go?”
Instead of answering, Casey walked right into Ethan’s arms and kissed him, cold lips against cold lips. Momentarily surprised, Ethan righted himself and kissed him back, arms coming up around his waist. Would he ever get used to the fact that he could kiss Casey now whenever he wanted to?
Probably not.
He certainly hoped not.
Pulling back, Casey kissed his cheek and said, “Come on.”
“Come on where?”
“I was thinking we could have that first date we never got around to.” Casey led him to the path by the hand and shook snow off his shoes.
“Yeah?” Ethan wanted to know how the interview had gone, but he supposed that could wait. Their arms brushed as they walked, and Ethan snuck a new green-and-brown hootie into the pocket of Casey’s coat, a little surprise for him to find later. “What are we going to do?”
“Go for a drive,” Casey said like he’d been thinking about this for a long time. Maybe he had. “I thought we could drive around to all of the covered bridges within an hour or so. They’ve got to be pretty with this snow, right? I just want to change first and grab the map I picked up at the tourism center. I outlined the bridges in driving order, one that made the most sense based on our location.”
Of course he had.
An entire day, just the two of them? Casey navigating while Ethan drove? Taking silly selfies in front of all the bridges? Finding other small towns to play tourist in?
Slinging an arm around Casey’s shoulders, Ethan kissed his temple. “Yeah. Let’s go on our first date.”
Epilogue
JULY—SEVEN MONTHS LATER
Ethan waited in line at a coffee shop in the Church Street Marketplace in Burlington and checked his watch. Casey would be coming in the door any second, still riding the high of a day studying artifacts salvaged from the underwater wreck in Lake Champlain. They’d order cold drinks to beat the July heat and sit at their favorite corner table against the window, people watching as they recounted their days.
It was a routine they’d established upon moving to Burlington in May, Casey as the only freshman to have been accepted to the archeology program’s summer field placement, and Ethan as a hockey camp coach to underprivileged kids. Ethan still remembered the shock on Casey’s face when he’d received the phone call from Professor Wainwright. Despite having once told Ethan that he wouldn’t be too disappointed if he wasn’t accepted, he’d floated on a cloud of disbelief and happiness for days after that phone call.
They’d enlisted Roman and Cody’s help in finding a place to live for the summer, which had been more fruitful than either he or Casey had expected: Roman and Cody had a teammate who was returning to his hometown for the summer and was looking to sublet his house. When said teammate had found out Ethan and Casey were college students, he’d waived his rental fee.
“Just don’t trash the place with your parties,” he’d said when they’d met in early spring to sort out the details.
Ethan and Casey had both laughed. Parties. Please.
Living together was full of surprises. Ethan discovered that Casey hated using wet towels, so he had several laid out on the towel bar in the bathroom, and he used whichever one was dry. Casey discovered that Ethan was mildly obsessive about not letting dirty dishes pile up in the sink.
No doubt they’d continue learning new quirks about each other when they moved into Joyce’s mother-in-law cottage at the end of August. In a turn of events he hadn’t seen coming, Joyce had agreed to rent the second cottage—the larger, two-bedroom one—to Theo and Harkrader.
Moving forward in line, Ethan eyed the drink options on the menu board behind the counter. In the prep area, one of the regular baristas was training someone new.
Ethan flexed his fingers, a habit he’d developed this past winter. The bitter winter cold had made his bones ache, especially in his fingers, and it hadn’t fully retreated come summer, not with his daily camp coaching at the Sport U Arena.
He had a feeling it was a chronic ache that he’d have to live with forever.
The good news was that he’d be giving his hands a bit of a break when classes started back up in September—no more labs with their precise measurements and tiny instruments. He’d been so impressed with Sport U Foundation’s work, and from what he’d seen at Burlington’s satellite office when he shadowed Chuck Yano, that he’d changed his