Small Town Hearts

by Lillie Vale

  “This is easier.” I held the knife in front of the center of the wall and carved out an arch. “Here’s the doorway. Now I’ll just do a second one inside it.” Once they were both carved out, I smoothed down the door to make it flat.

  “Here, I collected these.” Levi dropped small shell fragments in front of me. “Maybe you could stick these in the arch so it stands out?”

  “Perfect.” I grinned at him. “See? You’ve totally got the hang of this!”

  “I’m getting there,” he said. “Super slowly.”

  “Seriously, don’t sweat it too much. It’s just for fun.”

  “Don’t you want to beat Lucy?” he asked with a grin.

  I laughed. “Okay, so maybe I am in it to win it. But you’re already leagues ahead of the partner I had last year, so I’m not too worried.”

  “Who did you partner with before?”

  “Just whoever else needs a partner. There’s no shortage of sandcastle enthusiasts in town. Note that I said enthusiasts, though.”

  He blinked. “No one at your level?”

  “Nope.”

  “That actually makes me feel a little better about our chances of winning this,” he said. “If I get another practice in, maybe I’ll go pro.”

  “And discover your lifelong dream of building sandcastles for a living?”

  “Hey, don’t knock it. Everyone needs a passion.” He waggled his eyebrows.

  “Don’t get too cocky, buddy,” I teased. “Next, I’m going to show you how to do a staircase.”

  He burst into nervous laughter. “You’re kidding, right?” Catching the look on my face, he said in a low, serious voice, “Okay, you’re not kidding.”

  “The night’s not over yet, Levi Keller,” I said.

  By the time we mastered the art of winding a staircase around the outside of a tower, we were working in unison. Words had given way to perfect bodily synchrony. He knew what tool I wanted without my having to ask for it, and I evened out his trouble spots before he could get frustrated.

  By the end of the lesson we had lapsed into complete silence. Exhausted, we lay back on the sand and watched the coral-strewn sun deepen into tangerine. I turned to glance at Levi. His eyelashes were tipped in gold, face sun-speckled and bronzed. He sensed my eyes on him and tilted his head, lips curving into a sensual, lazy smile.

  I gave in to temptation and leaned forward, pressing a soft kiss to the corner of his mouth. Feeling a little playful, I nipped at the fullness of his lower lip. He leaned into the kiss, hands tangling in my hair, and pulled me onto his chest. He deepened the kiss, sliding his hands to my hips.

  Warmth settled in my soul and I wanted it to stay there forever. By the time the stars came, I had realized one very crucial thing: Levi was my shooting star. Blistering and bright and riveting, he split the sky into two things. A before and an after.

  In the course of our silent camaraderie, I’d wound up with my legs splayed at a right angle to his body, my head resting on his chest. One of his hands played with my hair. I reveled in the gentle massage.

  “The residency will be over soon,” he said, and I could hear the truth of the statement coming deep from his chest, right where the heart lived.

  “I wish you didn’t have to go so soon.” My admission was quiet and I was glad he couldn’t see me. I felt his fingers still in my hair. He didn’t say anything, and I wasn’t sure if I was grateful for that or not.

  “Maybe I don’t have to,” he said, eyes closed, but the ghost of a smile on his lips. “I’m glad we became friends.”

  “Me too.” I curled up at his side.

  “What about you?” he asked. “What are your plans after this summer?”

  “I hadn’t really thought about it, honestly. I’m happy with what I’m doing. In the way, way future, I’d like to buy Busy’s. But for right now, maybe just get the shop’s website up and running. Someone asked about online orders. I think maybe that’s something I’d like to talk to Tom about. I love making people happy with food. The sweetness of a slice of cake has the ability to turn a bad day around. There’s a lot of memories in food, you know.”

  “That would be really cool,” Levi said. “You’d be a small business owner.”

  I smiled faintly. “Yeah.” I pulled away from him and drew my knees to my chin, staring out at the serene water.

  “What just happened?”

  I half turned, resting my chin on my shoulder. “What do you mean?”

