?” he asked, backing away to grab one of the foam noodles that was hooked up under the umbrella.
“Nah,” she said, composing herself and looking around for a solid excuse to avoid being around him until her vision cleared.
“My parents might need me.” Ellie gestured back at the beach chairs, where Gio was already asleep with his mouth open, a wet bandanna draped over his bald head, and Peggy sat frowning at a novel, having glazed herself with so much zinc oxide it looked like she was ready for a kiln.
“Yeah. Okay,” he said. “Suit yourself.” He smiled, looking just like the twelve-year-old boy that would have replied in exactly the same way when she tried an equally lousy excuse for why she didn’t want to do something.
“What are you using a noodle for?”
“Less work,” he said, backing into the water with a grin. He reached down and tucked the noodle under his butt, then leaned back and started flicking his arms through the water to head deeper into the sea.
“We’ll make a meeting schedule! Okay? I need to know the details, Cris. I want to do this right.”
“What?” Cris called back, cupping his hand to his ear against the shouts of three kids floating by in a giant blow-up flamingo.
“Meetings!” Ellie yelled back. Cris nodded his head, now deep into the water and in the middle of the noise. He turned to her, dunked his head down under the surface, and raised two hands up straight over his head moving his thumbs in the universal sign for text me .
Ellie stood on the shore watching as Cris maneuvered himself over to the ladies.
They yelled their greetings, calling his name and clapping.
He grinned and chatted back, clearly basking in their adoration.
Even Lucrezia cracked a smile as he bobbed up next to her and joined in on their conversation.
She couldn’t hear who said whatever comment that made him laugh so hard he threw his head back, but she felt a little buzz watching him have fun with the grandmas.
It was definitely the heat.
She turned back toward the lounge chairs and eyed the freshwater outdoor shower that bathers used to rinse off the salt after getting out of the sea. That would do. Ellie walked over and pulled the metal chain, gasping a bit as the cold water smacked some sense back into her.