by Sarah Sutton
My relationship with Lucas no longer had been this beautiful thing I could bask in the warmth of—no, it had turned into a ticking time bomb. If I didn’t dismantle it, who knew when it’d blow up? Who knew how severe the damage would be?
It sounded crazy, breaking up with someone you were still in love with. But Lucas was graduating this year. What would happen then? And besides, if I’d learned one thing in these past two years, it was that nothing was permanent. Nothing lasted. Not even I love you’s.
I could thank my parents for that lesson.
Usually adult parties were more refined than kid parties, which made sense. When older people booked the snacks for their parties, they usually placed the order for mimosas and the fancy cucumber crackers. They’d ask for cake pops instead of cupcakes, cheesecake instead of chocolate cake. Usually we were requested to wear our black catering uniforms—no costumes or colors of any kind.
For most of the adult parties Gram catered, the atmosphere was sophisticated.
Mrs. Avery’s party was none of the above.
It was a “royal tea party,” but I didn’t know if Mrs. Avery tried playing off of a “royals gone wild” theme or what, because there was nothing elegant about this. Someone set up several tea tables throughout her large yard, covered with wild-patterned tablecloths and placemats, all mismatching. She even had a balloon arch with different-colored balloons. Streamers hung from the low branches of the two trees, swaying delicately in the wind. When the guests arrived, Mrs. Avery had plastic tiaras and crowns passed around.
It reminded me a little bit of a cartoon, with all the bright streamers and tablecloths. A parody of a tea party, in a way.
And I loved every second of it. Even though I had to wear my horrible heels.
I stood in the Avery kitchen, mixing yet another pitcher of the blue-raspberry flavored lemonade, listening to the sound of the metal whisk hitting the glass. No one lingered in the house—everyone entertained themselves in the yard—so I’d successfully found a moment of peace and quiet.
Which was saying something, since I’d been on edge ever since Gram and I had gotten here. Lucas might’ve been wandering around here somewhere, and the idea of running into him turned my spine into goo.
“How’s it coming?” Gram asked as she came in from the back door, holding an empty pitcher. Her costume was something from the renaissance era, or themed like it, the dress red with pale parchment-colored stripes running down the length of her sides. “I’m going to need another one. They’re downing it out there. Mrs. Hart practically drank this whole pitcher. I also didn’t miss how much champagne she poured into her glass, either.”
“Of course she did,” I said with a confident smile, pulling out the whisk.
Gram reached for the pitcher in front of me. “I’ll take this one. Can you mix up another and bring it out?”
“Yes, ma’am. More lemonade coming up.”
“Don’t forget the ratios,” she reminded me, grabbing the lemonade and heading for the door. “Four-to-one.”
I waved her out of the kitchen as I moved to the fridge, my heels clicking on the tile floor. Mrs. Avery was kind enough to let us keep our supplies stocked in her kitchen, making it so much easier than carting around coolers or even driving the food truck.
Uncle John and Aunt Aimee usually manned the food truck whenever we ran it—Gram got too nervous driving it and felt too isolated working in it. But since Donnie and his family had plans today, Mrs. Avery let us steal some of her refrigerator space.
I pulled out the lemon juice, filtered water, and the frozen raspberries from the fridge, carrying all the items to the counter. Gram always ranted and raved about her four-to-one ratio of water to lemon juice, but ever since she’d handed over lemonade-making duty to me, I secretly used a ratio of three-to-one. She’d say that was too sour, but since this was the fourth pitcher of lemonade I’d stirred up today, I had a feeling I’d gotten it right.
“Hey, Blaire.”
I jumped at the sound of Delia’s voice, finding her in the doorway of the kitchen. She hung back, one arm crossed over her pink dress to rub her other one. Someone—probably her mother—had braided her hair to look like a crown on her head.
“You’re quiet,” I said, looking closely at her expression. Just like last night, she seemed reserved, almost nervous. “I didn’t even hear you walk up.”
“I couldn’t decide what I wanted to wear.” Her attention locked onto the pitcher in front of me and all the ingredients I’d laid out on the counter. “Are you making your lemonade?”