  “You went away from me for a second there.” He followed my lead and propped himself up on his elbows.

  “I guess it’s just weird to think about you leaving. About doing all these things without you here. It feels like you’ve always been in Oar’s Rest. Almost since we first met, you’ve never felt like a stranger. There’s already been so many changes this summer that I hate to think of another one.” I shook my head. “Please don’t be creeped out.”

  “I’m not,” said Levi. He wrapped an arm around me and kissed my temple. He held his nose there a moment longer before drawing back. “The truth is, I don’t want to leave here. My gut’s saying—” He broke off. “I feel like this place—you—is the right place for me. Does that sound crazy?” His voice was so soft I had to strain my ears to hear him.

  “Not at all,” I murmured, reaching to run my thumb across his exposed wrist. I pressed a kiss to his palm and sighed. I understood more than he knew. Since the beginning of the summer, I’d felt like I was walking on shifting sand. First with graduation, then Penny, then Elodie.

  With Levi, there were no games. No second-guessing. No strings. It was easy in a way none of my relationships had ever been. Elodie had always been afraid to embrace the idea of us, always looking over her shoulder. Chad had always been more Penny’s than mine, even if it sometimes felt the opposite. And Penny, well, I didn’t want to think about Penny.

  All I wanted right then was to be just Levi and me. No one else.

  Levi flicked some sand from between his fingers. “What will happen to us?”

  I startled. The terms of my relationship always seemed to be decided for me. For the first time, someone was looking to me to set the pace. “Um, what would you want to happen? Would you want more than a summer romance?”

  “Yes,” he said, without the slightest hesitation.

  I warmed all over. “How would that work? With you, wherever you end up, and me here?”

  “Maine isn’t that far from New York. Or Rhode Island, depending on if I get into RISD or not. Being on the waitlist was making me nervous, so I called to follow up. I actually have a good chance of getting in.”

  I squeezed his hand. “Oh my gosh, that’s amazing.” I could be happy for him and bummed for me at the same time. “So a long-distance relationship?”

  “Would you be into that?” he asked.

  I didn’t even have to think about it. I didn’t want a part-time relationship after being able to see Levi every day, holding his hand whenever I wanted to. I didn’t want a relationship with a screen. Suddenly, I could see why a clean break seemed like the right choice for Elodie.

  “We should have talked about this before,” I said softly. “Whether this was just a—”

  “Please don’t say a fling.” He made a face. “That sounds so immature. Kleenex-y. Like use it once and toss it.”

  I hesitated. I wanted to say yes because it would be easy. I wanted my time with him to stretch for as long as it could. But it would only be easy for right now. Long-distance wasn’t right for me, even if it worked for other people. I wanted someone here, someone who would be mine. Someone who I could belong to and wake up next to.

  “Remember what you said about different paths leading to the same place? Don’t tell me that only applied to me,” he said.

  “I can take my own advice.” I couldn’t. Every word felt like sticky taffy in my mouth. But I had to see this through, didn’t I? I had to try. I couldn’t be like Elodie, like Penny. Snipping people out. I wouldn’t be like th
em.

  “So is that a…”

  “Yes. It’s a yes,” I said. “I don’t know where this thing between us will go, but I want to find out.”

  “Me too.” He leaned down to graze his lips across the knob of my shoulder.

  I shivered at the cool sensation that tickled its way up my neck and down my arm. “That tickles.” When he started to move away, I quickly added, “But don’t stop.”

  “Your wish is my command.”

  “Anything?” I asked mischievously.

  Levi moved to my neck, planting soft, open-mouthed kisses behind my ear. “Hmm?”

  I cupped his jaw, stopping him. “Have you been in the ocean yet?”

  “Babe?” Levi’s eyes were wide, luminous. “What are you—”

  I threw my hair over one shoulder and reached back to pull the strings of my sundress, sending the yellow paisley print to the sand, revealing the bikini underneath. “Come on,” I said, already moving. My feet kicked up sand, generating a blizzard. The sand changed as I got closer to the shore. Dry to wet. Loose to dense. “Follow me!”

