“Fine,” I said with a dramatic sigh. “We’ve got twenty minutes before pizza comes, so let’s get this room done.” The rest of the apartment was already packed because those rooms mostly had bigger items. I still had my room to do but was pretty sure Laney’s was already done. It was just the way she worked.
Laney gently placed the last glass into the box when there was a knock on our door. Dinner had arrived.
I grabbed it while she taped up that last box. We settled on the couch and dove in. Now, normally, we probably would’ve grabbed plates, but they were packed. I’d also ordered us drinks, though we did still have a few in the fridge. It was our last night of just me and her. No, Zac didn’t live in her house. He had one of his own that he rented next door, but I wasn’t delusional enough to think they wouldn’t be together at one house or another every night.
“I’m going to miss this place,” she said as I finished the salad I’d ordered and snagged a second slice of the thin crust.
“No, you’re not,” I countered. “Zac is there. Think of all the hours you’ve spent on the road going to him. Or him coming here.” Him coming to Laney was rarer because he had a job he needed to keep and a kid. He couldn’t just drop everything, even if he’d wanted to. That wasn’t how it worked.
“Well, no. I’m not going to miss living three hours away from him. But this was our place, Rhian. I am going to miss this.”
“We’ll have to force Zac to stay home some nights so we can have this once in a while.”
Laney chewed on her pizza slowly and I knew that look on her face. She was considering something. Something she wanted to say to me but hadn’t found the words yet. I’d wait patiently until she figured it out.
“He will be around a lot,” she finally said.
“I’m totally aware. I think once you two are in the same town, there isn’t a thing that could keep him away.”
She gave me a smile that said I was right and she loved it. She loved him.
“But will it bother you?” she asked. I raised my eyebrows in question. “That he will be around so much? I don’t want you to think I’m replacing you.”
“You can’t replace me, Laney, and I won’t have sex with you, so you’d need someone for that job anyway,” I said. She laughed loudly. “Besides, I like Zac. I like how Zac is with you. Seriously. I think this summer is going to be awesome. If Zac’s around, then I’d guess Porter will be and he’s not hard to look at.” The worried lines on her face began to give way to something softer. Something that said she believed what I was saying. “I promise. I won’t feel like the third wheel since I know that’s what you’re really worried about.”
I hadn’t had a steady boyfriend in a year and a half. I’d hooked up, but there hadn’t been anyone I’d wanted on the regular. Plus, I’d known I was moving and I had terrible taste in men, most of the time.
“Porter, huh?” Laney asked for the millionth time.
I groaned. “You know nothing happened between us. But he’s a flirt. I can’t not flirt back. Plus, I haven’t seen or talked to him since what? New Years? He had a girl with him then and they’re probably still together, so why are you even asking?”
“Porter is a flirt,” she said with a small nod. “And he usually has a girl with him, but there’s almost zero chance they’re still together.”
“I don’t want Porter. I would’ve hooked up with him last summer if I’d wanted that.”
“Then what do you want?”
“I want to figure out what I’m going to do for the rest of my life. I need a job, of course, but preferably one that doesn’t start until the fall so we can have one last carefree summer.”
Laney would have the summer off since she’d gotten a teaching job in East Branch and school didn’t start until after Labor Day. Which gave me a little time to figure out what she already had. Never once had she wavered in her decision to be a teacher and I longed for that kind of resolve.
“Now that I can get behind.”
We clanked our cans of soda together and laughed. If nothing else, we’d both earned one last fun summer.
Chapter Two
Much to both Laney’s and my surprise, Max and Cody showed up right at ten the next morning. College guys weren’t usually so prompt. But they had a truck and a lot of energy, so by ten thirty, the apartment was almost empty with the exception of our few personal boxes.
Leaving was weird. I’d lived in this apartment since sophomore year. My parents had paid for it with the idea that if I didn’t live in the dorms, I wouldn’t have as many distractions. Joke was on them because I could find distraction anywhere. Then Laney moved in and it had become our place. I’d preferred it when she lived with me to when I’d lived alone. If only I could’ve convinced her to move in with me after sophomore year but she’d been insistent that she wanted to stay in the dorms.
We made two trips to the cars. A lot of my stuff was going into her car because with the seats laid down, we could pack it like a regular truck. My small hatchback was already filled to the brim. Then it was time for one last walkthrough.
The place was bare, our voices echoed, and my heart hurt a little knowing that we weren’t coming home again. This had been home. Sure, Laney’s house would become like home, temporarily anyway, but this apartment had been mine and I’d felt more comfortable there than I had in my parents’ house. I’d feel a lot better when everything was settled.
“Ready?” Laney asked.
“Yup,” I answered, though I felt anything but. This all happened so fast, but while we’d been waiting to graduate, it felt like it was taking forever. Now our life was really starting.
We each climbed into our respective cars and started the three-hour drive. Each mile put more space between me and my parents. Each mile made me feel that much freer. Laney called once saying she had to use a restroom, so we took the next exit, hit a gas station, where I grabbed some snacks and a drink, then we were back on the road.
