by Dahlia Adler
But it isn’t for one person anymore.
“It’s thirty-seven Darlington,” I tell him, typing it into his phone’s GPS. His eyes are on the road; he can’t tell I didn’t check. And I don’t want the temptation of his text messages, of knowing what girls’ names I might see. If he and his cheerleader ex, Brielle, still talk, I definitely don’t want to know. If there’s a summer fling filling his inbox with heart emojis, that can stay in the vault.
We fill the space with easy and predictable conversation about the game, where we’re applying for college, and what scouts he hopes are coming to check him out, but I don’t expect any revelations, which is why I’m particularly surprised when he says, “Can I tell you something I haven’t told anyone?”
“Of course,” I say automatically, even though I know all I’ll want to do with the secret is shout it from the rooftops to prove Chase Harding trusted me with special, classified information.
“Honestly, I’m hoping to stay local. Marist is pretty much my dream. It’s D-I ball, and Poughkeepsie is only, like, an hour away. Plus, I look really good in red.”
“I’ll bet,” I say, my heart fizzing at his confession. “Is it Stratford you’re so attached to, or your family, or what?”
“Both, I think,” he says, and I pick up a tinge of a blush in the dark. “My brother goes to Arizona State because he wanted warmer weather and a fun party school, and he almost never makes it home. I don’t wanna be that. I like doing holidays and stuff with my family, plus making my little sister be alone at home for everything would suck.”
God, just when I thought my crush couldn’t get any bigger. But then, Chase being an incredible big brother is one of the things that’s always made my heart pitter-patter in the first place. His little sister, Kira, is a sophomore, and we were on the same Little League team as kids. He used to sit in the stands on the Sunday mornings he had free, holding massive homemade signs covered in terrible handwriting, and shout her name every time she came to bat.
At first, it made me sad I didn’t have my own big brother.
Then it made me realize I wanted Chase Harding cheering for me.
And that’s how it all began.
“This only child can confirm it would kinda suck,” I say, although I’ve never known anything else, and I love my mom and our cozy holidays. But I’d be lying if I said I never wished there were more than the two of us at our small round table built for four. If I said I didn’t occasionally wish we had a big ol’ dining room to make festive and fill with stupid things like poinsettia placemats. If my heart hadn’t twinged a bit on those summer nights when me, Jasmine, my mom, and Declan sat down to dinner together, feeling like a very weird but complete little family. Without even thinking, as we stop at a red light, I reach over and squeeze his hand. “You’re a good brother.”
He smiles softly. “Thanks.”
Our hands stay locked until the light turns green.
* * *
The house is packed by the time we get there, with music blasting and people spilling out onto the lawn. We have to park two blocks away, which is perfect because it has Chase offering me his jacket to walk the distance.
I really, really want to say yes.
But Jasmine’s first vision upon entering Stratford High was me flirting with Chase, and I find myself imagining how I’d feel if she walked into my house wearing someone else’s jacket, and I can’t do it. Not yet. Not until she and I talk.
“It’s still pretty warm out, but thank you,” I say, hoping my smile makes clear this is not a symbolic rejection. “But I’ll take a raincheck for when it’s chillier.”
“Deal,” he says, tossing his jacket back in the car, but he doesn’t make a move to sling an arm around my shoulders or take my hand. I have to remind myself that a little space is what I implicitly asked for.
As the house—mansion?—comes into sight, I continue cycling through my Jasmine thoughts. What if she’s every bit as cold tonight as she was outside school? What if she’s already drunk? And the worst thought—what if she’s with someone when we get inside?
Somehow I’m standing next to Chase fucking Harding, about to fulfill item number seven on my high school bucket list (rolling into a party on his arm), and I’m thinking about how badly I would want to throw up if I saw Jasmine Killary making out with someone on the other side of that door.
Literally everything is wrong with this picture.
What am I doing here?