  I ran into the water, letting the sea tug me out into its cold embrace. Salt water invaded my senses, crashing against my body. I turned, kicking my feet in the water. Levi stood as if rooted to the spot. I kept my eyes steady, silently willing him to join me.

  Behind him, the sand looked taupe. The town, plunged into blue-black, windows and doors glowing with streetlight. The sea itself appeared like black glass and my arms skimmed the surface as I turned left, then right, creating small waves. The only sound was the soft whispering of the sea and the sand. If I tried to focus on the whispers, tried to make sense of them, I could have sworn I heard our names. Oar’s Rest could be seductive like that, stealing away slivers of us and occasionally returning the favor with tricks of the wind.

  My lips parted. I waited for him to make his move.

  He was already wearing swim trunks for his sandcastle crash course. All he had to do was yank the shirt over his head and walk to the water. He did so, keeping his eyes steadily on me.

  My uncertainty drifted away, replaced by want and need. The moment felt charged with a sensual undercurrent. Feet treaded water, hands extended in front of me, reaching for the boy I liked, for the town I loved, for the moon I would never reach.

  His fingertips touched mine. “Hi,” he said, and I was lost.

  I kissed him and the whole world fell away. It felt like the sea was just for us, lapping at our backs, sending cool shivers down our spines when the night breeze touched us.

  His mouth was hot, and he kissed me back with the kind of desperation that mirrored my own. Levi’s lips clung to mine, kissing the seam of my mouth, coaxing entry with his tongue. He tasted rich and velvety, like the black coffee he drank, and his skin was salt-stroked.

  “Levi,” I whispered against his lips. His name was a benediction. A curse.

  “Babe.” His voice had lowered several octaves, guttural to my ear.

  I felt his hands on my waist and tingles went through me, the happy, inexplicable kind that I hadn’t felt since Elodie. I laid my forehead against the curve of his shoulder. “I wasn’t sure you’d join me,” I said, my lips grazing his warm skin. I pressed a kiss against the freckle on his collarbone, and I felt his body shiver.

  “I wasn’t sure I would, either,” he admitted.

  “What changed your mind?”

  “You did.”

  My legs relaxed, sliding down his hips, caressing his legs, and finally began to tread water again. Beyond us, the town crowned against the beach.

  “We should head back,” I said.

  Levi took a shaky breath. “Yes.”

  We dripped our way back to the town, to the place where sand turned to concrete. Under the yellow glow of the streetlights, we couldn’t look at each other. I was a little taken aback by the ferocity of our ocean kiss, the hot and cold of our mouths melding together. I could still feel his mouth against mine, the seamless rhythm we’d both locked into like we’d been kissing for years. A shiver went through me. I was eager to resume where we’d left off, my body throbbing for him in every muscle, in every heartbeat—I hoped he felt the same way.

  “You’re soaked,” said Levi, running a hand over my hair. “Do you want to come over and dry off?” His words were spoken quickly, in a low whisper, as if there was anyone outside to hear us.

  Everyone was tucked away in their cozy houses. I could see the shifting colors of the television glinting against open windows, could hear the hushed rumble of dissonant voices and music.

  “Nah, I’m fine. It’ll dry on the bike ride up.” I reached back to gather my hair in a low ponytail and squeezed my hair at the base of my neck, feeling the cool water drench the back of my dress.

  “Well, at least let me cook us some dinner. We haven’t eaten.”

  His eyes glowed soft and fey in the lamplight. I looked at him from under lowered lashes, the clumpy, wet spikes obscuring most of my vision. “Okay,” I agreed. I resisted the shiver that went over my shoulders. I wondered—hoped—that he wanted to pick up where we left off.

  My hair was already starting to dry. I scrunched it in my palm, feeling the saltwater stiffness. But I trailed after him all the same, the only noise in the thick blanket of night coming from the steady glide of my bike wheels.

  His porch light was our beacon, one of the few on the street.

  “It’s always so dark here,” Levi muttered. I heard the click of his key in the lock and the sharp finality of the lock giving way. He pushed the door open.

