Summer Nights Words Novels & Stories

“I’m sure you and Jessie can get in plenty of beach time over the next few days. Just like old times.” Aiden laughed, for the first time that morning feeling carefree and in her element, elated at the sheer luck of the timing. All of them, Jessie, Mitch, herself, and some other long time friends had practically made a career out of life by the shore, taking full advantage of Adelaide’s cottage being right on the water with its own private little stretch of beach, and grateful for every moment. It could prove all too easy to fall back into that breezy rhythm. “Keep talking like that and I might have to extend this trip into the whole summer.”

To be very honest, the few days following my seventeenth birthday have seemed pretty out of the ordinary to me. On Monday I woke up in what appeared to me to be an after math of a bath in a cold pool of water. All of my clothes were drenched down to my underwear. I expected my bed to be just as wet so I’d know that it was an after birthday prank that Cole, my little brother, tried to pull. Emphasis on tried . That piece of furniture however was very much dry. Tuesday, things got even creepier. The crows on the tree outside my window kept me up the entire night like some form of nocturnal music concert with the occasional hoot from owls. No matter how tight I cushioned my ears. Their dark mus

Chapter 37: The Names the Sea Keeps The summer that followed was the kind people remember in fragments years later: heat that pressed against the skin like a second body, cicadas that sang until the air itself vibrated, nights so clear the Milky Way looked spilled across black velvet. Veronica and Ethan lived those days with deliberate slowness, as though each one might be audited by time itself. They rose with the sun, brewed coffee on the terrace while dew still clung to the lavender, walked the cliff path before the heat thickened, returned to shade and open windows and the slow turning of ceiling fans that stirred memories more than air.

July is such a tedious month. It’s the stitch between a hot morning and a rainy afternoon. You wake up feeling hot and sweaty, but you go to bed covering yourself with blankets due to the rainy cold. Soleil used to call these the restless days, when the red-hot deities began to stir, and the cold ones began to rest. When the dreamers are more prone to failed ideas, and the travelers will always get lost. Luke has always had the tendency to suffer from both.

Silly questions, a funny face. It was summertime. Warm weeks spliced with days of rain. The wide sky and its clear, open blue calling people out from beyond their gated walls and routine paths. Everywhere we went, the parks were full of people. More chaos than quiet. Fat ladies in shorts with big cloth shoulder bags, their too-white skin singed to a bright pink by the stinging yellow sun. Big men with sunglasses and bald spots standing around with their hands on their hips, their movements all in wide gestures—elbows out, fingers splayed. Shoulders rolling. Smiles pressed so deep across their mouths they might even have been real. They almost always had kids with them, the women and the men,

A feeling Asher couldn't quite put into words. By this point Summer had fully started to let him in and on the nights her step father's rage was at its peak she would seek him out directly for a safe haven. On those nights Asher would be awoken to the sound of tapping on his bedroom window and find Summer standing there her blue eyes staring into his own golden ones pleading.

With each caress, Summer melted further into me, her body swaying gently with the rhythm of the swing. I kissed her neck, trailing kisses along her shoulder. “You’re so beautiful,” I murmured. Summer dropped her head back, a soft sigh escaping her lips as she surrendered to the pleasure. “I promise I am not going to hurt you, but if you feel uncomfortable during this, use your safe word and I’ll stop.” She nodded, her chest still rising and falling in a rhythm. “What’s the safe word, Summer?” I asked her. “Sweet,” she quicky responded.

**Summer's Residence** Ava was about to knock on Summer's door when it swung open. "You've never smiled so sheepishly at me like that," Summer said, eyeing Ava's expression. "I knew you were snooping," Ava replied with a sigh. The kids heard her voice and ran to her, sharing stories and laughter. After spending time with them, Ava turned to Summer. "Why don't you take the day off from babysitting?" "Don't you have to go to the hospital today?" Summer asked.

July came in loud. Not the pack — the pack had its own summer rhythm, unhurried and expansive, the long light evenings and the open windows and the particular ease of a community that had done its winter work and was now in the season of the rewards of it. The loudness was the world outside the territory — the heat that came over the ridge with genuine conviction, the creek running fast with the mountain melt, the birds who had been conducting increasingly elaborate arguments in the trees above the east road since dawn.

The Kingdom of Summer celebrated the Summer Solstice, thanking the Mother for the long days, as the sun shone more and more, and the people sacrificed two days of their lives to dance, celebrate, and honor the Mother. The Kingdom of Autumn celebrated Autumn Day at the end of October, illuminating their kingdom with lanterns depicting the Mother, offering a large amount of crops, and presenting the softest, most finely made blankets. The Kingdom of Spring celebrated Spring Day in late March, where the king used his powers to make everything bloom abundantly, offering a lamb and a large oak tree as signs of their gratitude. I closed the book and sat up. My head couldn’t take in any more inform