The Summer House

by Lauren K. Denton

  People shouted out various song titles, and the band picked up with a twangy bluegrass tune that pulled folks from their seats.

  Next to her, Rawlins stood and Lily’s stomach tightened. She imagined him extending his hand and the feel of his skin against hers as he led her to the dance floor. Sweat prickled at the back of her neck and she took an unsteady breath.

  He leaned down. “Can I get you a drink?”

  She blinked. “What?”

  He hooked his thumb behind him to where a line had already started to form in front of the bar. “If I go now, I’ll beat the rush.”

  “Oh, okay.” She swallowed hard. “Thanks. I’ll have a beer.” She fumbled for her bag, but he waved his hand.

  “My treat.”

  He disappeared into the crowd, and she sat back to wait, taking deep breaths to settle her racing heart and overactive imagination. She shook her head at her own silliness. Ridiculous, Lily. Not to mention wrong.

  He reappeared less than a minute later, a glass of beer in one hand and a bottle of Coke in the other.

  “That was fast.”

  He grinned. “It pays to befriend bartenders.” He lifted his Coke bottle. “Even if you don’t drink what they’re serving.” He set her drink on the table, then sat and stretched his legs in front of him.

  “You don’t drink but you come to bars?”

  “Not bars plural. Just this one. And it’s not really a bar. It’s more like a cultural experience.”

  She reached for her beer—which had been poured into a tall glass with Charlie Brown and Snoopy on the side—and took a sip. The cold felt good slipping down her throat. With all the people clustered together plus the balmy night air, the room was more than warm.

  The song ended a moment later, and Rawlins and Lily stayed where they were as the crowd around them moved toward the bar, jostling for places in line. Two familiar faces popped out of the crowd and approached their table—Canaan, minus the floppy Hooker hat, and Elijah. Canaan’s arm was looped around Elijah’s shoulders.

  “My boy did good up there tonight, don’t you think?”

  Rawlins grinned and reached up to shake Elijah’s hand. “Sure did. Good job, kid.”

  Elijah’s smile was shy, but Lily could tell he appreciated Rawlins’s praise almost as much as he did his dad’s.

  “Good to see you again, Lily,” Canaan said. “Not sure how Mr. Willett here talked you into coming out tonight, but I’m glad he did.”

  Lily glanced at Rawlins. “He didn’t have to work too hard to convince me. I wanted to see the place for myself.”

  “And what do you think?”

  “It’s . . . I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  “It’s one of the best-kept secrets in the South. Musical greats have played on that very stage.” Canaan patted Elijah’s chest. “And you get to see one of them play tonight.”

  Elijah scoffed and shook his head.

  “So it seems you do more than just pour drinks at the café on Sunday afternoons,” Lily said with a smile.

  Elijah chuckled. “I’ll do that as long as Roberta will keep me around. Those women tip like crazy. But this is what I really love.”

  “I can tell.”

  Canaan bent down next to Rawlins to be heard over the noise. “I talked to my buddy at Southern Breadworks today when I got back to shore. He said he’s in.”

  Rawlins knocked his knuckles against the tabletop. “That’s great. Great news.”

  Canaan nodded. “You’ve got all you need. You just gotta talk to your old man.”

  “I know. Soon. I just want everything lined up first.”

  Canaan lifted his head when someone called to him from the bar area. He raised a hand in greeting, then turned back to Rawlins. “I’m going to the bar.” He tapped Rawlins’s bottle. “Can I get you another one?”

  “Nah. I’m good.”

  Canaan looked at Lily and she shook her head. “Okay then. I’ll see you two on the flip side.” He turned to Elijah. “Go get ’em, son. Maybe play these two something special.”

  Elijah grinned as his dad walked away. “Anything particular you want to hear?”

  Rawlins looked at Lily, but she shook her head. He tipped his head up at Elijah. “Your choice. You’re in charge up there.”

  They watched him as he walked away and joined a knot of young people clamoring for his attention. A moment later he was back onstage, tinkering with his guitar stand and talking with the drummer. The woman in the red dress picked up her harmonica and began to play.