  I stepped through the doorway, the hairs on my arms prickling. It was cooler inside.

  Absently, I said, “During the Revolutionary War, the people of Oar’s Rest had a strict curfew in place. These were the days when they were afraid of marauders and soldiers coming across the sea. When the sun set, they would turn off all their lights—the lighthouse hadn’t been built then—and the whole town would be plunged into darkness.”

  “And it’s still so dark after all this time,” he said. “Maybe the town never forgot the memory.”

  I smiled, sweeping my eyes over the house. “Memories do tend to linger here.”

  The lights flicked on and a second later, the door closed behind us. “Make yourself at home,” he said. “I’ll grab some towels.”

  Before I could assure him that I was already well on my way to dry, he disappeared up the stairs. I was too wired to sit, so I walked around the living room instead.

  The coffee table books I’d laid out for his arrival had been stacked to one side, replaced with pencils, sheets of paper, and a thin layer of dust. I ran my finger over his coffee table, creating a large heart. It was more of an absent doodle than a confession, but the thought struck me that he might not see it that way. Quickly, I used my forearm to wipe the heart away, leaving a clean, rectangular splotch in its place.

  My hand brushed a familiar notebook. Tan, nondescript cover, smudged with charcoal pencil. The moment hung suspended in front of me. I was still, eyeing it like a predator. Levi’s sketchbook. Right in front of me.

  There was no sound of footsteps, no voice to alert me of his impending arrival. I sucked in a breath and sat down. I knew it was wrong, knew it was a betrayal to violate his privacy, but it was too late—I was already reaching for it. Curiosity had me in its thrall as I remembered the secrecy with which he’d sidestepped Elodie’s nosiness a few weeks ago. She’d wanted to poke into his sketches, but he’d said whatever he’d been working on wasn’t ready to share. Maybe now it was.

  The first few pages were of buildings and churches, probably places he’d been inspired by during his travels. A ton of faces, some landscapes, even the odd floral arrangement or two. Then the sketches began to change. The pencil more ferocious, the color rich and dark and smudged with fingerprints. The gray stains had transferred to the back of the preceding page.

  One face became more common, standing out from the sea of eyes and noses and lips. A girl w
ith long hair down to mid-back, diamond-bright eyes standing out like moons, and rounded, impish eyebrows. She wasn’t smiling but she still looked back smilingly at me, a secret in her eyes and on her lips. I traced my finger over her cheekbones, recognizing myself.

  My mouth turned dry; I couldn’t look away.

  Levi still wasn’t back. I continued flipping pages. My face made an appearance every so often, in different poses, but with the same look on her beautiful face. Like she and the artist shared a secret.

  My stomach squirmed. I closed the book.

  “I’ve got the towels!” he called out.

  I jerked back to reality. It felt like so much longer, but it couldn’t have been more than a minute. Guiltily, I shot to my feet.

  Whatever might have happened between us in the future now seemed out of the question. Everything was ripped and shredded. How would I be okay with a long-distance relationship? It wouldn’t be any better than the secrecy of my relationship with Elodie. It would still be sporadic, relying on stolen moments and long treks. I couldn’t put myself through that again. I hadn’t been thinking; I’d just gotten caught up in the moment. If I felt more for him than I did for El, then I didn’t even want to imagine the carnage left behind when my heart broke all over again. Did I want to risk hooking up with Levi when our future was still uncharted? I was out of my depth—I couldn’t navigate my love life by myself. If Penny were here, she would know what the right call was. She’d put those Slytherin smarts to use and come up with a plan that didn’t Avada everything.

  Levi entered the living room—and bless his soul, there was no indication that he suspected me of invading his privacy, which only made me feel worse—and handed me a towel.

  In silence, I dabbed my arms, neck, and legs. “Thanks.” I handed it back to him.

  “So can I offer you anything before I start dinner? I can brew some cof—”

  “No,” I said quickly.

  “Oh. Right.” His lips tugged upward. “Stupid. I should have known after working in a coffee shop, coffee would be the last thing you’d want to drink.”