Summer's Desire (39 page)

It's not the first time I've seen him
surrounded by tools and components, holding a solder and bending over some
piece of hardware with a look of utter focus on his beautiful face. But it's
the first time that, watching him, I've found myself sinking into a roiling sea
of melancholy and tenderness and so much love that I can barely withstand the
waves breaking over me. God, how I've missed him! And how much more there would
be to miss of him now, were I to lose him again.

He's looked up from his task, looked up at
me as I'm just sitting there, watching him and missing him already and loving
him until I'm crazy with it.
And he's waiting for an answer, stupid!

I clear my throat and tease, "Why
would you think I was staring at you? Arrogant much?" I hold up the book
reclining on my legs. "I do have a test tomorrow for which I have to
study." I almost pat myself on the back for my cunningly formulated
reply—now that I'm spending so much time with Seth again, I'm definitely
regaining my old skill at tweaking the truth without telling an outright lie
that he would catch instantly—but then he says dryly:

"While you're studying so hard,
maybe it'd be useful if you didn't hold the book upside down." I glance at
my book and my cheeks turn neon-red. He grins. "Just sayin'."

He sets the solder down and comes to sit
down beside me on the sofa, crowding me in. "Or maybe you could just talk
to me," he tells me softly, grabbing my left hand and lacing our fingers.
He leans in for a kiss. "Maybe I can help."

"Don't you have to finish your
servo continuity thingy?"

His face fills with loving amusement.
"It's a servo modification for continuous rotation, Sunny. And I'll finish
it tomorrow."

Okay, Summer, you wretched coward, now's
the time! Put up or shut up!

In as neutral a
voice as I can manage over the trembling inside me, I tell him, "I was
wondering what'll happen after you graduate. I mean, I've already figured that
you'll be leaving Rockford. But will you ever come back?"
Will you come
back to see me if I'm still here?

He starts playing absently with my
fingers, but his attention on me feels as keen as a sharpened blade. "For
many years," he says, "I lived for the day, basically, when I could
get the hell out of this town."

"But... why? This town was home to
us."

He smiles sadly. "My home was you,
Sunny. After you left and apparently betrayed me, I hated this town because
everything here reminded me of you and of what I'd lost."

"But Seth, now that we know the
truth about the past... I mean, you don't feel that way anymore, do you?"

"I don't. But I don't feel any
particular attachment either. This town is just a random place for me now. Once
I leave for college, I won't come back."

I wince at the unexpected blow. He's
really never coming back? Not even to see me?

"That's why you didn't do anything
about your apartment," I croak on a flash of insight. The neglected state
of this place just hadn't
fit
Seth's inherent thoroughness. "I
mean, you keep it clean and neat, but you haven't changed the faulty lock,
haven't painted the walls, haven't repaired the broken furniture. In fact, I
bet you haven't changed anything at all... Because this has always been just a
passing stop for you, hasn't it? Until you finished school and could finally
get away." He hadn't used his hard-earned money to make himself a home
here, but to buy a car with which to leave forever.

He's watching me very intently.
"You're right. This place is just where I crash and keep my stuff, and I
didn't give enough of a shit to work on making it look better. Hell, I didn't
even care enough to look for a better place to live in than this hellhole. Why
waste the money? I decided long ago that my time here was temporary; I just had
to be patient while I served my sentence. Sunny, I want a hell of a lot more from
life than this small town can give me."

My heart is throbbing painfully. I
inhale deeply, try to marshal my thoughts.
Calm down, Summer. He's just
saying that he doesn't want a small-town life, not that he's breaking up with
you!
Why on earth am I getting so upset at the idea that he'll be leaving
Rockford behind? In truth, it's highly unlikely that I'll be here anyway.

Actually, I haven't the least clue
where
I'll be in a couple of months. Yes, I'll live with Seth until the end of the
school year, or if I'm really lucky until he leaves for college before August,
but after that it's anybody's guess what'll happen with me. Greg Anderson will
hardly take me back—I pretty much cut all ties with him when I threw in my lot
with Seth—and besides, I wouldn't want to live under the same roof as Jessica ever
again.

So any way I look at it, after this
summer I'll be cast adrift for one more year and a half, until I turn eighteen.
After I'm no longer a ward of the State, however... I'll be able to do whatever
I want, go wherever I decide. I could be with Seth if he agreed to wait for me.
I need to learn more about his plans.

"What do you intend to do?" I
ask him.

"For starters, I'll play college
ball. Then I'll turn pro."

"You mean, get drafted into an NFL
team?"

"Yes, ideally."

"Will that be difficult to
accomplish?" I have complete faith that Seth can obtain whatever he decides.
I just wonder what it will take for him to get where he wants to be.

His expression becomes very intense.
"Yeah, it'll be difficult. But it's a worthwhile challenge, and after I
make it, the money I'll earn, carefully managed, will set us up for life."
Us?
"I'll give you the world, Sunny," he adds gravely.
Does
that mean he'll wait for me when he leaves?

He leans down for another kiss me, and I
immediately open my mouth to his. The taste and scent and feel of him addle my
senses, and by the time he ends the kiss, my heart is almost bursting out of my
chest with exhilaration.

Gruffly, I ask him, "For which college
have you decided? Will and the others told me you've had a lot of scholarship
offers."

He grins wickedly. "Ah, so you've
been pumping people for information about me?"

I blush. "It sort of came up in the
conversation."

His grin grows wider. "Don't worry,
Sunny baby. I have lots of fans already, so I'll sign you up too, no
problem."

I glare at him. He chuckles.

