by Heron, Farah
I rested my head on his chest for a second. I wished we could stay like this for a while, but we had a long day planned.
“We good to go?” I asked. “Google says it’s twenty-five minutes to the falls. But that’s assuming no traffic. Might be busy today.”
Gia checked her phone. “Cam’s on his way. He’ll be here in three.”
My eyes narrowed. “Why is Cameron on his way?”
Gia had talked about nothing except her new “boo” since their date Friday night. She was quite sure he was “the one.” But since this was her fourth “the one” this year alone, I wasn’t expecting him to last longer than a week.
“He’s coming to Niagara Falls with us,” she said.
“He is? Since when?”
“Since I asked him. I told him we were going to get new pictures for our Instas, and he wants to join us. Don’t worry, he knows how important your fashion shots are; he’ll stay out of our way while we’re doing those.”
She glanced at Matteo, who just shrugged. “Fine with me,” he said. “The more the merrier.”
A large white Jeep pulled up in front of the house. Gia squealed with joy.
A guy who I assumed was Cameron Simons got out of the driver’s side. Then Addison McLaughlin got out of the passenger side. Okay. What exactly was she doing here?
“Gigi!” Cameron said, grinning. Dude looked exactly as I expected. Blond and blandly good looking. Totally not my type, but I could see the appeal.
Gia threw her arms around him. “Cameron! Yay! You’re here!”
“Hi, Tahira!” Addison smiled.
After Gia excitedly introduced everyone, Cameron smiled at Gia. “Hope you don’t mind Addie tagging along; she was dying to see the falls.”
I spoke before Gia had a chance to respond. “You live twenty minutes from the falls, Addison. I assume you’ve seen them before.”
Addison shrugged. “It’s been a while. Besides, I heard you were doing a fashion shoot—I thought you might need help. I took pictures for our school yearbook.”
Matteo shook his head. “The Mustang can’t fit five people.”
Cameron waved his hand. “No issue. I can drive. I can fit five big hockey players in the Jeep; y’all will be no problem.”
Gia looked at me sheepishly. She knew how I felt about Addison.
I sighed. Maybe I was being a little judgy. I needed to let this go so it wouldn’t spoil my date with Matteo.
“Great.” I smiled. “Let me get my things.”
Once we were settled in Cameron’s car (me between Matteo and Addison, in the back seat), I noticed Rowan Johnston standing in front of his garage, watching us. I shrank back in the seat, hoping he wouldn’t see me. I wasn’t exactly sure why I cared, but I didn’t like him seeing me with Addison and Cameron after the stuff I’d said about them Friday night.
After a mostly quiet (well, not really quiet—Cameron’s loud alt-rock meant none of us could really carry a conversation) drive, we were in Niagara Falls. Cameron parked in a pay lot, and we braved swarms of tourists and mist to find a spot with a good view of the falls for the first photo shoot. I’d only been in Bakewell about a week, but it already seemed weird to be surrounded by so many strangers. Weird, but good. I’d missed the hustle of crowds.
“This is awesome,” Matteo said, squeezing my hand. We were a few paces in front of the others. “The last time I was here, with cousin Daniela from Cleveland, it was raining so hard we couldn’t see a thing. These pictures will be epic.”
“I want to get some of all of us,” Addison said, jogging to catch up with us. “I’ll make sure to tag you!”
“Sure,” I said. Whatever. I was determined not to let Addison’s social climbing bother me today.
“Are we just doing pictures here at the falls?” she asked. After I nodded, she smiled. “If you’d told me about all this before, I could have called my cousin. He works at one of the vineyards nearby. Last year I surprised Rowan with a behind-the-scenes tour of the place. He loved it. He spent so much time drawing the vines and the leaves. It’s such a great spot for pictures, but it’s not open to the public like the other vineyards around here. Let me know anytime; I’ll call him and get you in.”
That was actually a very generous offer. I was not interested in taking pictures of my stuff surrounded by grapevines . . . but I knew how rare it was to get behind-the-scenes access to these incredibly photogenic spots.
I smiled. “That’s really cool of you.”