Three hours and ten minutes after we’d left the apartment, Laney pulled into her driveaway in East Branch and I stopped at the curb. I hopped out and did a full body stretch, which included a moan because damn, that felt good.
“Rhian Schwartz,” Laney called out. “We’re home!”
My stomach clenched at the idea of this being home. It was. For a few months at least but I also knew I wouldn’t be settled until I figured out my life. Instead of saying any of this to my best friend, I smiled and jogged to her. We took the porch steps side by side, then she used her key to let us inside.
The house didn’t have the shut-up, unlived-in smell I’d expected it to, which I assumed was Zac’s doing. He’d been taking care of the house while she’d been at school. That probably meant he’d opened a window here and there. Not much had changed since the first time I’d come here last summer to spend some time with my best friend. Almost everything was still her dad’s, and, let’s face it, he’d had good taste and anything in the house was more expensive than what we could’ve afforded on our own. Even if it was a little masculine, I knew we’d put our more feminine touch wherever we could.
Laney went over to the desk then turned back to me. “Here,” she said, holding a key out to me. “I asked Zac to have one made for you.”
I closed my hand around the key. “I will thank him for that.”
“Now this is officially your home too.”
Then she hugged me. The weird thing was that we didn’t really hug much. But something like this called for it. Though Laney spoke of me being here in much more permanent terms than I knew it was. She was being more than generous with her home and I wouldn’t overstay that.
“So what are we going to do first?” I asked. “Beach? Drinks? The world is our oyster.”
Laney snorted, which meant she was going to get serious. “First, we unpack your car because there’s less in there than in mine. Then we have to get groceries and put clean sheets on the beds because they haven’t been slept in for a while. What else?
The lawn could be mowed. Then unpacking my car. Then unpacking the boxes in the house. The list is long.”
“You are a killjoy. This isn’t what I signed up for.”
“Yes, it is. Simply by graduating. This is adult life.” She headed into the room that used to be her dad’s and dropped a bag on the floor, the thud not very loud.
“Adult life sucks!” I called back to her, which earned me a full laugh.
We did as she suggested and got my car cleared out but didn’t dive right into unpacking. Instead, we just dumped the boxes in whichever room they belonged in then grabbed our purses to go shopping for groceries.
“How about we stop by Zac’s work?” Laney asked as I pulled away from the curb.
“Oh, I assumed we were doing that.” Because obviously a simple text wouldn’t do. He’d want to see that she was actually here and vice versa. I didn’t care. I liked Zac for Laney, so I’d encourage them wanting moments with each other.
Unfortunately, I only sort of knew my way around East Branch. I’d get more familiar, but for now, Laney still had to give me directions as I drove. Finally, I pulled into the parking lot of the shop. She called it a store. I called it a shop. Really, it was both.
Zac had been wanting to buy the parts supply store from the old owner, Joe, because Joe wanted to retire. That had always been Zac’s plan. But attached to the store was a mechanic shop with three bays. Zac would own that too, one day, Laney said, but he just tinkered with cars and wasn’t a fully licensed mechanic. So he’d have three that he could rent out like hairdressers rented chairs in a salon. Or so it had been explained to me.
There were three customers inside when we pulled the door open. Zac was talking to one while another stood at the counter as if he were just waiting for something and a third stood farther behind.
Zac glanced up when the door made noise then smiled widely when he saw Laney. I could see why she’d fallen for him as a teenager. He was tall with muscles for days. Dark hair that looked fantastic when disheveled and his smile could set a girl’s panties on fire. He continued talking to the customer but kept his eyes on her. Once the guy paid, he looked at the one waiting.
“Give me a second, Fred,” he said, to which the older guy nodded.
Then Zac came out from behind the counter and wrapped his arms around his girl, lifting her off the ground. I leaned an elbow on the counter to give the happy couple a tiny bit of privacy. I could still hear them and they acted like they hadn’t seen each other the day before, but I thought it was cute.
“You’re finally home for good,” he said, then he cupped her chin and leaned in to kiss her. It was sweet, lingering, but certainly not what I thought either of them really wanted.
“You two made it,” a deep voice said from beside me. “When did you get in?”
I turned to find Porter, his dark blond hair neatly messy and his dark brown eyes taking me in, a smile playing on his lips. He worked here with Zac and the guy towered over me just the way I liked it. Hell, it wasn’t so much that I liked it, but I was only five-feet-two-inches of spunk. Everyone towered over me. Porter’s strong jaw was marked with maybe a day or two worth of beard growth and a full sleep tattoo on his right arm. The entire place had a garage smell to it. Oil mixed with something else. An aroma that would forever remind me of Porter.
“Just now basically. We went to the house and unloaded my car so we can go get groceries,” I told him. “I think she’s planning on you two unloading her Jeep after work, though.”
Porter groaned. “Zac will volunteer me without being asked.”
“You could say no.”
Porter cocked his head to the side. “Do you even know how friendships work?”
This caused me to laugh. “Obviously. I’m here, aren’t I?”
“Right.”
“Oh, you know what might be fun? Since you two will be working for us tonight, we should do a cookout. I have to meet all of your friends eventually, right?”
He nodded. “Probably, but there are a few you can skip.”
“That’s not a very nice way to talk about your friends.”