"Well?" I snap.
"College?"

He keeps looking at me with a sparkle in
his eyes, but his voice is very serious when he says, "It's true I've had many
offers. But for my final decision I was considering just four offers that I
thought looked best in terms of the team and the financial conditions."

"So from what universities were those
offers?"

"Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio State, and
Virginia Tech."

"You're considering Virginia
Tech?" I choke out. "That's awfully far away!" And it's not like
we can afford plane tickets to easily cross the distance. We'd never be able to
see each other on weekends! Maybe not even on vacations!

He cocks his head searchingly.
"Sunny, my final answer was due three weeks ago; I chose University of Michigan.
But what are you even thinking? No matter where I go, you're coming with me. As
long as that's settled, why should it matter where we go?" Then, with a
note of bitterness: "It's not like we have ties to any one place, or family
that we'd like to stay close to."

Oh my God, he wants me to go with him?! I
can't believe it; all this time I've been worrying myself sick because of the
unknown future, and meanwhile he was perfectly at ease, perfectly confident in
his belief that I'd be going with him wherever he went! For crying out loud, he
probably didn't even think to mention
that
little tidbit because he
thought it needless to point out what, for him, was obvious: that we'd be
staying together no matter what. Typical Seth.

And now I'm flying, elated... but then
reality brings me crashing back to earth.

"Seth, I can't just pick up and go
with you!" No matter how much I want to. "I'm a ward of the State."

"We'll apply for your emancipation.
You're already sixteen. I emancipated myself when I was your age."

"But your case was different! You
had an unstable parent, had been holding a job and supporting yourself for
three years, and you were already a trained mechanic. I, on the other
hand..." I shake my head. "No judge will grant
me
emancipation! I still have one year of high school left and I don't have the
means to support myself. Sure, I can always find a part-time job like the one I
hold now, but given my age and lack of professional skills, the job can only be
low-paying. I can't earn enough to be financially independent!"

"I'll support you," he says promptly.

I shoot him an incredulous look.
"First, there's no way that will fly with any judge. Emancipating a minor
because her collegiate boyfriend promises to support her? Yeah, right! Second,
how would you even support me? Where would we live?"

His gaze turns enigmatic. "I'd get
the money."

Okay, that's weird. How can he state that
so confidently, as if it was the easiest thing to do in the world? I let it go
for now. "Just your assurance alone won't cut it with a judge. The fact is
you'll be in college, studying hard and training and playing football even
harder. You won't even have time for a part-time job. And your full-ride
scholarship may cover tuition, university fees, and room and board—but for you
alone."

"Sunny, there's no 'me alone'
anywhere in this scenario. It's the two of us—we're a unit. We'll just find a
place to live together off-campus, and the money from my scholarship and grants
should be enough to cover our basic living costs. For everything else, I'll get
the money myself."

"How?"

His jaw clenches, and his expression
remains frustratingly inscrutable. But his right and my left hands are still
interlaced, and his thumb slides soothingly over my skin... back and forth.

After a long silence, I finally say, "It's
a moot point anyway. As long as I'm still a ward of the State, I have to go
where I'm sent; where I'd like to be doesn't come into it."

"Sunny... worst case scenario, we
run away together."

I jolt in surprise. His hand tightens on
me, but I don't even think of pulling it back. It's just that I don't relish
the thought of becoming a fugitive. I still have my secondary education to
finish, and I wouldn't be able to enroll for my Senior year without proper documentation.

Besides—"Doesn't the police look
for teenage runaways?"

He frowns. "I read about that
somewhere. Generally, the police won't pursue cases where the runaway is
seventeen already. Michigan Law is muddled on that point. But you're sixteen,
so... Fuck, I don't know."

Voice hoarse and heart throbbing at the
blasphemy I'm about to utter, I say, "Maybe we could wait for each other?"

His eyes sharpen on my face with unbearable
intensity. "You mean, separate now?"

"Just for a year, until I finish
high school."

"Over my dead body." He tells
it so calmly, so somberly, that it's worse than if he had shouted it. Because I
know he means it.

"Seth..."

"If you can't come with me, then
I'll go with you. Doesn't matter where."

Oh. My. God. "Let me be very clear,
Seth: you giving up your scholarship,"—your one hard-earned chance for the
brilliant future you deserve—"that'll happen over
my
dead body."
Quietly, I add, "If there's no other way, I'll run away with you."

The tension cording his muscular body
doesn't dissipate. "Sunny, if it comes to that, the police won't find
you—I'll make sure of that. And U-M won't do in that case. We should leave the
state."

It shatters me: that he cares so much
about me, that he'd do all this for me. And it heals me and makes me so light
with sheer happiness that I feel as if I could fly. But I don't want him to
ever sacrifice anything on my account.

"Seth, didn't you say that your
already communicated your final decision weeks ago? To the universities and the
coaches and so on?"

His jaw clenches harder. "I didn't
sign anything yet."

"But they have your verbal
agreement."

"Yes. Sunny, you know my word's
always been solid—but you're more important. The coaches of the four teams I
told you about all wanted me very badly. If I contact one of the other three,
say that I changed my mind—I won't be in breach of any signed contract, and
that coach will take me, Sunny. So it's okay."

"Seth, your choice of college is a
very important decision, and it will affect the rest of your life. You had your
reasons for choosing University of Michigan in the first place. I don't want
you to make another choice now because of me and come to regret it later."

He snorts. "Get real, Sunny! You
figure in all decisions I make now. And I won't regret anything. Just tell me
this: you want us to stay together?"