Addison shrugged. “Seriously, though, if you ever need help scouting locations, let me know. I know the area like the back of my hand.”
After finding a clearing, Matteo and I posed in front of the black wrought iron railing with the falls behind us—him standing with his feet shoulder width apart and arms crossed, and me with one arm draped on his shoulder. Gia took the shots.
We took some more of Matteo, and then me alone; then I got some of Gia, and Gia and Cameron, for her Instagram. The light was awesome, and the heavy mist in the air from the water was adding such a cool effect in the pictures. I couldn’t help but be giddy. These were going to look so good.
“Let’s get one of the four of us!” Gia said, taking my camera from me and handing it to Addison. I dropped my arm around Gia’s neck, resting my head on her shoulder. Matteo had his arm around my waist, and Cameron was nestled in behind Gia. We were laughing as Addison took the picture. Eventually someone offered to take a shot of all five of us, so Addison gave the stranger her phone and joined us.
After Gia, Matteo, and I changed in the bathroom full of soggy tourists in the gift shop near the falls, we walked ten minutes over to our next location. The Clifton Hill district was filled with the absolute cheesiest tacky tourist shops, wax museums, haunted houses, and “believe it or not” emporiums. This was totally an ironic setting for a fashion shoot, and I was excited to see my designs contrasted against the garish backdrops and souvenir T-shirts.
I was wearing an outfit I’d made a few months ago—a body-con jersey calf-length dress made of a double-knit geometric print, with a color-blocked corduroy shirt over it. Matteo was wearing jeans and a shirt with Pollock-esque paint splatters, along with mirrored shades. We looked hot. The pictures were amazing. I especially loved the one with the massive King Kong hanging off a building behind us.
Spending the day with Addison was . . . not what I expected. She seemed really, genuinely interested in photography. She asked me intelligent questions about our process and was pretty good at picking out what was working and what wasn’t in the shots. I even got her to take some of the shots so Gia, Matteo, and I could be together. Cameron, on the other hand, looked bored after half an hour and made unsubtle hints about his stomach growling. But Addison seemed to understand how important it was to get these pictures perfect.
“There’s a bit of a glare in the ones I took at the upside-down house,” she said, cringing, as I flipped through pictures on the back of the camera. “I’m sorry; we can head back over if you want?”
“Seriously?” Cameron asked. “Does it matter that much?”
Gia looked at me pleadingly. Clearly making her boo happy was as important as achieving perfection in these pictures.
I shook my head. “Nah, it’s fine. I think we’re good.” I meant it. We had a ton of great pictures.
Matteo and I would have been fine if we headed back to Bakewell next, as we were counting on some alone time before he needed to get on the road back to Toronto. But we were outnumbered by the others, so we all packed into a small burger place for a late lunch.
“So, how’re y’all liking living in the magic garden?” Addison asked me after we ordered our meals.
I raised a brow. “Magic garden?”
Cameron laughed. Clearly this was some Bakewell joke. “Last year a bunch of cops showed up at the Johnstons’ to do a search,” he said. “They got a tip someone was operating a grow-op.”
I cringed. I wondered how much this “anonymous tip” had to
do with the fact that the Johnstons were one of the only Black families in town. Was this the microaggression Shar had mentioned? It sounded pretty macro to me.
Addison grinned. “The house had been flagged because of the amount of fertilizer and soil Rowan had bought that year. It was a lot, even for Bakewell. But they didn’t find any weed, of course. Rowan’s, like, allergic to anything entertaining, so recreational drugs are beyond him.”
Addison and Cameron laughed again. Clearly, they had no idea of the racial undertones of something like that. Or if they knew, they didn’t care.
Me? I lived in Toronto—one of the most diverse cities in the world—and my neighborhood, Scarborough, had significantly more people of color than white people. And I still faced microaggressions and racism at home, not to mention Islamophobia, even though my family wasn’t, like, visibly Muslim or anything. What would it be like to be one of the only nonwhite families in a small town?
“Kind of insensitive for you to laugh, especially since you dated Rowan. The Johnstons sound like good people,” I said to Addison. She was sitting across from me in the booth of the cheesy sixties-style restaurant, with Gia and Cameron cozied up next to her.
