The sun beat down through the muggy air, the moisture feeling like liquid fire on my back as I dragged the remaining tools inside the barn. After putting them all away, I used the hem of my shirt to wipe the sweat from my brow. The day was like a sauna turned all the way up, set to full blast and would never compromise any sort of relief. I could use a shower but Mr. Jimmy had given me extra work today, and I didn’t have time. Cadence was probably already at the lake, and I was running late.

I climbed the ladder to the loft, planning to swap out my t-shirt for a clean one and put on a fresh layer of deodorant. When I reached the top, I saw Devon had recently been up there. The clothes that I saw him wearing earlier in the day were now thrown in a haphazard pile on the floor, his toiletry bag lay strewn wide open and spilling onto his mattress. The water droplets covering the shampoo bottle signaled a recent shower. It was clear he was already out for the night which meant that Mr. Jimmy hadn’t given Devon nearly the amount of work that he gave me. That was unlike him. The man was always all about fair and equal work.

I frowned and wondered if Cadence’s mother had told her husband about the wink she saw me give Cadence on the stage set yesterday. She probably did tell him which might explain why he doled out so many bullshit jobs to me today.

I shook my head, hoping to hell that he didn’t suspect something was up between Cadence and me. If he did, today just might have been the first sign of what was to come. He had me doing everything from cleaning out the toilets to hauling firewood to all the cottages–despite the fact that each cottage still had a stack eight logs high. I ripped off the rotting two-by-fours surrounding the crumbling foundation of a cottage and replaced shingles on a sweltering black roof. I was kept so busy, I barely had time to wolf down a sandwich at lunch. And forget dinner. By the time I got to Creator Hall, dinner hour was long over.

After a quick change of my shirt, I grabbed the bag of snacks that was inevitably going to be the only sustenance I’d get tonight. I dreaded the idea of turning last night’s left-over bag of Bugles into a gourmet meal, but any food was better than no food. Swinging my legs over the top rung of the ladder, I climbed down and headed toward the outskirts of the camp.

Finding the narrow tree-lined path that would take me to the lake, I stepped into the thick brush. Trees rustled overhead, swaying in the warm evening breeze. As I rounded the final bend before the lake clearing, I caught a whiff of something–vanilla and sugar. I smiled, instantly recognizing Cadence’s scent.

“Boo!” Cadence exclaimed and jumped out from behind a nearby tree.

“Nice try,” I laughed.

“Oh, come on! Didn’t I scare you? Even a little bit?”

I dropped the bag I was holding and snagged her by the hand. Pulling her into my arms, I spun her around and buried my face in her neck.

“Not even a little bit. I smelled your perfume or whatever it is you wear. It gave you away,” I murmured against her ear. “It’s like a vanilla dessert.”

I took her hand and kissed it, then reached up to trace my finger along her lower lip.

“Not so fast there, mister. You wouldn’t want me to think the only reason you come to the lake is to steal kisses from me, do you?”

I grinned.

“Is there another reason?” I teased. Her heart-shaped lips were always a weakness of mine. Despite her protest, I leaned in to kiss her. She didn’t resist for more than a second, so I squeezed her body tighter to me. After a few moments, she reluctantly seemed to pull away.

“Come on,” she said, tugging at my hand. “It’s my turn to ask questions tonight.”

I groaned.

“Do we have to?”

“Hey, now. This was your idea, remember?”

“Don’t remind me,” I mumbled. “But, hey, before we get started, I need to get some of this sweat off my skin. Your dad had me working overtime today, and I didn’t have time to shower.”

She slipped her hand into mine and looked questioningly at me.

“Is that what took you so long to get here?”

“Yeah, he was kind of a slave driver today.”

As we stepped out of the woods into the clearing, I stripped out of my t-shirt and shoes. Dropping them to the ground, I ran up the dock and dove in. The shock of the cool water over my heated skin may have been the best thing I’d ever felt. Resurfacing, I saw Cadence standing on the dock above me.

“Where’s Dahlia tonight?” I asked her, suddenly noticing the absence of the playful pup that had really begun to grow on me. I was hoping to use my fetch-loving friend as a way to avoid the interrogation I was sure Cadence was about to give.

“She was out cold when I left. I think the heat wore her out today, so I decided to leave her be.”

Damn.

Reluctantly, I swam to the shoreline and joined her on the dock. She handed me one of the towels she always brought with her.

“Thanks,” I said as I shook the excess water from my hair. Water droplets rained down around me… and on her.

“Hey!” Cadence shrieked. “Who needs Dahlia here when I’ve got you to shake all that wetness all over me?”

Smiling wickedly, I grabbed her around the waist. Pulling her to me in a tight bear hug, my wet chest and shorts soaked her dry clothes. She struggled, but I held her firm. Her vanilla scent wafted between us, causing my mouth to water. Keeping one arm securely around her waist, I used my free hand to grip the back of her head, so I could lean in for a long, deep kiss.

