by Beth Reekles
I wanted to tell him so badly.
But how could I? How could I break Lee’s heart like that? And part of me felt like I should make this decision without either of them—but especially without Noah. I didn’t want to go to Harvard just so I could be with my boyfriend or because I let him persuade me into it for that very reason.
This was college. Wherever it was, it would send me down a new path, set me up for the rest of my life from here on out. Whether I picked Berkeley or Harvard, I couldn’t base the decision solely on a boy.
Or, in this case, two boys.
Even though I didn’t want his help to actually make the decision, I wished I could tell Noah. If only so he could hug me, offer some kind of advice, reassure me that it’d be okay, it’d all work out, that Lee would understand if I did ultimately decline my place at Berkeley.
Noah put the car in park while I fidgeted with my house key.
“So I’ll pick you up tomorrow to head to the beach house?”
I almost rolled my eyes and said, No, silly, I’ll be riding with Lee, before remembering that wasn’t how this went anymore. Not because of Noah, but because Lee had a girlfriend to ride shotgun now, in my place.
As if reading my mind, Noah added, “My parents are gonna be driving Lee and Rachel. I was gonna take the bike.”
I grimaced, but it was more playful than anything else. “Oh, come on, you know I hate that two-wheeled death trap.”
“And you really hate having an excuse to cuddle up close to me…,” Noah murmured, the smirk I knew so well tugging at the corner of his mouth as he leaned across the center console toward me.
“Loathe it,” I confirmed. “Utterly and completely.”
He turned his head, his lips brushing over my jaw, making me gasp. My eyes fluttered at the sensation, my skin tingling where his mouth moved lightly up toward my ear. “So I’ll pick you up at nine?”
I nodded, twisting to catch his mouth with mine. I’d never tire of this, I decided. Never. (And if I joined him at Harvard, I’d never have to be away from this feeling….)
Reluctantly, I pulled away eventually. “Are you coming in?”
“Nah. I know Lee was heading home after taking Rachel back to her place, and I’d feel like a terrible son if I left my parents alone with him right now. Even if I’m on his side.”
I couldn’t resist a smirk of my own, and I pushed his shoulder lightly. “Look at you, Noah Flynn, all grown up, making these mature decisions.”
Would I change this much after a year at college, too?
Would Lee?
His cheeks turned a faint shade of pink. “Yeah, yeah, Shelly, get over it. Say hi to your dad and Brad for me.”
“Will do.”
We kissed again—this one not quite as long as the last—before I got out of the car.
I let myself in, Noah idling by the sidewalk in his car until I turned to wave him off, then called out that I was home.
“We’re in here,” I heard Dad call from the kitchen, where I found him and Brad playing a game of Uno.
“Room for one more?”
“Sure,” Brad said, drawing the word out into about four syllables—making me immediately suspicious. “Come deal yourself in, Elle.”
They waited patiently as I dropped my purse, joined them on the other side of the table, and picked up some cards from the pile in the center.
“It’s my turn,” Brad announced. “And then it’ll be your go.”
“Okay.”
He slammed down a card. “Pick up four! Change to…green!”
I groaned, dropping my cards facedown. “Oh, man, come on! You’ve gotta be kidding me!”
“Them’s the rules,” Dad said. “Sorry, bud.”
He didn’t sound in the least bit sorry that I’d swanned in at just the right moment to spare him from picking up four more cards when he was down to three.
He high-fived Brad under the table, the two of them snickering as I collected another four cards and searched for a green card. Which I absolutely did not have. I had to pick up three more from the pile before I got one I could play.
“Today is not my day,” I muttered, lamenting the sheer number of cards I now held.
“Something happen with the Flynns, kiddo?”
“Did you know they’re selling the beach house?”
“Wait, what?” Brad cried. “But…but they can’t! You promised I could come hang out there this summer!”
“Huh,” Dad said, setting down a green card of his own. “June mentioned they were redeveloping the whole area. I guess I can’t say I’m surprised. It makes sense, with all you kids at college.”
“Uh, excuse me?” Brad protested. “I’m not in college.”
“You’ll be packing up your stuff and moving into a dorm, too, before I can blink,” Dad said, though it sounded like he was speaking more to himself than to Brad.
“But Elle’s only going to be in Berkeley,” Brad pointed out. “And Lee. So that doesn’t count, right?”
I cringed.
“You still gotta make a call on that one, huh, bud?” Dad asked me quietly, rather than asking outright if I’d talked to Lee or Noah about it yet, while Brad was deciding his next move.
A literal call, I thought bitterly, remembering my conversation with Donna Washington.
It wasn’t fair. This wasn’t supposed to happen. If I had just stayed on the wait-list another day, I never would’ve put the decision off. Uptight Donna Washington would have called to ask about my decision, and I would have said yes, I accept, I’ll see you guys in the fall, and everything would’ve happened the way it was supposed to, if only that damn letter from Harvard hadn’t arrived this morning.
Maybe it was some kind of sign? That it had shown up when it did, just hours before Berkeley called, wanting to know if I was in or not? Maybe it was fate telling me where I should go….