I don’t have a chance to rethink my plans, because the door swings open and a stream of Stratford kids comes pouring out. I recognize them as the tennis team, and a bunch of them say hi to us as they curl around the house and head into the yard. A quick peek past them shows it’s probably too crowded inside to get to the French doors that exit to the deck with the hot tub, and oh God I remember this house so much better than I thought I did, which somehow makes everything feel worse.
The minute we walk in, Shannon, Kiki, and Gia descend on me, pulling me toward the kitchen while Chase accepts high fives and shoulder claps from adoring fans and teammates.
“So? How was the ride?” Kiki asks, waggling her eyebrows.
“Did you discuss his tight end?” Shannon’s voice could not sound pervier.
Gia spares me—dirty humor isn’t her thing—but her big Bambi eyes widen and I can tell she’s waiting for a response.
I roll my eyes. “It was a car ride. We talked about normal things. We’re friends. We talk about things.”
“We’re friends,” Shannon says mockingly. “Oh, please. Fine, play it cool here, Bogdan, but when you’re done with work tomorrow, we’re going to Lily’s and we’re getting waffles and you are giving us a full—”
“Here you go, as promised!” A long, bronzed arm jangling with bangles reaches between us and holds out two long-necked bottles, which Shannon and Kiki pluck from familiar purple-tipped fingers. “And a cider for you.” Jasmine hands a bottle to Gia with her other hand, and only when she has nothing left to offer does she realize I’m standing there with them. “Hey,” she says with far less enthusiasm.
“Hey, yourself.”
“Oh, you two have met!” Kiki says.
It’s exactly the opening that can break open the truth. I could say, “We spent the summer together.” I could say, “My mom works for her dad.” But like with Chase’s jacket, I don’t want to make any moves until she and I talk—really talk—and I find out what the hell is going on.
“We’re in English together” is all I offer, and I watch as Jasmine takes in my answer, takes in that I haven’t told my friends about her. I try to convey with my eyes that it’s a temporary response, that maybe it can change if she wants it to, but she just nods.
No upset, no surprise—just acceptance.
Suddenly, it’s too much. It’s all too much. The secrets and the summer hanging heavy between us and the meshing of my OBX life and my Stratford life, here in Jasmine fucking Killary’s kitchen … it’s too much.
“Can you show me where the bathroom is?” I ask Jasmine in a rush.
She starts to respond, and I motion as if I can’t hear her. If she thinks she’s getting out of having a real conversation, she’s got another think coming. Thankfully, that she picks up on pretty quick, and soon she’s leading me out of the kitchen and—as soon as no one’s paying attention—up the stairs and to her bedroom.
It takes me a few seconds to realize that’s what room we’re in, because it looks so wildly unlike her, it’s hard to imagine that this is where she sleeps. Even her vacation house had more personal character than this. There are no photos, no posters, no colorful scarves draped on anything, and she’s gone from an entire case of books in her Outer Banks house to a single shelf here, most of which are for school. There isn’t even any makeup strewn over her desk.
For the millionth time since I first spotted her in Stratford, I wonder if the Jasmine Killary I knew this summer was real.
“I see we’re sticking with the sec
ret route,” she says, and I was so lost in observing everything that isn’t there that I’m startled by the sound of her voice. I open my mouth to say that we don’t have to, but she adds, “I think that’s a good idea.”
Even though I was expecting it, it feels like a shot to the heart. I don’t answer right away, instead giving myself a little tour of her room. “Where’s all your stuff?”
“In Asheville, mostly. My mom’s selling the house and moving near family, so it didn’t seem worth it to drag everything up here when I’d just be moving again next year.”
Of course her mom would be selling their house, since it’s the scene of one of my favorite memories of the entire summer. Burning those memories down seems to be the theme of the week. In another life, I would’ve asked how she feels about losing her childhood home, and whether her mom’s move is the reason she’s here for the year, but we’re in this alternate life now, so all I can do is make a stupid joke.
“I’m sure your dad would’ve sprung for a new Crazy Rich Asians poster. Hell, I can’t believe you moved in without some sort of decorating clause in the contract.”
