Drive Me Crazy (7 page)

When Kate woke up the next morning, she was still wrapped in Lucas’s sweatshirt, her body tucked up against one edge of the futon. She had forgotten to take his shirt off after the bonfire, and when she’d gotten back to her cabin, she’d decided to wear it to bed. She held it up to her face and breathed in Lucas’s familiar scent.

“Are you smelling your boyfriend’s sweatshirt?” Gina had just dragged herself into the living room, and was pouring a cup of coffee in the kitchenette right next to Kate’s bed. Their parents had already snuck out for their morning walk, so the girls were alone in the cabin. “Had fun last night?

“Are you drinking coffee?” Kate stuffed Lucas’s sweatshirt under her and rolled onto her stomach, watching as Gina sipped coffee while she made herself a bowl of instant oatmeal for breakfast. “Yeah, I had a good night.”

“Was the big reunion as perfect as you’d imagined it?” Gina was using a mocking voice, but Kate knew she wanted the dirt.

“It was good,” Kate admitted. “You were right—he is cuter than last year!”

“And sweet, too. He sent you home with a sweatshirt. A real gentleman. What are you guys going to do today?”

“Dunno.” Kate stepped out of bed and sat at the folding table, watching Gina flutter around the kitchen. “We’re meeting up this morning. I guess I should get dressed and head down to the dock.”

“You could use a little color before he sees you in your suit,” Gina said, and slurped up her last bite of oatmeal. “You look pasty.”

Kate rolled her eyes. “Wow. Thanks, G.”

“Make sure you shave your legs too. I can see the stubblies from here.” She giggled, then traipsed off to the bedroom to change into her suit.

After scarfing down a couple of pieces of toast, Kate brushed her teeth. She hastily shaved her legs in the tiny bathroom pedestal sink, then slipped on her suit and sunscreen. The suit was a one-piece, but the cut of the legs was slightly more revealing than her previous years’ suits. The pale blue color worked well with her hair, making it look close to blond, and when her hair was braided into two loose braids down either side of her neck—as it usually was—she was pretty confident she looked cute. She threw a pair of thin sweats on over her suit and made her way out to the dock.

Sierra was already at the lake, soaking in the sun with her sister. Sierra’s sister, Sasha, was painfully shy, so when Kate showed up with her folding chair, Sasha went off to walk along the sandy shoreline alone.

“So? How was the kiss?” Sierra demanded as soon as they were alone. She had returned to her cabin early the night before, long before Kate and Lucas had called it a night.

Kate frowned. “No kiss yet. I’m sure he’s waiting until we’re alone. He’s being a gentleman, right?”

“If that’s how you see it,” Sierra teased, lifting her eyebrows.

Just then Lucas and his brother arrived. “Morning, ladies!” Lucas called. “How was your sleep, Kate?”

Kate blushed, realizing this was the first time she’d seen Lucas in the daylight. His shirt was off again, and she wanted to jump up and rub her hands against his tan skin. It looked so warm and soft, and she knew it felt amazing when he pressed against her. But she knew she had to wait until later, when they could be alone for real. “I slept well,” she answered calmly.

“You’re coming out on the boat with us today, right, Kate?”

“Oh,” Kate said, realizing that meant they would be spending their first day together on the boat with all the guys. “Sure, that sounds fun.”

Sierra looked at her quizzically, knowing Kate had never liked waterskiing—it just wasn’t her idea of fun. And Kate hated hanging out on the boat while everyone else was waterskiing. She always had. It made her feel like some sort of pitiful groupie, just sitting in the boat watching everyone else ski. Sierra also knew Kate had been hoping for some alone time with Lucas, and the boat wouldn’t be the place they could get that.

“Cool,” Lucas said. “Let me grab you a life jacket, and we can take off. Sierra, you want to come?”

“I’m happy here,” Sierra answered.

“Your loss,” Lucas’s brother, Zack, said while hauling gear from the little storage cabin under the boat up to the main deck. “Lucas and I set up a killer course yesterday. You could see us in action.”

“Whee, fun,” Kate muttered under her breath, loud enough for only Sierra to hear. She grinned at her friend, then stood up to step into the boat. “Hopefully I’ll be back soon…. Like, twenty minutes?”

“Don’t count on it,” Sierra teased.

