My Summer Romance

Chapter 25 A Weekend Alone

I thought it was time to take Adam to our family lake house, so the weekend before my birthday we drove to Huron.

"I didn't know your family has a lake house," Adam says.

"Yeah. There's a lot you still don't know about me," I smile at him.

"Oh really? Well, we got an hour drive. Spill all your secrets!" I giggle at his words.

"Okay. My mom always wanted a beach house, but we live in Ohio, right? There's no real beaches in Ohio. Unless you want to call the thin strip of sand a beach." I look over at Adam and he shrugs in response.

"Anyways, my dad surprised her for their 10th wedding anniversary with the lake house. Which was nine years ago. Any chance we got since then, we were there.

"We have three bedrooms: one for my parents, one for me, and one for our guests. There are two living rooms, one big kitchen, a bar, and more. I'm not about to spoil the rest. You'll see it when we get there."

"What?? Noooo! I need to know what I am getting into this weekend. What else is there?" Adam asked.

"Nope. Not telling! Although I will tell you there's cable."

"Hallelujah! That's reassuring," he mocks.

I roll my eyes at him. "I loved when we would go to the lake, just the three of us. My parents could go in one room to watch TV, while I watched the Disney channel. Of course during the day they would drag me outside to build sandcastles and go swimming."

"You sound like you hated it."

"No! The opposite actually. I would have rather been watching Disney channel at the time, but I'm glad we had that time together. Looking back, I wouldn't change it for the world," I confess. "My dad wanted to enjoy our time together as a family. We always took a trip around the same time every year. It would be our family vacation. Wait. Ohhh. Now I know why we never crossed paths all these years."

"Makes sense to me," Adam laughs.

I join him before saying, "Well, that's interesting. Didn't the Wilson's mention anything? They always got our mail for us.... Or did Jake say anything?"

"No. Jake has never talked about you."

"He did hate my guts then. He couldn't stand competing to be more popular than me. He only started being nice to me this past year. Ever since my parents... My dad..."

"You don't talk about your dad much," Adam peeks over at me.

"For a reason. My parents separated earlier this year. They are still working out the divorce stuff and who gets what."

"Wasn't your dad there for our first date?"

"Yeah," I answer. "He still sleeps at our house when he's working. But he will probably take the lake house in the divorce. He stays there on the weekends. This weekend, however, he has a business trip. So my mom doesn't know that we will have the place to ourselves. She also loves the lake house, so that's why it's been a long time sorting out what they're each going to take."

"So, what happened that caused them to separate?" Adam asks.

"For starters, they fought a lot once I got older. But then my mom accused my dad of cheating and the rest is history."

Adam reaches for my hand and intwines his fingers with mine. "And what do you think?"

"I don't know to be honest. I try not to think about it. I'd like to think my dad wouldn't do something like that, but who knows?"

"Have you confronted him about it? Asked him for the truth?"

"Adam! No. I'm too scared," I say the last part more quietly.