It had been Eliza who’d gotten the new car on her sweet sixteen, and who’d gone to every prom in a new dress, and who’d had our mom around at least until she got out of high school. I wore the hand-me-down dress, and drove my dad’s old car, and had never gotten to excitedly tell my mom when Matt asked me to prom. I wore a blue gown of Eliza’s that she’d worn when she got asked to prom as a freshman. Because it was too short, I had to have it hemmed to be a tea-length dress, and because it was too big in the bust, I had to have it taken in. I’d never been that into dresses, but even I knew that it hadn’t been the dress of my dreams.
I couldn’t quite see the areas where Eliza was being denied her “freedom to just be,” as Grace had put it.
My stream of thoughts was interrupted by Grace tapping a pen on the table.
“Now, you’re still my assistant, and I would love if Clark’s Coffee could deliver us a banana-cream pie and a kale salad. And the next time you tell me a problem, throw in some sex. I like the sex ones.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
I SPENT THE rest of the week ensconced in Grace’s odd notes and talking to Ryan every night. On Wednesday morning, he’d caught me outside before my run and we’d jogged down the beach together. He’d had to go meet a supplier and had headed back to our houses before me, which was a relief, since Eliza was drinking coffee on the porch when I returned from my jog. “I just saw Ryan coming back. Did you bump into him?” she’d asked without any suspicion in her voice, and I just shook my head, relieved.
Thursday night, Ryan and I had snuck out for a short date. We mostly made out in the last row of a movie theater as it played a terrible old horror movie about a possessed pet shop. As we walked out, it started to pour, and we spent several hours at a diner near the theater, where we’d come up with all the bad sequel possibilities, a surprisingly easy and fun task given how little of the movie we’d seen. We weren’t exactly taking it slow, but because Ryan worked so many nights and I spent days at Grace’s, we were managing better than our time in Ryan’s room would have led me to believe possible.
Friday night, with Ryan at work, I was ready to just crash. I’d just composed a text to Ryan to let him know I was going to bed early and to see if he wanted to join me for a run in the morning.
But, best-laid plans and all, I wasn’t going to get my wish. Tea ambushed me just before I pushed send, as I was putting away dishes in the kitchen from dinner. “Hey, I was just talking to Pete,” she said, gesturing to the Landry house. She and Becca had been floating between our two houses all summer, just like it had used to be. I knew part of the difference for Eliza and I was that we were older now, and not just that our mom was gone, but I was still glad that my younger sisters were still enjoying that particular perk of the beach house. “We’re all going to the restaurant after closing. Eliza and Devin, too. Get ready. We’re leaving in ten minutes.”
I couldn’t say no, and not only because my littlest sister was asking. For one, not going when I clearly had nothing to do would look weird. And joining in would finally get Eliza off my back about spending time with everyone. The side benefit, as I saw it, was that—as long as Ryan kept his promise to keep us under wraps—it would be a way to show Eliza and everyone else that there was nothing going on between us. While part of me wanted to tell the world that I’d been kissing Ryan Landry for the better part of the summer, part of me was scared of what might happen if everyone knew.
If Eliza was still mad about my not calling off work for her impromptu brunch, she wasn’t letting on tonight. If anything, she was positively giddy. I’m sure she was grateful for a wedding-planning diversion, and for her and Devin to have a chance to spend a minute together where they weren’t discussing flower arrangements. I’d heard them arguing about hydrangeas versus peonies earlier. Devin had left work early and flown down to be able to spend the weekend with Eliza, but even he wanted to enjoy himself, I was sure. “This will be so much fun, you guys. Tea and Becca, you were too young the last time we were here, but we always had the best parties at Landrys’ after closing.” It was funny, because I didn’t remember them that way at all. Most of the Landry parties were awkward affairs where Jessica and I played tabletop Pac-Man while Eliza, Ryan, and the older kids drank. But this group sounded smaller, and at least I knew I wouldn’t have to watch Eliza and Ryan make out. That didn’t help the fact that I would want to make out with him, but still . . .