Lucas revved the motor on the boat, signaling his readiness to leave. He held his hand out to Kate, and she stepped into the boat, fastening her life jacket. Lucas patted the seat that backed up against his. With her there, he could keep one of his hands on the wheel and another around her shoulder, which is exactly the scenario she would have set up if she had orchestrated the whole thing herself.

Kate beamed, excited that Lucas had invited her to join them, despite the fact that she never had enjoyed this exact activity. She felt special somehow, invited to be part of his day. It seemed like he wanted to integrate her into his summer, and she was willing to hang out on the boat with him if it meant they could talk and snuggle.

But about an hour later, after they’d picked up some of the other waterskiing crew from their cabins across the lake, Kate and Lucas had yet to exchange more than just a few words at a time. The roar of the boat was overwhelming, and there wasn’t a lot of opportunity to talk. There had also been absolutely no cuddling, beyond an arm draped casually across the back of her seat. For the most part Lucas was engrossed in driving the boat and making sure they got people up on their skis and safely back into the boat. The other guys mostly ignored her.

The scene reminded her of one of those movies where the guys do very manly stuff, like fight gladiators and race cars, and the poor women are stuck sitting on the sidelines watching and cheering and eating cake or doing some other useless activity. But in Kate’s scene the guys were all waterskiing and she was stuck watching and shivering and pretending to have fun from her seat in the boat. She felt like a total outsider. It wasn’t fun to sit there like a limp fish just watching. She would much rather have been doing her own thing while Lucas was waterskiing, then have gotten some time alone with him later to catch up.

Right when she had resolved to tell him just that, Lucas turned around in his seat to say, “Have you ever skied? Want to try?”

“Um, yeah,” Kate said, answering his first question. “I skied a few times when I was younger, but I seriously lack coordination. It’s just not my thing.”

“That’s cool,” he said, nodding and turning back to look at the open lake in front of him.

“So, um, what else do you like to do?” Kate had to shout this over the roar of the boat motor. The question embarrassed her, but it had slipped out before she had been able to think about it. It sounded like she knew nothing about him, which wasn’t true, but she realized they’d never really talked about anything outside their summer world.

She only vaguely knew about his life beyond Love from his e-mails and texts over the past year. She knew he played hockey, and she knew he’d been up for homecoming king (but hadn’t won), and that he was going to be a freshman at Notre Dame in the fall, but other than that, he was sort of a mystery. She wanted to know simple things, such as what he liked to do for fun on a regular day.

“What?” Lucas yelled over the roar of the motor.

“Nothing,” Kate said, happy to have the opportunity to retract her stupid question.

“You look good with your hair all wild like that,” Lucas said, and grinned. He twisted a strand of hair that had been blown free from her braids around his finger. “It’s nice having you on the boat with me. You sure you don’t want to try waterskiing again?”

Kate shook her head. “I’ll try just about anything else, but not that.”

“Okay. I don’t want you to get hurt or anything, anyway,” Lucas said seriously. “You can just sit there and look gorgeous.” He held her cheek in his palm and grinned.

Kate gritted her teeth when she realized he wasn’t kidding. Now she felt even more useless, and felt like a total doormat of a girl to boot—what a waste of time. Just sit there and look pretty. Ugh.

It was sweet that he’d called her gorgeous, but she could take care of herself, and didn’t need him to protect her. Now she was sort of tempted to go skiing, just to show him she could handle herself just fine in the water
and
look good afterward, thankyouverymuch.

But since she truly didn’t
want
to water-ski, she decided it was far more respectable to go back to the dock and hang out with her friends while Lucas got the skiing out of his system. Then they could get some quality together time later—when they could really talk and build their relationship. So the next time he slowed the boat down to switch skiers in the water, Kate said, “Lucas, would you mind taking me back to the resort? Maybe we can hang out later?”

Lucas obliged, and steered the boat back toward the resort to drop Kate off. Now Sierra and Alexis were sitting on the dock, along with Adam and one of his brothers, Danny. Jake, who worked at the resort, was cleaning the canoes on shore and flirting with Alexis. It was pretty obvious that he was making headway—she had her head tipped back, laughing hilariously at something he had said.

When Lucas pulled the boat up to the dock, Jake strolled over to catch it and tie it up. “Hey, no worries, man,” Lucas said. “We’re going back out. You can leave us untied. I just needed to drop this beautiful girl off first.”