Instantly, she stopped squirming and all but melted into me, her hands curling around my neck as she hungrily entwined her tongue around mine. I pressed deeper into her mouth. Shock vibrated down my spine, followed by a searing arousal only she was able to entice. A little moan escaped her mouth before she angled her head back.

“As much as I’d love to stand here kissing you all night, I think you’re stalling.” I only grinned and leaned down to nuzzle her neck. Her hands went to my shoulders, pushing me off. “Question time, buddy. You promised.”

“Okay, okay,” I laughed. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to play the little game I had proposed, but I was worried how personal Cadence’s questions were going to be. I hadn’t thought of that when I suggested it, only thinking about appeasing her concerns at the time.

I sat down across from her on the blanket she had spread out on the dock before I arrived. Music was already playing from her stereo. I hummed along to a Dave Matthews Band sax solo while Cadence tapped her chin softly. She appeared to be contemplating what she wanted to ask me first.

While she thought, I couldn’t help noticing the dahlia flowers that were in full bloom along the edge of the forest.

“The flowers would make a pretty picture today,” I observed. “You should have brought your sketchbook.”

“Maybe, but the lighting won’t last for much longer,” she said, pointing to the sun was low in the sky. “If I’m going to draw them, I need to get here in the morning or afternoon.”

“We’re off together next week Saturday. We should plan on coming earlier. Spend the day,” I suggested.

“All day?”

“It could be fun. I know I could use a day away from listening to the band rehearsing Singin’ in the Rain. I swear I hear the song in my sleep now,” I laughed. “Speaking of which, that reminds me. This afternoon, while I was working near the stage set, I wondered why you aren’t part of the crew. I mean, you have amazing talent. You could help with set design.”

“I’m a temperamental artist. I can’t draw on command, I need to be in the mood. Sure, my mother would have loved for me to follow in her footsteps in some way or another. But outside of my sketches, there’s not a creative bone in my body–at least not one I could make a decent living with. I can’t sing or dance. My fingers could never get the hang of the frets on a violin or the keys of a clarinet. I tried though,” she added with a small laugh. “It just wasn’t my thing.”

“So what is your thing?”

“When I’m not drawing, I’d have to say it’s school. Studying. Reading. I’ve always had a love for books. It was like I couldn’t get enough of them. I’ve read everything from Silent Spring to Wuthering Heights. Math isn’t my forte, but literature and history I love.” When she caught my incredulous stare, she turned somewhat defensive. “It’s not a bad thing to enjoy learning.”

I smiled.

“No. It’s not a bad thing at all. It’s just that…well, most of the girls I knew at school planned to party their first year of college away. None of them wanted to get an early start on their thesis.”

She shrugged indifferently.

“I guess I just found learning about the beginnings of the environmental movement or dissecting the relationship between Heathcliff and Catherine to be more interesting than going to parties.”

I raised my eyebrows.

“I think I’m pretty well read, but you lost me there. Heathcliff and who?”

“They’re characters in a book,” she waved off before pursing her lips in a frown. “You seem to be asking all the questions here. Are you trying to stall again?”

“Busted,” I joked and put my hands up to signal she had the floor. “I’ll stop. Fire away.”

She took a deep breath and studied me for a moment before speaking.

“You mentioned girls at school. If all they want to do is party, then you’ve clearly met the wrong ones. Have a lot of those kinds of girls been your girlfriend?”

“Sure.” I shrugged. “I mean, I wouldn’t call any of them steady. I took advantage of the fact I was the star basketball player on my high school team. It wasn’t too hard to get girls horizontal. In college, I didn’t have to be the star of anything. I was a rich party boy. Those girls either saw me as a good time or a kid who came from money.”

She grimaced and seemed taken aback.

“I wasn’t referring to sexual exploits. I meant just normal dating.”

“Oh, sorry,” I apologized awkwardly, realizing how crude I must have sounded. “I didn’t mean to come across like an ass–I’m not bragging or anything. In fact, I’m not particularly proud of it now. For some reason, you’ve seemed to change the way I look at things.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah…” I trailed off, unable to find the words to explain why she seemed to affect me so much. As the music transitioned from jazz to the more acoustic sound of Radiohead’s High and Dry, I thought about the positive and forward-thinking outlook Cadence had on things. Perhaps it was because she didn’t have any dark pockets in her life like I did or any sort of pre-determined fate to keep her from following her dreams.

“Tell me about your family. What are they like?”

Shit. That didn’t take her long.

“You don’t want to know about them, Cadence. The situation is fucked up,” I told her, my tone almost a pained warning.

“No really, I do. I have such a great relationship with my parents. I know your mom died, but you always seem so bitter whenever your dad is mentioned. I’m trying to understand why.”