Addison shrugged. “There is no need for you to defend the family. Rowan Johnston cares more about his garden than their reputation.”
Cameron snorted at Addison. “He did care about his sister’s.”
Addison glared at Cameron, then nonchalantly took a sip of her soda. There was clearly a story there.
“Ooh,” Gia said, eyes twinkling. “Does the Bakewell Bookworm have a juicy past we should know about?”
“Juniper?” Cameron asked. “Nah. She’s just kinda strange. She used to do these weird videos on YouTube talking about books and stuff.”
“Really?” Gia asked. “She didn’t tell me she was a YouTuber. Was she popular?”
Addison snorted. “Ha! Using the word ‘popular’ to describe a Johnston . . .”
I was about to object, again questioning exactly why she’d dated Rowan if she disliked the family so much, when Matteo interrupted with a chuckle.
“Man, Tahira. You were so excited to have kids next door. Too bad they’re a plant nerd and a book nerd. They sound insufferable.”
Matteo hadn’t even met Juniper and Rowan. A sourness formed in my stomach. Yeah, I hadn’t exactly been kind about Rowan to Matteo, but he and Gia had to see how terrible Addison and Cameron were being, right? Didn’t Gia care that they were laughing at the girl she wanted to be our “makeover sidekick”? What happened to protecting Juniper? Not to mention she didn’t seem too bothered by this grow-op accusation.
“And don’t forget Leanne and her rabbits,” Addison continued. “She practically lives at the Johnstons’. The whole lot of them are exhausting.” She turned to Gia. “Too bad you have to spend your summer next door to them.”
Gia snuggled into Cameron’s arm. “I’m not thinking I’ll be there much.”
Matteo gestured to Cameron and Addison, smiling at me. “At least you met this crew so you’ll have some decent people to hang with instead of . . . what did you call them? Plant geeks?” He leaned into me for a kiss, but I wasn’t feeling it.
Actually, I wasn’t feeling any of these people at the table right now. I was burned out, annoyed—and so pissed that Addison freaking McLaughlin ended up ruining what could be my only day with Matteo for weeks. She’d made me want to defend Rowan. Which I didn’t want to do, especially in front of Matteo. Maybe I shouldn’t have been so negative about Rowan to my boyfriend. Rowan and I were on the Bloom team together now, and it would be easier to get along with him if Matteo weren’t mocking him every chance he got. I needed to tell him to chill about Rowan once we were alone.
I squeezed Matteo’s hand. I wished he and I had just driven alone in the Mustang so we could have left early and not had to deal with any of this pettiness. More than anything, I wanted to be back at the tiny house.
When everyone insisted on doing more sightseeing and souvenir shopping after lunch, I sort of had to go, too. But I must have looked irritated about it, because Matteo leaned in close when we were in a candy store. “Don’t worry, we’ll go for a drive after we get back. I need some time alone with you.”
“Yes, please,” I said. That was exactly what I needed, too.
After the drive back to Bakewell, I said a polite goodbye to Addison and Cameron as I got out of Cameron’s Jeep. Gia hopped out, too, gave Matteo a big hug, then climbed back into the Jeep and said she was going to hang out at Hyacinth’s with Cameron, which was fine with me. I had plans with my boyfriend.
Matteo drove us to this park outside town in the Mustang. On the way, he talked about his job, the new clothes he’d bought there, and some new friends he’d made. My annoyance from lunch was already fading. It made sense: Matteo and I were always best when it was just us. Too bad alone time was so rare.
After parking near a pond in the park, we found a picnic table overlooking the water and sat. The sun was setting by then, and the colors reflecting on the water were like light brushes of watercolors on dark paper. I took some pictures—not of either of us, but of the sky, the water, and the trees near the shoreline.
“The sunsets here look different,” I said.
“Is it because there’s less pollution or something?”
I shrugged. “I dunno.”
He took my hand in his. “You okay? You seemed quiet earlier.”
I nodded. “Yeah. Addison’s just not my favorite person in Bakewell. She was getting under my skin.”