The CLOSED sign was illuminated on the door when we got there, but we could hear the music from outside. When we stepped through the door, the bus boys whooped loudly and gave Becca and Tea high fives. I guessed they were becoming ingratiated with the staff after all their weeks at work. Some of the younger staff was already dancing to the one Top 40 radio station in Harborville. Maybe not everyone was as awkward as Jessica and I had once been. As I spotted Jessica across the kitchen, I saw that we had a chance to prove that times had changed.
Jessica yelled, “Hey, Kate, wanna play some Pac-Man?” She and Morrison were hanging out near the machine, drinking brimming glasses of beer. Behind them at the bar was Ryan. He smiled nicely at me, sending a shiver up my spine, but he didn’t betray anything. “What are you drinking, Kate?” he asked. “Beer, or you want to try one of my signature cocktails?”
Morrison rolled his eyes. “Harborville doesn’t need a bunch of fruity, weird mixologists screwing up a good thing. This is a man’s place.”
“Yeah, and men drink liquor, too, you Miller Lite pansy,” Ryan joked. He was already whipping something up, muddling a cucumber into clear liquid. “This is no big deal, just a gin and tonic with cucumber instead of lime.” He handed me the glass. “But it’s good.”
Eliza dragged Devin to the bar. “Ooh, that sounds good. Two more, right, Dev?”
Her fiancé grinned. “Sure, why not? I don’t have work tomorrow. For real this time.”
“I know,” Eliza said, nuzzling into him. “Lucky me. I even booked us a room for tomorrow night at the Chatham Bars Inn.”
“Oh, really?” Devin said with a smirk at Eliza’s suggestive tone. “How’s the job going, Kate?” He turned to me, looking eager to change the subject in front of all these people.
“She’s devoted,” Eliza said. “She even ditched the best brunch on the Cape because she had to be at Grace’s.”
“Well, it is a pretty big deal to be working for a huge author,” Devin said. “It’s probably a good idea not to take it too lightly.”
“The job is interesting,” I said, giving Devin a grateful look. He and I would probably never have a lot in common, but I appreciated that he didn’t immediately take Eliza’s side on everything. She needed that. “Tell your colleagues’ book club that she’s more eccentric than they’d probably ever imagined.”
“I will,” Devin said. “I’ll need details.”
“For sure,” I said, trying to imagine how I’d explain Grace’s dining room table. “But another time.”
Eliza rolled her eyes, and glanced across the kitchen toward our sisters. “We can’t let Becca and Tea get wasted. I never let you get hammered when we were younger.”
“Might be too late for Becca,” I said, pointing to where she and Garrett were taking shots from an old-looking bottle of peach schnapps. “But Tea is too responsible. And we’re walking.” Tea was talking animatedly to some of the bus boys, all of whom obviously had crushes on her. Of course, Tea would never even guess. “Let her enjoy her fan club.”
“Eh, guess you’re right.” Eliza looked at Ryan. “Remember how I would always be worried about Kate getting hit on?”
Ryan’s gaze landed meaningfully on my face. I’d never known they even talked about me when they were dating. “I do remember. It was no easy task intimidating the busboys so that they’d leave her alone.” I felt myself blush.
Before I had a chance to say anything in reply, Devin—clearly not jealous of Eliza’s history with Ryan—ask
ed Ryan a question about his other cocktail ideas. Morrison sidled up next to me and tickled my waist. I yelped a little.
“Hey, Kate, what’s shakin’?” He was already a little drunk. “So you’re not at Smokey’s anymore?”
I noticed that Ryan’s eyes shifted our way, but he kept up his conversation with Devin. “No, I got a job assisting Grace Campbell, the writer. She lives here part of the year,” I said, hoping not to have to go into detail. While I’d promised Devin some dirt, details about the job would spoil an otherwise positive-sounding experience. And I did like working for Grace, even if I wasn’t sure it was making me a better writer.
“Wow, that’s really impressive,” Morrison said. “Writers amaze me. I mean, I did pretty well in high school English but to write a whole book? That’s crazy. Is that what you’d study at Berkeley, writing?”
I smirked. “I thought I told you, beer pong and quarters.”
