“Old friends?” I asked, nodding toward Tim. Despite the shade, I was getting hot and could feel trails of perspiration beginning to form.
“No. I think his dad was the one who told him about this pastor. He had to use MapQuest last night to find this place.” She fanned herself; in her sundress, she reminded me of a proper southern belle. “I’m glad you came.”
“So am I,” I agreed.
“Are you hungry?”
“Getting there.”
“We have some food back at the house, if you want some. And you can give Tim his clothes back. I can tell you’re hot and uncomfortable.”
“It’s not half as hot as helmets, boots, and body armor, trust me.”
She tilted her head up at me. “I like hearing you talk about body armor. Not a lot of guys in my classes talk like you. I find it interesting.”
“You teasing me?”
“Just noting for the record.” She leaned gracefully against the tree. “I think Tim’s finishing up.”
I followed her gaze, noticing nothing different. “How can you tell?”
“See how he brought his hands together? That means he’s getting ready to say good-bye. In just a second, he’s going to put his hand out, he’ll smile and nod, and then he’ll be on his way.”
I watched Tim do exactly as she predicted and amble toward us. I noted her amused expression. She shrugged. “When you live in a small town like mine, there’s not much to do other than watch people. You begin to see patterns after a while.”
There’d probably been too much Tim-watching in my humble opinion, but I wasn’t about to admit it.
“Hey there…” Tim raised a hand. “You two ready to head back?”
“We’ve been waiting for you,” she pointed out.
“Sorry,” he said. “We just got to talking.”
“You just get to talking with anyone and everyone.”
“I know,” he said. “I’m working on being more standoffish.”
She laughed, and while their familiar banter put me momentarily outside their circle of intimacy, all was forgotten when Savannah looped her arm through mine on our way back toward the car.
Everyone was up by the time we got back, and most were already in their bathing suits and working on their tans. Some were lounging on the upper deck; most were clustered together on the beach out back. Music blasted from a stereo inside the house, coolers of beer stood refilled and ready, and more than a few were drinking: the age-old cure for the hangover headache. I passed no judgment; a beer sounded good, actually, but given that I’d just been to church, I figured I should pass.
I changed my clothes, folding Tim’s the way I’d learned in the army, then returned to the kitchen. Tim had made a plate of sandwiches.
“Help yourself,” he said, gesturing. “We have tons of food. I should know—I’m the one who spent three hours shopping yesterday.” He rinsed his hands and dried them on a towel. “All right. Now it’s my turn to change. Savannah will be out in a minute.”
He left the kitchen. Alone, I looked around. The house was decorated in that traditional beachy way: lots of bright-colored wicker furniture, lamps made with seashells, small statues of lighthouses above the mantel, pastel paintings of the coast.
Lucy’s parents had owned a place like this. Not here, but on Bald Head Island. They never rented it out, preferring to spend their summers there. Of course, the old man still had to work in Winston-Salem, and he and the wife would head back for a couple of days a week, leaving poor Lucy all alone. Except for me, of course. Had they known what was happening on those days, they probably wouldn’t have left us alone.
“Hey there,” Savannah said. She’d donned her bikini again, though she was wearing shorts over the bottoms. “I see you’re back to normal.”
“How can you tell?”
“Your eyes aren’t bulging because your collar’s too tight.”
I smiled. “Tim made some sandwiches.”
“Great. I’m starved,” she said, moving around the kitchen. “Did you grab one?”
“Not yet,” I said.
“Well, dig in. I hate to eat alone.”
We stood in the kitchen as we ate. The girls lying on the deck hadn’t realized we were there, and I could hear one of them talking about what she did with one of the guys last night, and none of it sounded as though she were in town on a goodwill mission for the poor. Savannah wrinkled her nose as if to say, Way too much information, then turned to the fridge. “I need a drink. Do you want something?”
“Water’s fine.”
She bent over to grab a couple of bottles. I tried not to stare but did so anyway and, frankly, enjoyed it. I wondered whether she knew I was staring and assumed she did, for when she stood up and turned around, she had that amused look again. She set the bottles on the counter. “After this, you want to go surfing again?”
How could I resist?
We spent the afternoon in the water. As much as I enjoyed the up-close-Savannah-lying-on-the-board view I was treated to, I enjoyed the sight of her surfing even more. To make things even better, she asked to watch me while she warmed up on the beach, and I was treated to my own private viewing while enjoying the waves.
By midafternoon we were lying on towels near, but not too near, the rest of the group behind the house. A few curious glances drifted in our direction, but for the most part, no one seemed to care that I was there, except for Randy and Susan. Susan frowned pointedly at Savannah; Randy, meanwhile, was content to hang out with Brad and Susan as the third wheel, licking his wounds. Tim was nowhere to be seen.
Savannah was lying on her stomach, a tempting sight. I was on my back beside her, trying to doze in the lazy heat but too distracted by her presence to fully relax.
“Hey,” she murmured. “Tell me about your tattoos.”
I rolled my head in the sand. “What about them?”
“I don’t know. Why you got them, what they mean.”
I propped myself on one elbow. I pointed to my left arm, which had an eagle and banner. “Okay, this is the infantry insignia, and this”—I pointed to the words and letters—“is how we’re identified: company, battalion, regiment. Everyone in my squad has one. We got it just after basic training at Fort Benning in Georgia when we were celebrating.”
“Why does it say ‘Jump-start’ underneath it?”
“That’s my nickname. I got it during basic training, courtesy of our beloved drill sergeant. I wasn’t putting my gun together fast enough, and he basically said that he was going to jump-start a certain body part if I didn’t get my act in gear. The nickname stuck.”
“He sounds pleasant,” she joked.
“Oh yeah. We called him Lucifer behind his back.”
She smiled. “What’s the barbed wire above it for?”
“Nothing,” I said, shaking my head. “I had that one done before I joined.”
“And the other arm?”
A Chinese character. I didn’t want to go into it, so I shook my head. “It’s from back in my ‘I’m lost and don’t give a damn’ stage. It doesn’t mean anything.”
“Isn’t it a Chinese character?”
“Yes.”
“Then what does it mean? It’s got to mean something. Like bravery or honor or something?”
“It’s a profanity.”
“Oh,” she said with a blink.
“Like I said, it doesn’t mean anything to me now.”
“Except that maybe you shouldn’t flash it if you ever go to China.”
I laughed. “Yeah, except that,” I agreed.
She was quiet for a moment. “You were a rebel, huh?”
I nodded. “A long time ago. Well, not really that long ago. But it seems like it.”
“That’s what you meant when you said the army was something you needed at the time?”
“It’s been good for me.”
She thought about it. “Tell me—would you have jumped for my bag back then?”