  Lily heard a faint buzz, and Rawlins pulled his phone from his pocket. The screen glowed with an incoming text. He sighed and tapped out a quick response.

  “Sorry about that,” he said, turning the phone facedown on the table.

  “It’s fine. Everything okay?”

  “Yeah.” He paused. “It’s just been a weird day.”

  “What made it weird?”

  He tilted his bottle back and forth, the green of the glass catching light from those dangling from the ceiling. “Tara and I—Tara’s my ex-wife—we set up a deal a while back that works pretty well for us. Hazel stays a week with her, a week with me. Back and forth, with the handoff Fridays at six. Though it’s gotten pretty out of whack recently.” He was quiet a moment, then rubbed the back of his neck. “Anyway, it turns out Tara’s thinking of moving to Destin to be closer to her new job.”

  “And how far away is Destin?”

  “About two hours.”

  “Wow. That seems far for the back-and-forth.”

  “Bingo.”

  She paused before speaking again. “And now you have to figure out who Hazel will stay with?”

  He took a deep breath. “She’ll be starting kindergarten in the fall. She has to be in one place by then, not hopping between parents in two different cities.”

  “Do you want her to be here?”

  He exhaled, his cheeks puffing out air. “Yeah. I really do.” He looked at her with an apologetic smile. “Sorry to unload all that on you.”

  “Don’t apologize. It’s life. It’s actually kind of nice to think about someone else’s stuff instead of my own.” She smiled to show she was at least partly kidding, and he laughed.

  “Glad I can help. I have a lot of stuff.”

  “Don’t we all?”

  Up on the stage Elijah stepped up to the microphone. “This one is for my two friends.” He looked toward Rawlins and Lily and winked. Rawlins laughed. Bodies pressed close to the table as the band segued into a song with a much slower, more languid tempo. All around them arms slung around necks, hips swayed, and smiles loosened. Elijah began to sing, his voice sliding like syrup, and he crooked his finger at them, motioning them to the dance floor.

  Lily felt her cheeks redden as the nervousness crept back into her belly. Rawlins stood and extended his hand. She looked up at him.

  “May I have this dance?” A corner of his mouth lifted into a smile. “He’ll call us out if we don’t get up.”

  She hesitated only a fraction of a second before sliding her hand into his. She stood and he gently pulled her to a spot at the edge of the dance floor where the lights weren’t so bright. He lifted her hand and spun her in a slow circle, and when she came back to face him, he was smiling. “Sorry. I couldn’t resist.”

  He adjusted his hand in hers, and she set her other arm around his back as they began to move with the slow beat. Despite the elbows and shoulders they bumped into as folks around them danced and moved, Lily was very aware of the chaste few inches that separated her and Rawlins. It seemed they both were careful not to step too close, not to cross the invisible barrier between them. But then, as if the air around them was charged with an energy they couldn’t see but could only feel, something changed. Slowly, inch by inch, the gap between them closed until the warmth and the music felt like a curtain shielding them from everyone else in the room. The rawness and longing in Elijah’s voice echoed everything pulsing in Lily’s heart until she tho
ught she would melt right there on the floor.

  Rawlins’s arm tightened around her back and he pulled her even closer, his head tilted down toward hers, and she knew he felt the change too. She let herself lean forward until her head rested against his shoulder and she breathed in deeply.

  All she knew about this man was that he had been kind to her on the day she packed up and left her old life behind. And he loved his little girl. And something about him made something in her settle down, quiet and at rest. But even with that scant bit of knowledge, he felt so solid, so real, so present right there in front of her, she wished she could stay where she was, in this safe cocoon created by this particular night and these strong arms wrapped around her.

  When the song ended, neither of them moved. It wasn’t until the drummer knocked his sticks together and sent the band into a far more energetic song that Lily lifted her head from his shoulder and they untangled their arms from around each other. The absence of his skin against hers felt like too-cool shade after time spent in the warm sun.

