“You did good too, Katia,” I said. “You moved really well out there.”
She scowled and shook her head. “Not well enough. Not fast enough. I didn’t think that guy would be as good as he was. I almost let him get the best of me. But it won’t happen again. I’ll make sure of that.”
She looked at me, her hazel eyes locking with mine. A second later, her rock-hard determination flooded my body, along with hot, desperate need.
Sweat popped out on my forehead from the strength and burning heat of her emotions. I dropped my gaze from hers, but her fiery feelings kept simmering in my own body. Katia’s desire to win the tournament was much more intense than I’d expected.
We talked about the tournament for a few more minutes, along with music, movies, and more. All around us, folks finished their food and got up from their tables. Some of them drifted back to the fairgrounds to play carnival games or get junk food, but most folks headed down to the water’s edge to bake themselves on the beach, play volleyball and badminton in the sand, and swim out to the floating platforms in the middle of the lake and back again.
Katia got up, dumped her plate and cup in the trash, and came back over to our table. She gave Felix a sly smile.
“You want to get out of here?” she asked in a soft voice. “Go to our spot at the old boathouse and finally catch up?”
“Um, well, sure,” Felix said. “That sounds . . . nice.”
Katia frowned, hearing the reluctance in his voice. “Is something wrong? I thought that we’d hang out tonight, just like we did last year. I’ve been looking forward to it. Haven’t you?”
“Sure,” Felix repeated, trying to smile but not having much luck at it. “It’ll be nice to talk with an old friend.”
Her frown deepened. “Old friend?”
“Well, yeah,” he said. “That’s what we are now, right?”
She kept staring at him, as if she couldn’t believe what he’d said—that he’d just put her squarely in the friend zone.
Devon got to his feet. “Lila, Poppy, why don’t we go down to the lake and let Felix and Katia talk in private?”
Poppy and I shot to our feet, along with Felix. We didn’t want to stay and see what was about to happen, but Katia had other ideas. She didn’t want to wait to talk to Felix alone. Instead, she took a step back, slapped her hands on her hips, and glared at him.
“Are you avoiding me?” she asked point-blank.
A guilty blush crept up Felix’s neck. “Of course not. Why would you think that?”
“Oh, I don’t know—maybe the fact that you haven’t called me and that you’ve barely responded to any of my texts while I’ve been in town. Plus, every time I see you, you always run off somewhere else.”
That guilty blush flooded his cheeks, turning his bronze skin as red as a tomato. Felix might be a great flirt, but he was a terrible liar, and he couldn’t even look at her without wincing—a guilty expression if ever there was one.
“Come on, guys,” Devon repeated. “Let’s go down to the lake.”
Katia snapped up her hand, stopping him. “Don’t bother. This won’t take long.”
She kept staring at Felix. He looked back at her for a second, then dropped his gaze and started drawing a line in the grass with the toe of his sneaker.
Katia’s eyes narrowed, and her face hardened with understanding. “There’s someone else, isn’t there? That’s why you stopped calling and texting me a few months ago.”
Felix winced again. “Yeah. I met someone earlier this year. I didn’t plan on it. It just . . . happened.”
“I understand.” But the cold, clipped tone in Katia’s voice said the opposite. “Who is she?”
“Does it really matter?”
Hurt shimmered in her hazel eyes. “No, I suppose it doesn’t.”
She kept looking at Felix, and he back at her, with Devon, Poppy, and I all shifting uncomfortably on our feet.
“Well, then, I guess there’s nothing else to say,” Katia said in a stiff voice. “I’ll see you guys around.”
“Katia, wait—” Felix called out, but she ignored him.
Katia hurried away from the picnic table. She started toward the trees, but Vance called out to her. Katia looked at Vance, then Felix. After a second, she squared her shoulders and went over to where Vance was sitting with his friends.
Vance got up, pulled off his hat, and swept his cloak out around him, just as smoothly as he had during the tournament. He was the only person on the beach who hadn’t bothered to change out of his ren-faire hat, cloak, and boots. He grabbed Katia’s hand and pressed a kiss to her knuckles, still playing the whole knight shtick. Then he straightened up, grinned, and started talking. Katia laughed at whatever he said, although the sound seemed brittle and hollow to me.
Devon, Poppy, and I all looked at Felix.
“Way to go, Romeo,” I said. “Way to let her down easy.”
Felix sighed. “I didn’t mean to hurt her. Really, I didn’t.”