Dad seemed to be expecting me to answer, but I didn’t want to dwell on college right now.
“We’re heading up to the beach house tomorrow to start clearing the place out,” I mumbled instead. Brad played yellow. Luckily, I had a bunch of those to pick from, including a +2 card, which I immediately inflicted on Dad before he got to call Uno. “But don’t worry, I’ll get back in time to babysit.”
“I don’t need a babysitter,” Brad announced in a lofty voice, sticking his chin in the air. “I’m eleven.”
I held up my hands, eyebrows shooting up. “My mistake.”
Dad caught my eye and tried not to laugh.
“So how come you’re out tomorrow night?” I asked him. I’d been forewarned this morning before the Harvard letter arrived that I was on babysitting duty tomorrow, but I never got the chance to ask why. Dad didn’t really go out on the weekend, so I asked, “Is it something for work?”
“Actually,” Dad said, almost mimicking Brad in the way he sat up straighter and cleared his throat. “No. I’ve…got a date.”
I stared at him for a minute—long enough that Brad kicked me under the table and said, “Elle! Come on, your turn!”
I played the first blue card I saw in my hand and stared at Dad again.
A date?
Since when did Dad go on dates?
Come on, Elle, don’t be weird about this. This was the first date Dad had been on in…ever. Since Mom. He was probably feeling weird enough about it without me adding to that.
So I said, “Okay, so…how do you know her? What’s her name? Tell us about her. Where are you taking her on this first date? Please tell me you’re not gonna do something dorky like bring her flowers. Actually, maybe you should—”
“Her name is Linda,” Dad said. “I met her through work. And if you must know, Elle, we’ve actually had a couple of dates already, and I did in fact get her flowers, and she thought it was very
sweet.”
“Whoa, hold up,” I blurted. “This isn’t the first date? You’ve been out with her before and you didn’t tell us about it?”
Dad shrugged, but I could see he looked a little guilty. I didn’t want him to feel guilty. Or maybe I did. But I didn’t want him to feel bad about it. It was just…weird.
And then he said, eyes focused on his cards, “I don’t tell you guys about every date I go on, you know. But things have been going really well with Linda. I like her. And we’re just gonna see how it goes.”
Brad didn’t even seem fazed. Did he know? Did Dad tell him that he was going on dates but didn’t tell me? Did he not have anything to say about this?
“Do you not have anything to say about this?” I exclaimed, looking incredulously at Brad.
He glared back at me for a minute before sighing. “Is this the same Linda we met at that company picnic over spring break?”
“Yep, that’s her, bud.”
“Oh.” He shrugged, studying his two cards again. “She was nice. She made good potato salad.”
Dad played a card. Brad went next, yelling, “Uno!” and Dad made some joke at him about how he must’ve cheated. I watched the exchange, fumbling to play a card of my own before Brad kicked me under the table again.
Seriously?
This was not the first date he’s been on?
And I was only just hearing about this?
How long had this been going on, exactly, if Brad had met her? I’d spent spring break on a cross-country road trip with Lee, driving to visit Noah in Boston for a couple of days. Who knew I’d missed so much by not going to some boring company picnic? Had they been dating all this time or was this a recent development? Did Brad not get what was going on here, or did he simply not care?
Did I care too much?
Brad won the game seconds later. While he jumped up to perform a victory dance, Dad congratulated him and collected the cards before shuffling them. “Another round?”
“Duh!” Brad didn’t need any convincing.
“Not for me. I’ve uh…I’ve got some stuff to do.”
Worry creased Dad’s face and he looked at me over the top of his glasses. I repressed a sigh; I didn’t want to be weird about the date, but I obviously already had been or he wouldn’t be looking at me like that.
Either that or I looked as exhausted as I felt. Today had been a lot. Actually, it had been way, way too much. I wanted to crawl into bed and pretend none of this was happening. It was way too much to deal with right now.
“You okay, bud?”
“Sure! It’s just…this college thing, you know? I have to call Berkeley on Monday.” I shot a quick glance at Brad, not wanting to say too much in case he accidentally let slip something to Lee before I could tell him myself. I made an effort to smile and keep my voice light when I added, “And I promise I’ll be back in plenty of time for you to go on your date with the lovely Linda. And obviously I’m going to have to give you a curfew, mister.”
He relaxed, smiling back at me. “Thanks, Elle.”
“Anytime.”
I kind of regretted making the offer as soon as the words were out of my mouth.
It wasn’t that I didn’t think Dad should date. It had been a long time since Mom died, and it wasn’t like he didn’t deserve to be happy or anything. It was just…Well, he’d been a single dad for this long. Dating wasn’t something he did…except, evidently it was—he just didn’t tell us about it.
I bit my tongue, thinking how dating in secret seemed to run in the family.
* * *
• • •
“Look,” I said later while on the phone with Levi, after off-loading on him about the whole thing, “I kind of get why he wouldn’t say anything. Maybe he was scared of how we’d react or thought it’d upset us, or he didn’t want to say something and have us think it was all serious and get attached to some lady just for them to break up, but, well, what if that means this Linda is something special, and it is serious?”