Morrison slapped his forehead. “Oh, how could I forget?”
“What about you? What are you up to these days?”
“Sort of like Ryan, I’m doing some work on the family business,” he said. The Davies family ran several bed-and-breakfasts on the Cape. “Like, I can’t believe we don’t even have a website or listings online.”
“So it’s all word of mouth?”
“Pretty much,” Morrison said. “It’s fine in the busy season but it’s not enough to bring people here in the fall. Maybe once I get the website going, you could take a look, check my grammar. I’ll buy you lunch.”
It was a thinly veiled excuse for a date, and one I could have seen coming. I hated that my not being public with Ryan meant I had to awkwardly rebuff his best friend, but it was my own fault. “I’ll be happy to review it. You don’t even have to buy me lunch.”
Morrison’s smile drooped at the corners and I could tell he was about to come back with another offer for something else. I was saved, though, when Becca and Garrett ran up to him, pulling him away. “You have to settle a bet,” Becca told him. “Garrett claims that he and his friends never played a game where they undid girls’ string bikini tops on the beach, but I know for a fact he has.”
I did, too, and actually remembered Mrs. Landry banning Garrett from a week of beach time for his stunts. But I kept my mouth shut as Becca dragged Morrison by the arm.
Morrison allowed himself to be pulled away just as Ryan emerged from behind the bar with another drink for me.
“Here, try this,” he said. “It’s a St-Germain martini with a touch of lavender liquor in it.”
I raised my existing glass. “But I’m not done with this one. Are you trying to get me drunk?”
“Nah, you’re plenty of fun sober. I just wanted to talk to you,” he said, looking around stealthily like we were in a spy movie. “Jessica was telling someone that you’ll never date Morrison because you’re not over your ex. Is that . . . is that maybe the real reason you want to take things slow?”
His expression was so anxious that it was adorable. I thought of Matt and the fact that answering his texts had started to feel more obligatory than fun. It wasn’t a vote against him so much as it was a vote for Ryan.
I shifted my gaze toward Eliza but she and Devin were wrapped up in a conversation that sounded like it was about a drink menu.
“No, that’s been over a while,” I told him, touching his arm just under the cuff of his shirt. I did it for only a split second so that no one could see. He smiled instantly, making me happy that I’d taken the chance. “I just didn’t want to tell her the real reason I’m not interested in Morrison. I like this and I don’t want to subject it to the world until we’re ready.”
“Yeah, you’ve said that already.” Ryan flinched away from me ever so slightly. “I just wonder why I feel ready and you don’t.”
I wanted to tell Ryan about what Eliza had said, so he’d understand my reasons for wanting to keep us a secret. But wouldn’t that sound so girly and weird to him? “It’s not that I don’t,” I said, noticing with a skinning feeling how closed-off his expression had become. “It’s just more complicated than I can really explain right now.”
I tried to imagine what Eliza would do in this situation. Would she allow me to impose a rule like hers, or would she just do what she wanted? Probably the latter, but that didn’t mean she would be any happier about me dating her ex.
“I’d better get back to the bar,” Ryan said, turning away from me.
“Wait,” I said, stopping myself from reaching for his arm. Now I was the one looking around like we were on the run. “I have a question for you.”
He must have heard the longing in my voice, or he too forgiving, because he came back to my side, a little smile on his face. “Yeah?”
“I wanted to know . . .” I lingered over the next words, trying to choose them carefully. “Are Becca and Tea working tomorrow night?” On Saturdays the restaurant stayed open later because the bar business was so good.
“Do you want them to be?” Ryan raised one eyebrow, like he knew where I was going with this.
I nodded, feeling a sly smile tug my own lips upward.
“If they’re not, I can schedule them. For doubles.” His smile widened. “Why do you ask?”
“My dad’s on a business trip, and Eliza and Devin are staying at the Chatham Bars Inn for the night.” I paused, watching my full meaning as Ryan let it sink in. “Maybe you should come over.”
Now he glanced around and furtively traced a line down my arm with the backs of his fingers. That I knew his touch wouldn’t go any further tonight made me die a little inside.
