“Wonderful.” Mrs. Whitman’s smile broadened. She looked over her shoulder. “Theo. Ty. Come help.”
Olivia looked up at the Whitmans’ kids, who’d been watching their arrival from the front deck slouched over the rail, chins propped on forearms. Both wore swim trunks, their torsos tanned from the high-altitude sunlight.
“Mom,” Theo complained, hiding his face.
Mrs. Whitman rolled her eyes. “He can’t stand it when I use his first name.” She grinned at Olivia.
Olivia smiled shyly. She knew Theo from school. He sat two rows over from her in Mrs. Foster’s class. She also knew he hated his first name and insisted everyone call him Blaze. What she didn’t know was why. Where did he come up with that nickname?
She liked Blaze. He’d always been nice to her.
“Ty, get Lily’s bag,” Mr. Whitman instructed. He’d already picked up Olivia’s and Lucas’s duffels, dusting them off. Tyler, tall for a five-year-old, dragged Lily’s My Little Pony roller up the deck steps. The little suitcase bumped along behind him. Lucas followed them inside, eager to eat and change into his swim shorts.
Mrs. Whitman held out her hand for Lily’s. “Do you like ice cream?”
Lily’s thumb popped from her mouth. “I love ice cream.”
“Will you show me your favorite flavor?”
Lily nodded and took Mrs. Whitman’s hand, leaving Olivia alone with Blaze. She wiped her palm, damp from Lily’s hand, on her light-blue jersey shorts.
“Hi,” Blaze said, his hair mussed and feet dirty.
“Hi,” she said quietly. She twisted her shirt hem.
He squeezed the back of his neck and nudged gravel with his toe. “Ty and I built a fort in the loft. Want to see?”
Olivia nodded.
She followed him into the cabin with brown shag carpeting and faux wood paneling, and up a wide set of stairs to the loft. What Olivia saw could only be described as magical. Multicolored sheets were draped over ropes that crisscrossed the A-shape room that opened to the house below, creating five small tents. Each tent slept one person. Sleeping bags and pillows had already been laid out so that the head of each tent faced the center of the room. If she’d looked down at the tents from the ceiling, they’d form a five-pointed star. Crescent moon twinkle lights framed the openings of the boys’ tents and stars glittered on hers and Lily’s. She knew whose tent was whose because someone had taped hand-drawn name cards to each tent.
“You did this?” she asked, dazzled.
Blaze’s cheeks pinkened. “Ty helped.”
She delicately touched her card. The letters, L-I-V-Y, had curlicues on the ends. Flowers bordered her nickname.
“I made yours,” he said. “Ty did Lily’s and Lucas’s.”
Her gaze lifted to the card on the tent beside hers. Blaze’s name was written in bold, block letters, the handwriting impatient, not nearly as crisp and lovely as hers.
She looked at their pillows, practically touching in the center. Hers was plain white. His was Mario Bros. She bit her lower lip, her stomach twitching. It felt like hummingbirds flying about, their delicate wings fluttering inside her. She had imagined it would be just her, Lucas, and Lily up there. But this was better, their tent star. Thinking about Blaze sleeping beside her, his head close to hers, made her nervous and shy. But she’d rather be near him than Lucas. Her brother tooted in his sleep. He’d pull her hair and plug her nose just to annoy her. But with Blaze, they could whisper about their favorite movies and books, giggle late into the night about the funny faces their teacher made when she wrote on the whiteboard.
“Kids, come eat,” Mrs. Whitman called from the bottom of the stairs.
Olivia smiled. “I like this,” she admitted, gliding her fingers across her name card. Mrs. Whitman was right. This would be the best summer ever.
CHAPTER 2
Present Day
Day 1
Blaze was late. It’s why he forgot his phone. If he hadn’t, Olivia wouldn’t have discovered the photo. If she hadn’t seen that photo, she wouldn’t have spent the afternoon packing his belongings and dumping the boxes and loose articles on her front lawn. A lawn her gardener just finished mowing and edging. She spooked the poor man when a pile of Blaze’s Diesel jeans dropped in front of the mower and he almost shredded them. Olivia wishes he had. Then Blaze wouldn’t come out of this relationship unscathed like he did last time.
Sal quickly loaded his mower onto his truck and packed up his rake and blower. With a tenuous smile and half-hearted wave, he drove off as Blaze rode up on his Harley. Her soon-to-be ex-boyfriend now faces off with her, in her bedroom, defending himself as if the photo isn’t on his phone.
“It’s not mine!” Blaze raises his hands in full surrender.
Olivia doesn’t believe him. The proof is on his phone, the one he left behind this morning.
She wasn’t snooping, not intentionally. She respects his privacy because she expects the same in return. But she’s chasing a deadline and her next round of illustrations is due to her editor by midnight. She took a break, her first in seven hours today, because she’d skipped breakfast, missed lunch, and was starving. She needed to eat. While Olivia was munching on a handful of vegan cauliflower puffs in the kitchen, Blaze’s phone, forgotten on the counter, pinged with an incoming text. An image flashed, causing her to do a double take.
She brushed her hand on her jeans, wiping off dehydrated cauliflower dust, and unlocked his phone. She’d seen him tap the six-digit code numerous times. She unintentionally knows it by heart because he refuses to access his phone through facial recognition. She calls him paranoid. He calls it being cautious.
Whatever.
Blaze’s phone launched and up popped Macey Brown’s reaction to Blaze’s not-so-private privates: two fat exclamation points in a cartoon bubble.
Blaze had sent his ex-girlfriend a dick pic.
Apparently, while out last night at the bar with his friend Shane, Blaze spent twenty minutes sexting Macey. Their text exchange read like two high schoolers in heat, and Olivia skimmed the entire conversation while trying to stomach her minuscule snack. The texts nowhere near reflect the maturity level of the thirty-five-year-old man Olivia has been dating—again!—for almost a year.
Lesson obviously not learned when she dumped him the first time, their junior year in high school.
Olivia fumes.
“Come on, Livy.” Blaze turns his wide, calloused palms up. His hands are beautiful in their roughness and wickedly talented in multiple areas. She’s going to miss the magic they wield in his metalworks studio and her bedroom.
Her cheeks flush with warmth and she scowls at her traitorous thoughts.
Blaze dares a step in her direction. He arches a brow. His gaze smolders. “You know it’s not mine, baby.”
“How would I . . .” She stops, exasperated over her own naivete.
A naughty smile frames his jaw.
“Oh, my god,” she says, appalled. He thinks she knows it’s not his because she’s seen his, and touched his, and . . . She is not going to let her mind go there.
Olivia stoops to pick up his PUMA high-top, one of the last items she hasn’t relocated to the front lawn. She gave him a drawer last year after he and his team finished the remodel on her house, and since then, he’s taken over half her closet. He doesn’t live here, not officially. Though he’s at her place all the time. He has his own house past the country club among the wineries, but she got lax and let him encroach on her space. Until an hour ago she liked having him in it. Who can blame her? The sex is phenomenal. He cooks a mean Bolognese. And maybe, just maybe, dating Blaze let her recapture some of the feelings she lost when summers at the lake house stopped.