Her only response is a little snort. Which means she’s serious about not wanting to dig into our summer, to the many times we watched that movie together, to the day we found the poster at a dollar store and she declared she had to have it. She doesn’t even want to take this opportunity to talk about why, after ten years of a custody situation that’s functioned like clockwork despite the frosty divorce behind it, things have suddenly changed.
She’s serious about burying it all, which means I should be too.
“You really want to just pretend this summer never happened,” I say, finally turning.
“Don’t you?” she says, and I look up. Is that hurt in her eyes? It’s impossible to tell when they’re rimmed in kohl like that, glittering like liquid amber peeking from a cloud of smoke. And now that I’m meeting her gaze, I can’t look away. She has this stupid fucking hold on me, and she knows it.
I’ve never been attracted to girls. I have lain awake so many nights wondering, replaying nights in my mind of hanging out with Shannon, Kiki, Gia, Jamie, whoever, trying to find Signs. Objectively, they’re all pretty, maybe even beautiful. But kissing them, touching them, being with them … it’s never once crossed my mind. It still doesn’t.
And I wasn’t attracted to Jasmine like that either, at first. That’s not what happened. I don’t really know what happened. But I wasn’t staring into her eyes like I am now, looking at her lips like I am now, remembering the feel of her skin on mine like I am now. It wasn’t anything until it was, and then it wasn’t, and now …
Now I am staring at The Spot on her neck and I cannot fucking stop.
I know exactly the sound she’ll make if I touch my tongue to it. If I suck gently on it. If I suck not-so-gently on it. I can hear it in the vestiges of my brain and it’s sending unwelcome waves of electricity right through my leather shorts.
I know the sound she’ll make and I know what it does to me and she knows what it does to me and what to do next. Like a faraway dream I see exactly how this night can progress if we just shut her goddamn door and forget that there’s an outside world, that there’s a party downstairs and a boy at that party who’s supposed to be the only one who makes me feel like this.
“We should go downstairs,” she says, her voice hoarse. “People will be wondering where we are.”
People. Shannon. Gia. Kiki the Detective.
Chase.
“Yeah,” I say. I sound just as hoarse. And I don’t really want to go downstairs. But staying here isn’t an option. I wait for her to leave, but she doesn’t.
So I do.
* * *
“There you are!” Chase finds me as soon as I make it downstairs, and despite my libido having gone into overdrive with Jasmine, the smile that lights up his face makes my stomach do a very familiar flip. God, I am a terrible person. A terrible, horny person. “I thought I lost you. Everything OK?”
I can feel Jasmine’s eyes on us, watching as he rests a hand comfortably on my back as if there’s always been a space for him. In a way, I guess there has. She wasn’t there for my full-on gushing about him to our OBX friends, but she knows exactly who he is.
Suddenly, my skin feels prickly and itchy and I need to get out of her line of vision. “I’m fine,” I assure him. “Or I will be once I get your ass on the dance floor.”
He laughs. “Lead the way, madam.”
When I’m sure she can no longer see us, I relax, moving my body along with his to the music. His hands are firm and warm on my hips, and I feel other people watching, sizing up the situation. But I’ll take a thousand eyes of Stratford onlookers over two of Jasmine’s intense, inquisitive ones any day.
“Shamir special?” Two deeply tanned hands extend red Solo cups our way, and I see they’re attached to Shamir Ben-Dror, who fancies himself an amateur bartender but only makes anything remotely potable about forty percent of the time. I think about accepting one anyway, but things already feel so loaded. I’m afraid I’ll do something even more stupid than I almost did upstairs if I get a drink into my system.
“I’ll pass, but thanks.” I look at Chase. “Feel free to help yourself. I’m happy to be designated driver if you trust me with your keys. You should be celebrating.”
He grins, and it’s too freaking adorable. “You are a very cool girl, Larissa Bogdan. I’ll take one of those, Shamir, my man.”
