That Summer : A Small Town, Friends-to-Lovers Romance (That Boy® (Chase & Devaney) Book 1)
That Summer : Chapter 20

Today, everyone is just plain tired. The last few days have been chock-full of family fun and togetherness.

We’re all just hanging around in the backyard. Hanging by the pool, swimming in the lake, playing lazy games of horseshoes and cornhole.

Grandma brought out a friendship bracelet–making kit that she forgot she hadn’t had us do yet, and I make four bracelets, two that say Diamond and two that say Mackenzie. Damon and I give Chase and Haley the ones that have our last name and Damon and I put on the one’s with their last name.

Then we all painted rocks with Ozarks and the year on them to take home.

The idea of me sitting around, making friendship bracelets and painting rocks at my age, would have seemed foreign to me just a few weeks ago. But the grandmas are doing it with us. And I love spending time with them.

Since we had pizza earlier this week, we decide to go to a different restaurant on the water tonight, this one is a sports bar with a menu filled with lots of delicious fried foods.

Other than an occasional movie, we haven’t watched television the whole time we’ve been here, so it is fun to have different sports channels on the TVs that line the walls.

We stay here for quite a while, finally getting back into the boats once the fireworks are almost ready to start.

I’m sitting next to Chase, our backs leaning against the windshield of the ski boat and our legs stretched out. Haley and Damon are on the sundeck, chatting. Everyone else is in the big pontoon boat or in the water.

“Fireworks seem to be the theme of our relationship,” I say to Chase, letting my hand replace his in the dark.

“Well, we have watched a lot of them since we’ve been here,” he says seriously. “I love how your face lights up and how happy they seem to make you.”

“I was sort of referring to the fireworks between us physically,” I say, squeezing his hand.

He breaks out into a grin, but then his expression changes to something more thoughtful. “Remember, you are my best friend in the world when you answer this, so try not to kill my ego.”

“I don’t think you have an ego,” I fire back.

“Is it good? Like, I know it feels really good to me, but what about you? Am I making you feel good? Like, really good?”

“Yes, Chase. I mean, I’m not all that experienced myself, but everything with you feels good.”

“Speaking of that,” he says, “I want to go back to the honeymoon cottage. Tonight. After everyone goes to sleep.”

When we get there, I’m ready to rush inside, but Chase says, “Stay out here for a minute.”

“Why?” I ask.

“Because I said so.”

He opens the door, sticks his hand in the entry hall, and must flip a switch because the soft sounds of country music play over the speakers on the front porch.

He comes back to stand in front of me and gives me a little bow. “May I have this dance?”

“Of course,” I say, moving into his embrace.

We dance slowly, swaying like we have all the time in the world.

And when I’m in his arms, it feels like we do.

Like there’s just us on this whole big planet.

Like no one else exists.

“Oh my gosh!” I say a few songs later. “I love this song.”

“I think it’s become our song,” Chase says, kissing me. “We danced to it that first night you took me parking—”

“I’m never going to live that down, am I? You’ll always get to say I was the one who hit on you.”

“And you can always say that I was a fool for not taking you up on it.”

I let out a laugh. “True. And it was playing that day when we were here.”

“When we were lying in front of the fireplace, right before the rain stopped.”

“Exactly,” I say, surprised he remembers.

“When it came on, I was thinking I wished I had made a move the night we stargazed, but I’m kind of glad I didn’t. Because the day in the rain was—”

“Special,” I finish for him.

He runs his hand across my cheek and stares into my eyes. “It was more than special, Dani. It was literally everything I’d wanted my whole life. It was my birthday, Christmas, and a Super Bowl win, all wrapped up in one beautiful”—he smirks—“naked bow.”

“You’re bad,” I tell him.

“Now, just a few minutes ago, you told me I was good,” he fires back. “Which is it, Devaney Diamond?”

I scrunch up my nose at him but run my hands across his neck and up into the back of his hair. “Everything between us is good. And you’re getting off track here. We’re discussing the song.”

“Ah, yes,” he says, pulling away and spinning me around in a circle. “We danced to it again, like this, at the wedding reception.”

“Which was exhilarating but in a different way.”

“Different because we weren’t naked?” he says, pulling me against his chest before twirling me again. “Maybe we should try naked line dancing.”

I roll my eyes. “Now, you’re just being silly.”

He lets out a little cough. “Or serious. I mean, it did play tonight. For us. Here. It’s like fate or something. Destiny maybe.”

“Your mom and I were talking about destiny on the dock the other day. She was telling me about when you were born. I knew there was an accident, but I didn’t know how serious it was.”

“They revived my mom. And I know that she doesn’t like to talk about it much.”

“She told me she wrote to you in a journal when she was pregnant. That, someday, when you are having your own baby, she is going to give it to you.”

“Really? I didn’t know that,” he says, but then he sucks in a breath and goes, “Oh. Do you think she wrote in it after?”

“I know she did. I didn’t really tell you this, but I asked her about her relationship with our dads. Like, how it worked. If they dated and stuff. She’s sort of been telling me their story, I guess, over the course of the trip. And after the burning-robe incident …”

“She suspected something was going on with us,” he says.

“Yeah, she did. And I told her that we had been considering being more than just friends. I might have told her that’s what we were discussing that night in the bathroom.”

“And she believed that?”

“I think so. I told her it’s hard because … well, both because of your age and that it’s scary, thinking about crossing the friendship line. I told her that I wasn’t sure I wanted to risk it.”

“Risk what?”

“Well, Chase, what if we don’t work out? What if we fight about money? Or you cheat on me? Or any of the other million reasons people break up?”

He doesn’t say anything, just nods his head thoughtfully. “I hope we always stay friends.”

“Me, too. Anyway, I told her how, during the divorce, you told me I should love with my heart, not my head.”

“I wanted you to love me.”

I smile as I stand up on my tiptoes and kiss him. “I think I knew that, but the thought of it scared me. And I’m glad the rainstorm happened. Like, what if we had died? I would have spent my afterlife wondering what we would have been like together.”

“Fortunately, we don’t have to wonder. We can just be together.”

“I know, but back to what your mom said. She said you learned that from her because she hoped you would live your life that way. How, almost sixteen years later, she wakes up and feels thankful.”

Chase looks a little sad. “Almost every night before I go to bed, she tells me that we’re lucky to be alive.”

“Has she also told you that you are destined for greatness?”

He nods slowly. “Yes. And that she didn’t know what I would do or be but that she knew it as surely as she could feel our hearts beating.”

“Is that a lot of pressure?”

“What?” he says. “No. Not at all. Of course, that might be because she’s always told me she would do everything she could to prepare me for it. Plus, it’s not like that. It’s not like she thought I was going to be a good quarterback then. To her, greatness is—”

“Treating people well. Being kind. Using your given talents and loving fiercely.” I get tears in my eyes. “You’ve always been those things to me.”

“I do love you fiercely,” he says. “Always have.”

“I know. And sometimes, it scares me a little. She also said that we—you and me—have a special bond. And if we decide to explore that avenue, we should do so with respect because it doesn’t matter if we end up as former lovers or an old married couple. What matters is that we stay friends.”

“I agree with the respect part. Whatever happens, we have to act like best friends. If we always consider our friendship first, even if we end things romantically, we’ll be okay.”

“Speaking of romantically,” I say with a smirk, “I think I’d rather be doing something other than dancing right about now.”

“Me, too,” he says, sweeping me off my feet and carrying me into the house.