Everyone on the dock was staring at Kate and Lucas as he helped her out of the boat. She stood on the driver’s seat to climb onto the dock, stumbling slightly when the boat rocked in the water. Lucas, who stood beneath her, held her hand to steady her. But just as she reached her leg out to step onto the dock, he grabbed her around the middle and pulled her back down so she was standing on the seat and he was standing beneath her on the floor of the boat.

He spun her around and his green eyes shone up at her in the midday sun. Still holding her around her middle, he eased her down toward him. Lucas wrapped his arms around her and she could feel the heat from his tan arms penetrating through her own cool skin. His face was close to hers, and his upper lip curled into a smile before bringing her in for a soft, sensual kiss. Her eyes closed, and the boat spun beneath her as the kiss pierced through her body. She melted into his arms, and felt the warmth of his lips against her own.

It was the kiss she’d been waiting a year for…and the wait had been worth it.

“My legs feel like they weigh about three tons,” Kate huffed out between steps. That afternoon she and Sierra had decided to go running—but Kate had forgotten how much she disliked it. She preferred exercises that integrated naturally into her daily life—walking, biking, swimming in the lake. Sierra’s long legs propelled her easily down the gravel road, but Kate felt like she was hauling a third grader on her back.

“You’re doing great,” Sierra cheered. “You’ll feel great later—full of energy.”

“I highly doubt that,” Kate grumbled good-naturedly.

Sierra laughed, checking her watch. “We can head back whenever you want. I need to turn around pretty soon anyway. My mom wants us to have family dinner tonight.”

“Ooh, family dinner. That sounds promising.” Kate glanced at Sierra, who had been pretty silent about the state of her parents’ reconciliation since they’d gotten to the lake.

“They’re trying to make it work,” Sierra acknowledged. “It looked like you and Lucas were trying to make it work this morning too,” she teased.

The kiss with Lucas that morning had been sensational, there was no denying that. But as soon as the moment had ended, Kate had been embarrassed that Lucas had chosen the dock as the site of their first kiss of the summer. She had felt really exposed, and would much rather have been somewhere alone with him. Her parents could have seen them, which would have mortified her no end—not to mention the fact that her dad would
not
be cool with her hooking up with someone less than a day after she’d gotten there. He didn’t know the backstory, and she was pretty certain he wouldn’t approve even if he did.

But still, a kiss was a kiss, and it had felt amazing. “Yeah, the kiss was great.”

“Great?” Sierra asked, clearly expecting something more from Kate. “Just great?”

“It was incredible, okay?” Kate slowed down to talk. “Can we walk now?”

Sierra stopped running and reached her arms over her head to stretch. “Why are you so much less enthusiastic about the kiss
after
it happened than you were before?”

“I don’t know,” Kate admitted. “I guess I was just a little embarrassed that our first kiss of the year was so public, you know?”

“Public? It’s not like he kissed you on the JumboTron at Yankee Stadium…. We were the only ones who saw it.”

“I know,” Kate was sweating from their run. She hoped she would cool off a little before they got back to the resort. There was nothing less flattering than blotchy post-run skin.

“Was it a little awkward because Adam was there?” Sierra was clearly trying to sound casual.

“Why would that be awkward?” Kate asked defensively.

Sierra smiled knowingly. “It just seemed like you guys were maybe starting to get along a little more at the end of the road trip. I guess I was just thinking—”

“Sierra!” Kate swatted at her friend. “That’s crazy! Adam? You think I have a thing for Adam?”

“Not necessarily. Maybe it’s the other way around? Maybe it’s mutual?”

“Sierra! Stop.”

“Okay, okay,” Sierra said. “I just wanted to check, since it seemed like there was some chemistry. But maybe not.”

“Seriously, you have to stop.” Kate looked at Sierra sternly. “Adam and I fought the whole road trip.”

“The fighting seemed a lot like flirting.”

“Okay, enough.” Kate stopped walking, since they were at the outskirts of the resort and she wanted to be done with this conversation before they were within earshot of anyone else. “I’m with Lucas. You know that. I’ve been waiting all winter to be with him again, and now we’re here and it’s going to be an amazing, romantic, perfect summer. I just need some time alone with him and it will all be incredible.”