“Trust me on this one.”
I wasn’t sure I trusted him at all after the things Laney had told me about him. She loved Porter. He was one of her best friends from her life before meeting me, but he was also one of the friends who’d dropped her like a hot potato all because no one had wanted to tell Laney that Zac had gotten their friend Maddie pregnant.
Not sure how she did it, dating a single dad, and I wasn’t sure I could, but it seemed to be working for them so far.
“So… cookout?” I asked again.
“Right. Yeah. I’m in.” Without another word, Porter slid over to help the one customer still waiting.
Finally, Zac and Laney came over to me.
“Did I hear something about a cookout?” Zac asked, pulling Laney snugly against his side. The sweetness between these two threatened to make me vomit.
I shrugged. “We have to eat, right? And it’s hot. Who wants to cook inside?”
“Well, you probably knew I was going to spend time with Laney tonight,” Zac said to his friend after the last customer walked away from the counter. “You may as well be there, too.”
“But with him there, he can help you unpack the other car,” she countered, to which I laughed. I’d warned him. “This sounds good to me. We’re headed to the store anyway, so we can get everything we need. Do you have Dylan tonight?” she asked Zac.
He shook his head. “I switched with Maddie so I could come to your graduation yesterday.”
“Invite her, too,” she said.
“I think you should invite her yourself,” he countered.
Laney was working on her relationship with Maddie. I liked the girl, but she hadn’t slept with the guy I’d been in love with my entire life. ’Course, Maddie hadn’t known about Laney’s feelings for Zac back in high school. Yet, Maddie had been one of Laney’s best friends and stopped talking to her when she moved. All because they didn’t want to tell Laney they had a kid together. It wasn’t until four years later that she found out why. It’d been a mess and they were still working on it.
Laney needed this fun summer more than I did.
“Yeah, sure,” she finally said. “I’ll text her. We should go.”
After a quick kiss for Zac, Laney pulled me from the store by my arm. I drove again while she tapped out a text, I assumed to Maddie. She also gave me directions again as I went. I’d get this town down in no time. It was a suburb outside of Detroit. I grew up in Pittsburgh. I thought I could handle it.
“So what should we grill tonight?” I asked her once at the store as I yanked a cart out from the line.
“What about hot dogs? Simple. We still have a lot of work to do, so I don’t want to do anything big or time-consuming.”
“I’ve never turned down a good hot dog.” Which actually wasn’t true. I normally didn’t eat them but would tonight. Besides, I could get veggies to nibble on as well.
“That’s what I’ve heard.” She bumped her hip into mine. “I read it on a bathroom wall somewhere. Rhian Schwartz Never Turns Down a Good Hot Dog.”
“Sheesh. Say it a little louder, why don’t you?”
We both fell into a fit of laughter. We dropped things for the cookout into the cart—hot dogs, buns, condiments—because there was nothing left in the house and if there was, it’d be super nasty since Laney hadn’t been there for months. But we also needed the actual basics for living there, from toilet paper to milk. We needed it all.
“I’d like to know why they don’t have delivery like in Columbus,” I said as we each heaved heavy reusable bags into my hatch. In Columbus, where our university was, we’d ordered everything. Such a time saver and I always added the delivery charge to my part since my parents were footing the bill.
Laney pulled the hatch closed and gave me an incredulous look. “Have you seen East Branch?”
I glanced around quickly. “Uh, y
eah.”
She shook her head. “Look, this isn’t an affluent area. Nobody is paying extra for someone to deliver their groceries. That’s why I want to teach here. My education was shit.” We both climbed into the car. “Until I got to Lincoln. I don’t want kids like Dylan growing up unprepared. I was unprepared.” Lincoln High School was where we’d met.
“You sure as hell didn’t show it. Senior year everyone was afraid you were going to knock them off their class rank pedestals.” I pulled the car out onto the road and tried to remember how to get back to her house without being told.
“Oh, please.” She scoffed. “I was so behind and had to catch up. I’m lucky I graduated.”
“Well, nobody knew that. I mean, I did once we started hanging out, but you scared the shit out of all the overachievers. They don’t like the unknown.”
Now that college was over, I knew exactly how they felt. Laney has been on one track the entire time I’d known her while I… had no idea what my future held beyond the cookout tonight.
Chapter Three
After getting all the groceries unloaded from the car then unpacked in the kitchen, I went into what was now my room to find something cute to wear tonight. My first night living in East Branch, Michigan. Meeting new people, having a good time. Tomorrow I’d try to figure out what I was going to do with the rest of my life.
It might’ve been smarter to unpack a few boxes as I looked for some clothes, but no. That could wait. Instead, I went for the first box, which I knew was jam-packed with my summer clothes, and grabbed a pair of cute jean shorts and a blue tank top. Then I popped the top of another box, in which I could find a hoodie, just in case the weather cooled at night. It was already warm as we headed toward Memorial Day, but nights in Michigan could be unpredictable. I’d learned that lesson more than once when I’d come to visit Laney.
Of course we were cooking out here at home, so I could always change if I needed to.
A Little More Touch Me (The Fallout Series Book 2) Page 2