“Really? Her and the dude seemed all right to me.”
“I don’t know about Cameron, but Addison’s been harassing Juniper for a while. Juniper is really nice, and Addison just rubs me the wrong way.” I still couldn’t believe that I had been enjoying my day with Addison—at least until lunch, when she did a great job of confirming my previous bad feelings about her.
“Well, she can’t be worse than the guy that made you spill shit all over yourself.”
I sighed. I didn’t want to talk about Rowan. Or Addison. Or even June, right now. I leaned into Matteo’s shoulder. “I’m glad we’re alone now.”
“Me too, baby. We got some great pictures today, though, didn’t we? Those ones outside the haunted-train thing were epic. We’re going to have to make sure we don’t post the same ones on our Instagrams at the same time. If we stagger them, we’ll have more engagement.”
I nodded. It was a good idea. “I’m not going to have a whole lot of photos other than those pics for a while. Still can’t find a good spot in Bakewell that’s not all grandma flowers.”
“You post first, then. I’ll have some shots from the Flirt Skincare launch on Wednesday. Alyssa says a ton of important people will be there, and—”
“What skin-care launch?”
“I told you, Alyssa and I are going to a product launch this week. Check out the Flirt Instagram after Wednesday; I’m sure we’ll be featured. The last launch we went to—”
“You’ve been to several launches with her? This is your coworker, right?”
“Yeah, I told you, her sister’s a publicist. We went to one for a tech company last week.”
I sat up straight. “You didn’t tell me this. You work with this girl, and you go to product launches regularly together?”
“Come on, Tahira. You’re spending all that time with the hot flower guy—”
“Yeah, but I’m only doing the Bloom with Rowan. Not working with him, and not going to parties and launches or whatever else. And I told you . . . repeatedly . . . that I don’t even like the guy. There is nothing going on between me and Rowan. Can you say the same thing about you and this Alyssa?”
His jaw clenched. “I came down to see you, didn’t I? I could’ve hung out with her tonight, but I’m with you.”
A chill went up my spine. Neither of us spoke for a few seconds. “You can’t say there’s nothing going on, can you?” I finally said. “You two are more than just fr
iends / coworkers / product-launch buddies, aren’t you? What happened at that launch last week? Or after it?”
He didn’t say anything. He didn’t really have to. I could see the answer in his eyes.
I took a breath. “I can’t believe this.”
“You’re the one who bailed on spending the summer with me.”
“I only left a week ago!”
“Yeah, but even before that, we never saw each other! You know you’re my girl, and there’s no one I’d rather be with than you, but you can’t expect me to sit around like a monk while you’re out here having your ‘Hot Girl Summer’ with Gia. I thought we understood each other—we never said this was exclusive.”
My hand clawed and I scraped the worn wood of the picnic table with my fingernails. My heart was hammering loudly in my ears. Matteo was cheating on me. “Why are you telling me this now?” I asked, my voice drenched in anger. “Why not just hide your sidepiece indefinitely? I mean, you’re right—we don’t see each other much. I wouldn’t have found out.”
He turned away and ran his hand through his hair. “I just . . . the Flirt launch. I thought you might see pictures on my Insta of me and Alyssa, so I wanted to give you the heads-up that I was going with her.”
That chill up my spine? That was gone. It was replaced by a full-on fire in my chest. “So let me make sure I understand you. You borrowed your brother’s car and drove all the way here—an hour and a half each way. You drag me and your cousin to one of the world’s biggest tourist attractions to get pictures for your feed, making me style you with my designs, and making her take hundreds of shots. You make me put up with Addison McLaughlin and her jock accomplice, and you join in with them trashing the sweetest, nicest girl I’ve met in this town. You even act all jealous of the hot plant nerd, even though you know I wouldn’t cheat. You do all this while intending to warn me at some point that I was going to see pictures of you and the girl you’re banging on the side on your Instagram soon?”
He exhaled. “I wasn’t going to tell you that Alyssa and I are . . . you know. Just that we’d be in pictures together. I . . . I guess I just couldn’t lie to you.”