“Elle,” Levi told me, “in the immortal words of Taylor Swift, you need—”
“Do not. I am very calm. Okay? I’m calm. I’m just weirded out, that’s all. Don’t you think it’s weird?”
He shrugged. Tonight Levi was on shift at the 7-Eleven where he worked, but now he was on break and FaceTiming me from out back. I used up way too many of his breaks calling him, but…well, we were friends, right?
After Lee, Levi was my best friend. He’d moved here last year, and since he was neighbors with our friend Cam, he’d become part of the gang. When Lee started senior year by throwing himself into the football team and his relationship with Rachel, and with Noah on the other side of the country, I’d been a little lonely. Levi and I had gotten pretty close; he’d even opened up to me about the ex-girlfriend who’d broken his heart and his dad being in remission following cancer treatment—things he’d taken months to tell any of the guys about.
(We had, maybe, kinda gotten a little too close.)
It shouldn’t be weird that I called him a lot when he was at work. Although in my defense, he’d started the calling—it was easier for him to talk over the phone than catch up on texts while he was working, he’d said.
It shouldn’t be weird, but it probably was—a little. Objectively speaking. You know, since I’d kissed him at Thanksgiving last year and he’d made it obvious he was crushing on me.
But we were past that. We were friends. Levi knew that.
Noah knew it, too—which was equally important.
Definitely not weird, however, was me calling him up to rant about the new development that my dad was dating now.
“I can see why it’s strange for you,” Levi said, oh so diplomatically. I rolled my eyes. “But come on, Elle, you can’t be that surprised, right?”
“I’m just…”
Surprised he didn’t tell me before. Surprised this wasn’t his first date with Linda. Surprised he was dating at all.
“It’s not bad that I feel weird about it, right?”
“I guess not. But hey, Elle, try to see this as a good thing, you know? She obviously makes your dad happy or he wouldn’t have mentioned her. And with you heading off to college next year, maybe it’s not such a bad thing if he’s got someone else around.”
The words sent a shock through me, my brain juddering to a stop for a split second.
Someone else around?
I suddenly had images of this mystery woman cooking dinner in our house, sorting out Brad’s muddy laundry after soccer practice on a rainy afternoon, sitting on our sofa and watching movies, eating dinner at our kitchen table….
I could picture her with Dad and my brother, but it was hard to place me in that image. Off at college—wherever that was—and coming back home for the holidays to some new family I didn’t recognize.
I didn’t want to feel weird about it, but I did.
Levi could tell immediately he’d said something wrong, and he ran his hand awkwardly back and forth through his short brown curls. He changed tack: “But, you know, maybe it’s not even gonna work out anyway. And your dad must be taking things really slow if he’s only just mentioning her. It could be months before he even considers having her over to meet you and Brad.”
“Yeah. Sure.”
He tried again, putting on a bright smile. “How did it go earlier with the Flynn clan? Did you guys have a nice time?”
“Not really,” I mumbled. “They’re selling the beach house. We’re all heading there tomorrow to start clearing the place out.”
Levi groaned, head tipping back and his hand lowering the phone slightly. “Elle, I’m gonna go before I screw up any more and bring up something else that’s gonna upset you, okay? I’m gonna hang up and send you a couple of memes instead.”
I managed a laugh at that. “Thank
s, Levi.”
After we hung up and he, as promised, messaged me with a couple of screenshots of memes he’d saved to his phone, I wondered if I should’ve told him about my college dilemma.
No, I decided quickly. I didn’t want Levi getting roped into that mess, too. He’d been tangled up in more than enough of my drama when it came to the Flynn brothers, I figured.
This was something I had to deal with by myself. And time was ticking.
Chapter Five
In the year that we’d been together, riding on the back of Noah’s motorcycle had become a much less terrifying experience. I wasn’t even shaking when I climbed off outside the beach house, but I did have some serious helmet hair going on.
I was convinced that those movies and commercials of women pulling off helmets and shaking out their flawless, bouncy, shiny hair was a total myth.
Noah smirked at me as I angled my head in the view of my cell phone camera, patting down my frizzy hair before giving up and pulling it all back into a ponytail.
He took off his own helmet. His hair was, predictably enough, shiny and flawless.
“Don’t worry,” he told me, “you still look cute.”
“Wish I could say the same for you.”
He got my purse out of the seat of the bike.
I always had trouble packing for the beach house.
Always.
But today, for the first time ever, it had been easy. I threw a bunch of empty canvas totes into my purse along with my wallet and phone charger, and that was that. We were only here to start clearing things out, and I was sure we’d come across stuff we wanted to keep and take home (hence all the empty tote bags).
Wrapping my hand around the handle of my purse, I was horrified to find my eyes prickling. We hadn’t even started yet, I hadn’t even gotten inside, and I was already getting emotional.
Today was going to be difficult, I knew. I’d barely slept last night, trying to work out what to do about everything—Dad suddenly having a dating life, college….At least today I only had to deal with one thing: saying goodbye to the beach house.