“I’m all yours.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
DEVIN WALKED OUT of the house with Eliza’s neatly packed overnight bag slung over his shoulder. “Sure you’re okay here alone tonight?”
Even though I was eighteen, I had to admit it was a little nice to have someone acting like my big brother. Devin’s protectiveness and interest in my life sort of picked up where my dad had left off. It wasn’t that my dad didn’t care; he just wasn’t always present, even when he was here. Devin was. I understood why Eliza wanted to marry someone so stable.
“Yeah, don’t worry about me,” I said. “Just going to enjoy having the house to myself. Watch some bad reality TV.”
“Well, call us if you need anything,” he said. “Becca and Tea should have the number, too. Though, I guess the Landrys are right next door.”
His word choice nearly made me blush. There was one Landry I wanted. Wanted very, very much.
“Oh yeah, they’re great neighbors,” I said, feeling a little guilty I hadn’t made time to see Mr. and Mrs. Landry yet. Eliza had told me I’d missed a drop-by from them, too. It had been a night I was out with Ryan. Now, talking about them effusively, I tried to look anywhere but in the direction of Ryan’s carriage house. I stared at the wooden GONE TO THE BEACH sign that hung just beneath the Landrys’ porch light and pointed in the direction of Pleasant Street Beach. “You don’t have to worry about me.”
Eliza finally emerged, carrying nothing but her small clutch and a beach tote, which she handed to Devin. She sighed like she’d just done hard work. “Do you really think Dad had a business trip?” I asked Eliza. It was seeing her in the doorway, looking so much like my mom, that made me ask.
“Why would he lie?” Eliza asked. “I think that he’s had a lot to do since his firm bought that start-up.”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. He’s just so quiet all the time,” I said. Before my mom, my dad used to have a summer policy of no business trips. He said life was too short to spend his beach days working. Now he seemed to look forward to work as a way to escape the beach. “I thought maybe being back here was just too much for him.”
Eliza put her arm around my shoulder. “It’s hard for all of us,” she said. “But don’t let yourself get too worried. Everything will be
fine. Be good tonight. No boys.” She winked, and a thread of guilt wrapped around my chest.
It wasn’t boys, plural, that were the problem, just one in particular.
Ryan showed up not long after I sent him my text. I had gone inside the house to straighten up a bit, but the doorbell rang before I even finished clearing off Becca’s half-empty soda cans from the kitchen counter. She was a bigger slob than me.
I opened the door, surprised to see Ryan looking actually . . . nervous. He had a teddy bear in one hand and looked at a loss for what to do with his other hand.
“Hey,” he said, handing me the bear. A crooked smile filled his face as he watched me take the bear and turn it over in my hands. It was a soft brown bear in a tiny yellow Cape Cod T-shirt.
“I know it’s weird, but I was on the boardwalk at lunch looking at flowers and I had this urge to win you a bear,” he said. “If you think it’s totally cheesy, I’ll bury it in my backyard or something.”
I looked down at the bear and had a memory of being at the boardwalk with Ryan and Eliza. Eliza would beg Ryan to win her things but she only wanted the biggest, best prizes. Ryan would balk and say, “No one ever gets the giant bear. It’s rigged. What about the little one?” She’d turn up her nose at the lesser prize and say something like, “If I’m not worth going for the best, then why bother?” Ryan would usually shrug hopelessly at me and say something like, “If everyone knew what they wanted the way Eliza did, the world would be a simpler place.” I’d laughed at how perfectly this summed up my sister. And secretly thought that I’d have loved to have a bear won in my honor, no matter the size.
I squeezed the bear. “I love it,” I said. I really did. I imagined Ryan thinking about me on his lunch break. Even if he’d brought back a pair of the giant novelty light-up sunglasses you won as a consolation prize, I would have felt special and flattered.
“You do?” Ryan’s grin straightened out. “That’s good. It took me, like, twenty bucks to win at the milk jug toss. Not that I’m counting, but I think the guy running the booth thought I was crazy. Or that I really like teddy bears.”
The Summers Page 9