I touched the jar of lemon juice. “Yep. Do you want to help me?”
That shook some of the nervousness out of her. “Sure. I always love your lemonade.” Delia went over to the breakfast bar side of the island and grabbed a barstool, dragging it noisily across the floor. “You used to make it a lot last summer, right?”
“I did. Your brother didn’t like it, though. He said it was too sour.” I could still remember how his lips had puckered the first time he’d tried it.
Delia rolled her eyes. “That’s because he’s too sweet.”
“Can someone be too sweet?”
She knelt on the top of the barstool, leaning her forearms onto the countertop. “Oh, yeah. Like when they’re so sweet that it makes you want to puke. Like double-chocolate cookies. Yuck.”
A startled laugh ripped its way out of me as I uncapped the container of sugar. “I think you’re the only kid I know who doesn’t like double-chocolate cookies, Delia.”
Delia kicked her feet against the edge of the barstool, tossing her head to the side. “Lucas doesn’t like them, either.”
“Can you pass me the lemon juice?” I could’ve easily reached the bowl, but I wanted her to feel useful. She wrapped her hands around it and slowly edged it over, hardly sloshing the juice at all. I rinsed the pitcher out before bringing it back to the countertop. After setting the measuring cup in front of Delia, I told her to portion out one full scoop. “So what’s new with you? How’s school?”
“It’s all right,” she said with a shrug. “This month has been fun with all the Halloween crafts and stories and everything. We have a costume party next Friday, where we’re going to go trick-or-treating to every classroom.”
“That’s fun.”
“Yeah, Spencer and I are going to dress up as old people.” She tried to hide a smile, pressing her palm against her face. “Mom’s taking me to the store soon to get a costume.”
“Spencer?” I couldn’t help but chuckle a little bit at her crush, her little third-grade romance. Adorable. In the third grade, I’d had two crushes: Tommy Creston and Lucas Avery. “Is he nice?”
Delia’s little cheeks turned red, and the color traveled down her neck. “I guess.”
“Is he your best friend?”
She made sure not to meet my eye, her reddening face only deepening in color. “I guess.”
The thought still had me smiling, but I decided to let the topic pass. After mixing in the lemon juice and the water, I reached for our special blue raspberry syrup. “You know, if you wanted, you could come over to the apartment and look at our costume room. I don’t think Gram would mind. You might find something fun for your costumes.”
“That would be totally cool!” She gasped, giving me a disbelieving smile. “Oh my gosh, I’ve always wanted to go in there. I bet your Gram has so much cool old-people stuff.”
“Delia Ann,” a new voice said, tone properly chastising. “That wasn’t nice at all.”
Once again, I jumped at the new voice, nearly upsetting the pitcher of lemonade.
Delia let out a sigh. “Mom, I said cool old-people stuff. Cool is a good thing.”
“I’m more concerned with the phrase old people,” Mrs. Avery said, shutting the sliding glass door to the backyard behind her.
She wore a dress that came down to mid-calf, a silky sort of material that looked both elegant and comfortable. But it was a vibrant, ugly orange color, and
that made it even better. She must’ve taken markers or something to it, because stripes of purple and green were drawn all over the fabric, not opaque enough to be paint.
Mrs. Avery’s expression softened as she looked at me. “Blaire, it’s so good to see you. I’ve been meaning to come over and speak with you, but these people will not let me sneak away. I told them I had to go to the bathroom—no one wanted to follow me then.”
My laugh probably came out much more nervous than I wanted it to.
In all honesty, the idea of speaking with her made me jittery. Even though she was nice, she was Lucas’s mom. Donnie had taken my side in the breakup because he was family; surely Mrs. Avery had an opinion about how everything had gone down.
I glanced to my side. “Delia’s been helping me make my famous lemonade.”
I dumped in the appropriate amount of sugar, and Delia grabbed the spoon to stir everything together. Mrs. Avery and I watched her movements, all three of us quiet enough for the voices outside to filter inside.
“Can I run it out to Gram, Blaire? I promise I’ll be careful.”
