Safe.
Comfortable.
Stifling.
I’m startled by the last word that comes to my mind. It must be the heat, because never in my life have I thought of my future in the family business as anything other than a welcome legacy.
“I’ve never thought about it that way. It’s all I’ve ever known. All I’ve ever wanted.”
She stops and turns to look at me, her head tilted in contemplation. “Do you think that’s true? Or is it because it’s all you’ve known?”
“I don’t know, Amelia.” I clear my throat. “I mean, I’ve loved going into the office with Dad since I was a kid, and all I’ve ever wanted was to help the business expand. I look forward to graduating and taking a seat at the table.”
She offers me a reassuring smile. “Then I think you have your answer. It wasn’t a trick question, Knox. You’re lucky, you know. Knowing what you want and having it right there in your grasp. Many people would envy you.”
“It helps being so tight with my family. Clay’s the same way as me. He and I have plans for the company. We always have. We want to take it to the next level. I’ve worked my ass off for this for my entire life, and I can’t wait to make my dad proud.”
Amelia gives me a playful bump with her shoulder. “Don’t you think he already is?”
“Yeah, I suppose so. What about your future? Your dreams? Where do you see yourself in ten years?” I ask, because with each passing day that I get to know her, I’m more interested, more invested in what she wants beyond this summer.
Would she stay in Tennessee for me? Would I even ask? Would she be content married to a workaholic? Would that even be fair to her?
All signs point to no, and the last one? It’s the one that stops me from going down that line of thinking. Because I know my future. I know my plans. I know my goals. And if I’m going to be as successful as I plan on being, there’s no room for a woman. Even if I may have already met the one woman who’d be worth sacrificing it all for.
I’m all in at my job. This summer, I’m all in on Amelia. I’m just not sure how to make the two coexist.
Her voice breaks through my thoughts. “I don’t know, Knox. I’m not like you. I didn’t grow up wanting to be a meteorologist like Dad. I didn’t even pick up photography until after my parents died. I still don’t know if I’ll be able to earn a living doing it. And I’m okay with that. I have some money stored away from their estate that I can live on while I roam the world. I just want to go everywhere my mom dreamed of but never had the chance. Spend a couple of years abroad, and after that, I’ll figure something out.”
I envision Amelia in exotic locations, her camera pressed against her face, her eyes focused on getting the perfect shot. I think of her alone, traveling the world, meeting all sorts of people—men—and something inside me twists into knots.
“Well, damn,” I mutter.
She takes a quick snap from the Polaroid camera she brought along on today’s hike. “I don’t know what expression I just captured,” she says, “but I think calling it ‘brooding male’ wouldn’t be far off the mark. What’s on your mind?”
“The two of us. We’re so damn compatible, but our futures couldn’t be more different. Mine’s static. Rigid. Like you said, already planned. Yours is fluid. Ever changing. Carefree.”
A smile creeps onto her face, but it doesn’t quite reach her eyes. She bends over to pick up a stick then draws a couple of perpendicular lines in the dirt, labeling one K and the other A. She traces a circle around the middle, where they meet. “This is us. Two intersecting lines that met when they’re supposed to and then never again. They continue on their paths that were set out for them. That’s why this works. We both know it, no surprises. And we’ll always have fond memories to look back on in the years ahead.”
She says it so matter-of-factly. But… What if that’s not what I want anymore? What if I allow Amelia in, with hopes of a future beyond this summer?
I thought I had it all planned out. I thought I knew what I wanted. I thought so many things, yet in one summer, Amelia’s shown me that I’m more than just a son. I’m more than just a businessman. Or I could be. I want to be.
But hell, she’s right. We want different things. We don’t fit into each other’s lives beyond what we have now.
And that fucking blows.
“But who knows, Knox?” she adds, bringing me out of my head. Cherry-red lips curve into a smile aimed in my direction. “Maybe I’ll become some hotshot photographer, you’ll take your dad’s business to the next level, and we’ll wind up at some swanky cocktail party in New York City or art gallery in Chicago where I might use my feminine wiles to entice you to buy some of my work.”
“Or we could make plans to meet at the top of the Empire State Building in ten years, New Year’s Eve, stroke of midnight.”
Amelia stops short, lowing her camera to look at me. “All this time and you haven’t let on that you’re a romantic at heart.”
I place my hand over my heart. “I’m my mother’s son. Which makes me a sucker for a good Cary Grant movie.”
Her laughter sounds like wind chimes making the most beautiful melody. “Ten years is an awfully long time. Plus, that goes against our code of not looking beyond this summer.”
That was before I knew her, I want to protest, but I don’t. Instead, I skip another rock across the small creek. “Then I guess we’ll just have to leave it up to chance. But I promise you, if we run into each other in the future, I’ll welcome all feminine wiles.”
She laughs, utterly unfazed. “It’s a nice thought. And who knows where either of us will be after graduation next spring. Well, we know where you’ll be, big shot. And hopefully I’ll be halfway around the world. But hey, we’ll always have Crystal Cove,” she says wistfully, hammering the final nail in the coffin with her Casablanca reference.
I fucking hate that movie. I hate it even more now that she’s likening our romance fling to it.
Except that’s the wrong word. Just like that movie, this was never supposed to be a romance. For the first time in my life, something isn’t going according to plan.
I don’t tell her I’m starting to rethink our plan. I don’t tell her that my heart’s becoming more involved than I ever thought possible. I don’t tell her that, with each passing day spent together, it grows increasingly harder to imagine saying goodbye to her at the end of the summer or how brutal I already know it’ll be to leave her bed for the last time.
I don’t tell her any of it.
Because Amelia made me promise not to make her fall in love with me.
How could I have known I’d be the one falling?
Guess I should’ve warned her, too.
BETWEEN OUR TRIPS OUT INTO nature and working on Knox’s place, the summer flies by far too quickly. Before I know it, it’s August. Each day that passes is one closer to Knox’s leaving my life forever. Each day that passes, I fall harder for the brute. Each day that passes, I add another brick to the wall around the heart, praying like hell the fortress will be complete before he can topple it to the ground.