“I think it was more a ‘don’t get pregnant’ talk.” Kyle cringes. “That was somehow way worse than the one my mother gave me. You?”

“Definitely. And my mother used the word deflower.”

Kyle tips his head back and starts howling with laughter just as the song ends and Christa flicks on the lights.

“Okay!” Darian claps her hands. “Cabins one through five and eleven through fifteen, it’s turn-in time. You have fifteen minutes. Go!”

I sigh. “I guess I’ll see you tomorrow?”

Kyle checks over his shoulder to confirm that Darian’s attention is occupied and then leans in to kiss my lips.

“You really like taking risks, don’t you?” I tease.

“If it means getting another moment with you? Darian can whip me for all I care.” His eyes sparkle mischievously as he steals another kiss, which I happily grant him.

“I wish these nights would last longer.”

His gaze drifts from my mouth back to my eyes. “We can make tomorrow last forever if you want.”

Forever in our memories.

I swallow. And nod. Because I know I’m ready.

I’m still smiling as one of my campers, a little redhead named Suzie, slips her hand in mine and tugs me toward the door.

I walk along the path toward Cabin Seventeen at three in the afternoon, with that same exhilaration coursing through my veins that always does when I’m about to see Kyle. The faint sounds of shouts and splashes carry from the beach, as most counselors—including Christa—cool off in the water. There’s not a sound on this end of the camp.

“Kyle?” I call out, knowing that if he’s there, he’ll hear me through the open window.

“Yup,” comes a croaky response.

I step into the dim, stuffy cabin, to find him shirtless and stretched out in his bed in his swim trunks, his arm cast over his forehead, a sheen of sweat coating his skin. “Were you sleeping?”

“Trying to. It’s so hot.”

“Everyone’s out in the lake.” All the rain from the past two weeks has moved on, a heat wave trailing in behind it. Christa, who has taken it upon herself as “lead counselor” to know the seven-day weather forecast at all times, promises temperatures of close to 100 for the next week.

“I just needed a rest.”

“Took you a while to clean the pavilion, huh?” I struggle to keep my annoyance from my tone.

He groans. “You won’t believe how many of those little assholes stick gum to the underside of the picnic tables.”

“Darian made you scrape those off, too?”

“Yup. Why am I friends with Eric, again?”

“I don’t know, honestly.” I shake my head. “But you two are lucky that’s all you got for starting a food fight.” By the end of breakfast, the cement floor was littered with pancakes and bits of sausage. More than one kid ended up heading to their parents’ cars with syrup in their hair.

He rolls onto his side, his eyes showing worry. “You still mad at me?”

I sigh heavily. “No, but only because you didn’t get fired.”

“It was a heat-of-the-moment thing.” He yawns. “How was the Laundromat?”

“Uneventful.” I drop his basket of freshly washed and folded T-shirts, shorts, and boxers that I offered to run while doing my own laundry. Even though I was pissed at him.

“Thank you.” He grins, his sleepy gaze dragging over my tank top and cotton shorts. “You want a nap?”

I laugh.

“Can you lie with me anyway?” he asks softly.

“I can, but it’s really hot, Kyle.”

He toys with the drawstring of my shorts. “Maybe not if you take that off.”

Something about the way he says it—his voice, his gaze, the touch of longing in his words—makes my body shiver in the most pleasant way.

I swallow against my sudden nervousness.

Under his watchful eye, I shrug off my clothes until I’m standing in nothing, his eyes absorbing me. I don’t feel the least bit self-conscious, which is a far cry from how I was only weeks ago.

Lifting his hips off his bed, he slides his swim trunks off and casts them aside.

The stifling air in the cabin has turned electric with promise as I lie down atop the sleeping bag next to Kyle. Our uneven breathing tangles for a moment as the only sound to be heard, and then Kyle rolls over, fitting himself between my thighs, resting on his elbows as he peers down at me for several long moments.

“I’m so in love with you, Piper.”

I smile, reaching up to toy with strands of his spiky hair. “I love you, too, Kyle. I can’t even describe how much.”

Another moment passes and then he reaches next to him for his wallet.

The next thirty minutes will be ingrained in my memory forever—I don’t know how they possibly can’t be. Watching Kyle fumble with the condom to ease it on, tasting the salt on his lips from the hot summer day as he kisses me, feeling our hot, slick skin pressed against each other as he prods at my entrance, feeling him sink deeper and deeper in, past the painful pinch.

Hearing him whisper in my ear over and over again how much he loves me as our bodies rock back and forth against each other, finding a blissful rhythm in the dim, stuffy camp cabin on a sweltering summer afternoon.

Chapter 19

NOW

“It feels like forever since we last lunched. When was it, Mother’s Day?” My mom smooths her hand over her sleek blonde ponytail and then busies herself laying a cloth napkin over her lap to protect her cream-colored pants. She is the only woman I know who dares to wear cream-colored pants to an Italian restaurant.

“I’ve been busy. And you haven’t exactly been around, either.” We have a standing lunch date in our calendars the first Sunday of every month. We’ve taken turns canceling on each other the last two.

“I know, darling. I was hoping to have all the renovations finished by now, but this contractor does not seem to know what he’s doing. I won’t be recommending him.” She smiles. “But, I have to say, you are glowing. Is this about David?” She glances at my left hand, no doubt to check for the engagement ring.

“David and I are over. We will never get back together,” I say as slowly and firmly as I can, because neither of my parents seems to be able to let go of that dream.

“Well, who is it, then?”

“Who says it’s about a man?”

The waiter swings by to drop off a bottle of sauvignon blanc, saving me from having to discuss last night’s knee-buckling kiss from my first love. I tossed for hours in bed pondering it, my body a live wire, thoughts of Kyle churning in my mind, the wish to have him lying next to me overwhelming.

“So what are you doing in the city, anyway?” I rush to move the topic off me for the moment. “You said you were visiting someone?”

“Just a friend.” She brings her glass to her lips, letting it linger there a long moment, her eyes roaming the menu.

I make a point of holding my glass in the air. “Cheers, Mom.”

“Oh, right, of course.” She laughs, following suit to let our glasses clink. “I forgot.”