My gaze automatically shifted to Mrs. Avery’s. If Delia took it outside, I’d be left alone with her mom—and who knew how that’d go? But if I said no, Delia would shut down, even more than she’d already been around me. And since I didn’t have a good excuse, I found myself nodding.
“Be extra careful, Delia,” her mother told her. “It’s glass.”
“Oh, it’ll be fine.” Delia hopped off the barstool and held her hands out. The pitcher wasn’t filled too close to the top, but she still walked slowly to the back door, which her mother pulled open for her.
I moved to put the ingredients back into the fridge, tense. My dress fluttered along my legs, the itchy tulle scratching my skin. I frantically flipped through my brain for something to say—what a nice day for October? Your dress is very creative?—something to alleviate the pressure that hung in the air. Part of me even wished she’d head back outside and leave me to my silence.
What should I say to my ex-boyfriend’s mother? Confrontation was so not my thing.
When I turned around to find her still staring, my mouth moved before I had a chance to stop it. “It feels weird being back here. Almost like things haven’t changed.”
Yeah, great. I really shouldn’t have said that.
“We’ve missed you around here,” she replied, not commenting on the fact that it was my fault for the changed circumstances. “Lucas told me you guys were trying to be friends again.”
“He did?”
“Well, I may have asked.” She came up to lean against the edge of the counter, resting her forearms on its surface. “I asked him if he knew your grandmother was catering the party, and he said you two had talked. I pried the rest out of him.”
I could practically imagine that scenario going down in my head. “He’s trying to convince me to love October.”
“With only one week left in the month?”
“Well, more so Halloween, actually. I don’t enjoy either one.”
“Don’t say that around here,” Mrs. Avery teased. “Especially not out there. Those people live and breathe Halloween. They might use your body as a lawn decoration.”
She sounded like Lucas. I found myself without a response, not wanting to say the wrong thing. I’d been doing that a lot lately.
“How have you been?” she asked after a moment of quiet. “I think about you and your grandmother this time of the year.”
Instinctively, I flinched. A small twitch, probably not one Mrs. Avery even picked up on, but I couldn’t repress it. “We’re okay,” I said slowly, nothing else to say. That wasn’t a conversation I wanted to talk about with her—with anyone ever. “I should get back outside, see if Gram needs any help.”
Mrs. Avery stepped in between me and the door, her eyes soft. They weren’t like Delia’s or Lucas’s—blue as the morning sky—but brown, the color of tree bark after it rained, and they looked into mine. “I think it’s a good thing you two are trying to be friends again,” she said. Mrs. Avery reached out and grabbed my hand. Her fingers grounded me to the moment. “He needs someone. Someone other than those meat-headed football player friends of his.”
I raised a teasing eyebrow. “‘Meat-headed football player’ is a lot ruder than calling someone ‘old.’”
Mrs. Avery’s tentative smile broke into her normal grin, the wave of nervousness in me finally starting to recede.
“Hey.”
I’d know that voice anywhere.
Lucas had materialized against the kitchen’s archway as if he knew we’d been talking about him. His gaze passed between me and his mom, no doubt judging our outfits. But his wasn’t so bad. The pair of joggers he wore hung low on his hips, his black shirt accentuating his bronzed skin.
Seeing him pose with Hailey last night seemed like a lifetime ago. All those emotions that festered underneath my skin, boiling to a searing degree, were absent now. I didn’t feel any jealousy, not when he looked like that and only I got to witness it.
Mrs. Avery’s hand squeezed mine once before falling away. “What are you doing out of your room? I told you that you couldn’t come out unless you put on your costume.”
He looked unamused. “I’m not wearing some lame prince outfit, Mom.”
“It’s a costume party.”
“I can see that.” His eyes slid my way.
Yeah, I felt ten kinds of ridiculous in this princess dress, and him noticing as well did nothing to dull that embarrassment. Not like he could’ve missed the fluffy blue dress anyway, with the chiffon scratching at my skin, and the two braided blonde buns at the top of my head.
“I should get back to my guests,” Mrs. Avery said after a moment, heading to the back door. At the last moment, she turned, her orange dress fluttering. “I’d love to talk with you more sometime, Blaire. I miss hearing your voice in this house.” With that, she went back outside.