I let out a long breath, not sure if I wanted to get into the tale. I didn’t know what it was about this girl. She kept trying to get me to open up, and I didn’t like it, but I was the one to set the rules of the game. I couldn’t very well renege.

“I never met my father until I was eight. My mom kept his existence hidden from me,” I began. “Despite his money, she wanted nothing to do with him because of the way he had hurt her. But when she got sick, she felt I had to know. My mom was an only child and her parents had long since passed. Having no especially close friends to turn to, she was worried about me becoming a ward of the state if something happened to her. Plus, she recognized the fact my father was a man of considerable means. I think she wanted me to have a piece of that pie and the advantages that came with it.”

“How did he hurt her? I mean, it must have been really bad if she kept you hidden from him for all those years.”

“My father had a double life. He was married when he started dating my mother. She was a clerk at a law firm owned by one of my father’s attorneys. That’s how they met. He lived in Maryland, but whenever he went into D.C. for business, they’d meet up. It was convenient–for him at least. My mom was in the city and his wife was nestled comfortably in his mansion in Highland, Maryland. Once my mother found out the truth, she ended it. But then she found out that she was pregnant.”

“Oh, gosh! I can’t even imagine.” Cadence shook her head in disbelief. “What did she do?”

“She never told him. My father had been clear he never wanted kids, so she decided to raise me on her own. And she did, until she got sick with breast cancer. Stage four. She tried to be optimistic about her chances, but it didn’t look good. So, she went to my father with the truth about me. At the time, he was in between wives. I’ll never understand why, but their affair started back up. My mom once told me it was because she never stopped loving him despite the way he had betrayed her. It was all fairytale bullshit as far as I’m concerned.”

“Sounds a little romantic to me,” she said wistfully.

“No. There was nothing romantic about it at all,” I snapped a little too harshly. When I spoke again, I tried to adopt a softer tone. “When she finally introduced me to him, he seemed accepting. Even kind. But then my mom’s cancer took a turn for the worse. The doctors upped her chemo. She was sick all the time. Frail. I watched her slowly waste away. During all of it, my father was nowhere to be found. That’s not love or romance.”

I squeezed my eyes shut tight for a moment, trying to block out images of my mother in a hospital bed. I’d never forget her tired eyes, filled with so much sadness as she held my small hand and tried to assure me that everything would be alright. All those dead places inside me began to flicker. The regret, the remorse, and every old feeling I tried to keep locked down threatened to unleash all at once.

“I’m sorry, Fitz.”

Grief resonated in her voice, and I fought to ignore it.

“It is what it is. After she died, he never even came to the funeral. Not being there for her was his loss. My mother was an amazing woman.” I shrugged, taking on a tone of aloofness as if talking about all of this didn’t bother me. “So, that’s four questions. What else do you have for me?”

She blinked, and I could tell she was surprised by the coolness in my voice. I just wished she’d ask me something easy like what was my favorite color or some other nonsense. Talking about my mother’s death stirred up an ache that I spent years trying to bury. This shit was too deep.

“How did you come to live with your father?”

I closed my eyes again, knowing I should never have expected mundane questions from someone like Cadence. She wasn’t built that way. I sighed and continued on.

“I stayed with a friend of my mom’s until the reading of the will. It stated Michael Quinn, my biological father, was to assume sole custody of me. Not wanting to risk the public embarrassment of rejecting his own son, my father took me in. However, he was no longer the nice man I met on a few occasions. He was a cruel asshole. Still is. A few months after I moved in with him, he married wife number two. The rest, as they say, is history–even if it is bad fucking history.”

She nodded, sympathy and understanding prevalent in every line of her expression, but I could also see pity in her eyes. That was the last thing I wanted. I tore my gaze from hers and stared out over the water. The sun had completely set, leaving faint hints of purple to blend with the dark night sky.

Cadence moved to sit beside me and placed her hand on my chest. With a slight push, she signaled for me to lie back. Lying down next to me, she dropped her head to settle into the crook of my arm and began to trace small circles over my abdomen. Her scent was all around me–vanilla and sugar and calm. I could feel the steady beat of her heart against my side as I buried my face in her hair.

She peered up at me, and I found myself staggered by the intensity in her eyes. It felt like an eternity before she spoke.

“That was only five questions, but I think it’s enough for tonight,” she murmured softly.

I nearly scoffed. If she thought what I told her was bad, wait until she heard the rest of it. We were six weeks into the summer. That meant I only had six weeks left with her. I knew I had to tell her the truth about my future soon, but I couldn’t tonight. Just telling her the little bit I did exhausted me, and I needed all the strength I could muster when I finally did drop the mother of all bombshells.

Never in my life had I hated my father more than I did now, yet I could see no other option. As I lay there with Cadence, quietly in the darkness, a new kind of ache began to build in my chest. I felt ashamed. Stricken. It came from knowing, no matter what I did or said, I was going to lose her forever.