  As they headed back to their seats, she kept her eyes averted, embarrassment coursing through her. What in the world just happened?

  He went to the bar and returned with two glasses of water. They were both quiet as the next couple of songs slid by. She was acutely aware of him sitting only a foot away—the angle of his shoulders, the line of his jaw—as if that magnetic pull was still there, tugging on all her nerve endings. She stole a glance at him, only to find he was already watching her. They both smiled and started to speak at the same time.

  He laughed. “Go ahead.”

  “I . . .” She didn’t know what she was going to say, so she said the first thing that came to her mind. “You don’t drink.”

  “That’s correct.” He paused. “Is there a question in there?”

  “I guess I’m just . . . curious.” She shook her head. “It’s maybe too personal, though. I shouldn’t have asked.”

  “It’s okay. I actually wanted to ask you about the husband you left back at your old house, but I was avoiding it because I worried I was getting too personal. But if you’re opening that door . . .”

  She smiled. “For better or worse, I think the door’s wide open now.”

  He leaned back in his seat. Physically, he was at ease in a way that made her wish she could reach out and pull him toward her, yet something in his bearing held an almost palpable strain—one with which she was well acquainted.

  “Who goes first?” he asked.

  “I vote you.”

  He laughed. “Okay. To answer the question you didn’t ask, no, I don’t drink. I used to but . . . I let it get out of hand.” He shrugged. “It’s just easier to avoid it now.”

  “You’re not really avoiding it, though, if you come to places like this, right? Seems like it might be hard to put yourself around it.”

  He shook his head. “No, it was my choice to quit drinking. No one twisted my arm, so it doesn’t feel like something I’m missing out on.”

  On the stage Elijah picked a few chords on his guitar and the drummer set the beat. An old man stepped up onto the platform and picked up a tambourine from a stool and began to tap it against his leg.

  “What made you want to quit?”

  “In a nutshell, it was Hazel, though the problem started long before her.” He angled his chair toward Lily’s so they could talk more easily over the music. He set his arm down on the table so close to hers, she could feel the heat from his skin. “Things went a little sideways for me a while back.” He was quiet for a moment, and Lily quelled the urge to question him further. “I started drinking to make things feel better. Then I met Tara, and I guess I thought getting married would help whatever was wrong. You can imagine how well that worked out.”

  Lily propped her chin in her hand. “Yes. I can imagine pretty clearly.”

  “Rose invited me over for dinner one night. Hazel was just a baby. Rose spared no words telling me I was making a mess of my life and that Hazel was worth giving up the drinking.” He pressed his lips together. “Everything in me wanted to fight back. To tell her to take care of her own business and let me take care of mine.”

  He shrugged and looked back at Lily. “But she was right. I knew I had to quit—there was no other option. And Rose conveniently kept asking me to dinner once a week. Said she was doing it to make sure I got a good meal every now and then, but I know it was to check up on me.” He laughed. “She’s tough, but she’s smart.”

  The band was playing a jazzy rendition of “Sweet Home Alabama,” but Lily was so absorbed in Rawlins’s story—the earnest sincerity on his face—she barely noticed the enthusiasm in the room ramp up.

  “And you and Tara?”

  He sighed. “Tara and I never should have been together in the first place. I think we used each other to try to fill holes that should have been filled with something healthier. Together we were just . . . combustible.” He sat forward and rested his elbows on his knees. “But we got Hazel out of it. She’s . . .” He trailed off, then glanced back at Lily. “Well, you’ve met her.”

  Lily nodded. “She’s really great.” In her mind, Lily saw Hazel’s dark strawberry curls in disarray as she practiced her cartwheels in Lily’s front yard.

  “Yeah. Looking at her little face snapped me back into reality. Well, her face and Rose’s persistence. Tara and I figured out the custody thing. I finished school . . . Things got better.” He hung his head for a moment, then looked at her again. “Now you know everything there is to know about me.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “Everything?”