“She’s a little much,” Lucas said after Mrs. Avery shut the door behind her. He still lingered in the doorway with his arms crossed, the most familiar stance I’d seen him hold lately. I didn’t have to be a psychology whiz to know what that meant. His body was on defense, ready to protect itself at anything that came its way. Probably ready for any searing words I’d potentially throw. “She’s been so excited about today. She even had that costume laid out on my bed when I got out of the shower.”
“You should’ve put it on,” I told him. “It would’ve been festive.”
One eyebrow rose. “Those pants looked way too tight in certain places, if you get my drift.”
“No excuses.” I glanced out the window that hung above the kitchen sink, peering out into the backyard. Parties like this were hard for me to keep engaged with. We weren’t constantly serving hors d’oeuvres or anything like that. Mrs. Avery had a table with desserts on it, and we made more lemonade. In reality, we didn’t need to be present. We could’ve dropped off the cheesecakes and cookies and gone home.
But this meant something to Gram. It was her way of getting out, getting around people. This filled her cup of extroverted-ness. It drained mine.
“You look really pretty,” Lucas said, pulling me from my thoughts. He unhinged himself from the doorway and finally came deeper into the kitchen. He was barefoot, footsteps soundless. “I know it’s for the party, and I know it’s only a costume, but you look beautiful.”
Heat swamped and fluttered through my chest, those words awakening the sensation I used to always feel with him. I told myself it was all superficial. Residual butterflies that had been hibernating. They’d die, with time. “It’s so itchy,” I said with an unaffected voice, pretending like his compliment didn’t affect me. “And the shoes suck.”
Lucas leaned forward to watch as I lifted the hem of my dress, exposing the plastic shoes. They were tinted a blue color, so he couldn’t see my squished toes, but I could sure feel it. “They don’t suck on you.”
Die, butterflies,
die.
“I would’ve thought you’d be breathing down my neck with Halloween activities,” I told him, taking the steering wheel of the subject and turning it sharply. The countertop between us provided a good buffer for my brain, gave me a little bit of clarity inside my bubble of personal space. “You know, hayrides, pumpkin carvings. You’ve only got a week left to change my mind that this isn’t the worst holiday ever.”
He took a seat at one of the barstools on the other side of the counter, propping his elbow. “Good thing I’ve got something booked tonight.”
“Tonight?” That was news to me. “We can’t. Donnie’s doing something with his family.”
“Donnie’s free after seven,” Lucas said, “and then we’re hanging out.”
I glanced at the clock readout on the microwave, frowning. “I’ve got to help Gram get all the dishes back home, help her clean up—”
Lucas cut me off. “I’ve already cleared it with Gram. She called this morning to double-check on stuff with Mom, and I spoke with her. Asked if you could get off early tonight. She said yes.”
Of course she’d said yes. And of course Lucas had talked to her. As soon as I got home tonight, she’d bombard me with questions. “Are you and Lucas back together? Why are you hanging out with each other? Do you want to be back together?”
Questions I didn’t know how to answer.
“Besides, Blaire, it’s only four. You really think Mom’s shindig is going to run for much longer? Gram’s probably going to start loading up the car soon.”
There it was again. That familiarity. That hint that he knew me, my life, my family on a personal level. And he did. He’d been there for holidays and birthday parties. For nearly years, he’d been in my life.
Which made everything harder. “She’s not your gram,” I said with a serious tone, pushing off the counter. “Stop calling her that.”
“It’s a habit.”
“Well, break it.”
For a moment, we stared at each other, locked in competition. Whoever blinked first would be wrong.
It wasn’t me, of course. He was the one in the wrong. He shouldn’t be talking to Gram behind my back, trying to weasel his way into my life. The two of them had probably talked on the phone for hours and conspired about this very moment. Was that why Gram had asked me to come inside and make the lemonade? Why she’d made me redo my makeup this morning? I would’ve laid money on it. And all because Lucas had decided it’d be a good idea to try and win over my own grandmother.