“Bottoms up!” says Shamir, and he hands Chase a cup. They clink their drinks, and I watch Chase down his and look like he’s gonna puke. While I pray vomit isn’t in my future, it’d probably be worth it to hear “You are a very cool girl, Larissa Bogdan” over and over again in my dreams.
Never mind it’s Jasmine who taught me how much it can mean to offer to be DD.
I am definitely not thinking about that.
I am not thinking about her at all.
Chapter Five
I get home fifteen minutes after my midnight curfew, but the deal is as long as I text before twelve to say I’m fine and running late, I’m OK. I’d texted at a quarter to, when it was obvious that driving a plastered Chase home in his car with Shannon following in hers to bring me home afterward wasn’t going to be without time delays, so I’m in the clear. But when I let myself inside and find my mom up and waiting on the living room couch, I worry that I’ve misstepped.
I’m even more concerned when she asks, “How was Jasmine’s party?” as soon as I close the door behind me.
“Good,” I say cautiously, positive I never told her exactly what I was doing tonight. “How’d you know it was Jasmine’s party?”
My mom has a very knowing smile that I absolutely hate, and there it is. “You think she planned that whole thing on her own in a single week? Please.”
“Ugh.” I drop onto the other end of the couch and pry off my strappy sandals. “You being involved in my social life to that extent is officially weird.”
“But it was a good party, wasn’t it?”
“It was,” I grudgingly admit. I should’ve guessed my mom had something to do with it when I spotted the pickle-flavored potato chips. My mom is always trying to make those happen. She’s convinced if people just tried them, they’d fall in love. So far, she’s converted exactly no one. I’m pretty sure that bowl was still seventy-five percent full when I left, and I’d eaten most of it. What can I say? I’ve gotten used to the taste. My mom loves pickled everything and her Russian genes run strong. “But it would’ve been better at Hunter Ferris’s house.”
“Because I wouldn’t have had anything to do with it?”
“Because Jasmine has been kind of a bitch ever since she got to Stratford.” Somehow, without any drinks in me, the words I’ve been dying to speak come loose. “She’s trying to pretend we were never friends—don’t ask me why.” No, really, don’t ask me. “She’s barely acknowledged we’ve met before this.”
Okay, that might
not be the most even-handed presentation, but whatever. My mom, my side of the story.
“Oh, milaya, that doesn’t sound right.” Mama reaches out and strokes my bobbed hair, and suddenly I’m aware of how much shorter it is than the shoulder-blade-sweeping style I used to wear. “You two were so close. She’s probably trying not to be overly dependent on you for a social life. Make her own way and all that.”
“Why? She’d be well within her rights to jump into my social circle,” I say, even though I’m relieved she hasn’t. “Lord knows that’s exactly what I did with hers.”
“Yeah, but you know Jasmine. She’s very … independent. She wants to do things herself.”
My eyebrows shoot up. “And I’m not independent? Are you saying I’m a leech?”
“Bozhe moi.” She sighs deeply, like she always does when she thinks I’m pushing teenagedom to the max. “Lara, I did not call you a leech. But you do have a tendency to rely on other people rather than forging your own path, and that’s not what Jasmine’s like.”
“You know I’m even more offended now, right?” I say, pulling away from her hand.
She closes her eyes. “Of course you are. I think that’s my cue to go to bed. Spokoynoy nochi, milaya. We’ll talk tomorrow when it’s not so late.” She kisses the top of my head and pads off to her bedroom.
* * *
While my mom is following up her ill-fated motherly talk with a good night’s sleep, I’m wide awake in my room, pacing and looking through all my pictures, old postcards, and other souvenirs. My mom doesn’t know what she’s talking about; my whole world is evidence I’m a freaking social butterfly.
I mean, yes, okay, Shannon is definitely the social director of our group, but who cares? That’s one of the reasons I love Shannon—she’s such a caretaker in her own weird way, and she knows the rest of us can’t plan shit. It doesn’t bother Kiki or Gia how often she takes charge. And yeah, Shan usually chooses where we’re going, but in fairness, she’s always the one driving.