  “Yeah, okay. Not everything. But a lot. Much more than I know about you.” He paused and leaned deeper into his elbows.

  Her heart quickened. He was going to ask her about Worth, she knew it. But the empty space on her ring finger felt as tender as new skin, and her divorce papers were still burning a hole in her bedside table. Was it appropriate for her to offer details of the dissolution of her marriage to someone she hardly knew?

  Appropriate? She almost laughed out loud. Worth hadn’t worried about propriety—why should she? Maybe the better question was, did she want to tell him?

  Rawlins shifted his seat when someone bumped into him, then turned back to her. “So how long have you been cutting hair?”

  It took her a moment to register that he hadn’t asked her about Worth at all. She looked at him, his face full of curiosity, and relief flooded through her. She exhaled. “Since I was a teenager.”

  “Really?”

  “You sound shocked. Did you think I’d just decided to take it up when I moved to the village?”

  “I guess I hadn’t put that much thought into it. But . . . since you were a teenager? Did you do it after school or something?”

  She nodded. “My mom had a salon at our house. She taught me everything she knew.”

  As the people around them danced and swayed, Lily told Rawlins all about her mother, their salon, and the warm, shampoo-scented haven in the woods of Fox Hill. As she spoke, he leaned toward her, listening intently. His smile was easy and his gaze on her never faltered. Opening up to someone had never been easier.

  “So here you are now, bringing your hair-cutting skills to Safe Harbor Village. How’s it been so far?”

  “It’s . . . Well, everyone’s been very welcoming, just like you said. A few feisty folks.”

  He laughed. “Ten bucks says I can tell you exactly who you’re referring to. But I’m glad the transition has been easy. Or at least not terrible.”

  “No, definitely not terrible.”

  Their conversation continued to flow, bouncing from Coach’s latest paddleboat mishaps and Shirley’s sneaky attempts to procure juicy gossip, to Hazel’s recent determination to learn how to roller-skate.

  When they’d had their fill of music and people, they had to push through the crowd of people to make it to the door. They finally reached the screen door and pushed it open, tumbling like pebbles out into the quiet nig
ht air.

  Lily exhaled and lifted her hair off the back of her neck as they walked toward the lot across the street. “When will you be back out on your boat again? Do you go every day?”

  “I don’t go out as much as I used to, but we’re out at night, not much during the day. At one point a few years ago, I went out almost every night during the season. Sometimes I’d stay gone for days at a time. I’ve pulled back lately, though.”

  “Because of Hazel?”

  “Yeah, she’s a big part of it. I also have a new project I’m trying to get off the ground. Thankfully, we have other shrimpers working for us who can pick up my slack.”

  “Does this project have anything to do with the bread thing Canaan mentioned?”

  “Yeah, it does, actually.” He told her he wanted to open a market at the front of Willett Fisheries, like a small grocery store with prepackaged salads, sandwiches, and fresh bread.

  “There’s nothing like it on the island,” he said as they walked. “People would be able to come in off their boats and grab lunch or swing by to pick up an easy dinner. It’ll be heavy on the shrimp, of course, but we’ll have other things too.”

  “Are you worried your dad won’t like it?”

  “He’ll say no right off the bat, just because it’s something different. But the business will be mine in a few years, so he’ll at least hear me out.”

  “Wow. You’re taking over the company?”

  He nodded. “If we want to keep it going when my dad decides to retire, it’ll be up to me.”

  Lily slowed as they approached her car. “Well, I don’t know your dad or anything about shrimping, but I think it sounds like a great idea.”

  “Thanks.” He stood in front of her now, hands in his pockets, his eyes on her. The same heat that had flooded her cheeks as they danced returned, making her mouth dry and her hands clammy. She shifted her bag on her shoulder. The only light was from the moon, high and clear in the sky, and the faint glow of the neon signs behind them.

  “I understand you having second thoughts about coming out tonight. But I’m really glad you came anyway.”

  “I am too.”

  “And this is probably too forward, but right now I’m sorry I didn’t push harder to come pick you up.”