One Last Time

by Beth Reekles

  He flushed, ears turning red, and glanced away. “I’m sorry. I thought…”

  “Oh, you messed up big-time,” I told him with a smile and a nod. “But you’re still my friend, and I still care about you. Even if you’re a big idiot.”

  “I heard you and Noah broke up,” he mumbled.

  “That is so not why I’m here.” I heard how harsh I sounded and winced. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to burst your bubble or whatever.”

  “No! No, I just meant…I hope it wasn’t because of me. That’s kind of why I’ve been avoiding you. I thought you’d hate me, because…if I messed things up and caused any trouble between you guys…”

  “You didn’t,” I reassured him. “I think it was always going to end like that, you know. Me and Noah. It’s okay.”

  (It wasn’t, really, but it was getting there.)

  Levi nodded slowly, uncertainly.

  We hadn’t spoken in weeks, so I decided not to waste time being delicate or beating around the bush. “Do you still have a crush on me?”

  Levi cracked a smile. It was small, and tired, and lopsided. “I think I’m always gonna have a little crush on you, Elle.”

  “Well, if you can keep a lid on it and not kiss me again, I’d really, really like it if we could go back to being friends. I miss you. But I get it if it’s, like, too hard for you to—”

  “To be around you?” Levi beamed, throwing his head back in laughter. “I said I have a crush on you. I didn’t say that your womanly wiles are so irresistible I’m putty in your hands and will kiss the ground you walk on. I’ve been your friend for the past year. I miss you, too.”

  “My womanly wiles?” I echoed, trying hard not to laugh.

  Levi pulled a face, head wobbling side to side as he pretended to consider it. “They’re not that great, sorry to break it to ya.”

  I clutched a hand to my heart. “How will I ever recover from such an insult?”

  “Oh, I’m sure you’ll find plenty of distractions in Boston to take your mind off it.”

  “Actually, I’m not going there anymore.”

  I explained the whole thing to Levi, stopping a few times when an actual customer came in and needed serving. His manager came over at one point to tell him to socialize on his own time. I left him not long after that, but only once we’d made plans to hang out in a couple of days when we were both free.

  I really had missed Levi these last few weeks, and I was glad to have finally cleared the air. It would’ve sucked to lose him as a friend, especially when I would be staying in California for college.

  I’d break the news to Lee soon. He’d need a little cheering up once the beach house sale went through, and this was sure to do the trick. As for Noah, he’d understand, and I didn’t think he’d blame himself. He was too smart for that.

  Last year the distance between us had been awful; I had a feeling that this time, it was exactly what we both needed.

  I knew that I should’ve felt worse. I should’ve been disappointed and sad and had that hollow feeling in my chest because everything was ending. But at some point today, it had stopped feeling like that. If anything, it finally felt like it was all falling into place.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  “You’re here!” Lee cried.

  He dropped the duffel bag, raced across the street, and threw himself at me, his arms engulfing me in a hug that lifted me clean off my feet. I laughed as he set me back down. I pushed some of the hair out of his face.

  “You didn’t think I’d let you get away without saying goodbye, did you?”

  He beamed at me, blue eyes sparkling. “I thought you were at work!”

  “Yeah, well, May let me go early so I could see you off. And she asked me to give you this….”

  I opened my purse and reached in to give him the crisp sheet of paper. A printed certificate with the Dunes logo on it, signed by May, declaring Lee Flynn—

  “Employee of the Month!” he read aloud, and hooted with laughter. “Aw, man. Give her a hug from me, will you? And tell her this will be granted pride of place on my wall at college. I want everybody to know.”

  “She’s so excited you’ll finally be out from under her feet. The employee who never was.”

  “The best non-employee she’s ever had,” he agreed. He’d been spending so much time with me lately that a lot of it had been at work—and while Levi’s manager was never happy to see me, May just rolled her eyes and threw her hands in the air whenever Lee came to the restaurant, where he’d inevitably get stuck with helping the rest of us out.

  We started walking back to his parents’ car, which was piled high with boxes and bags, ready for Lee to move into his new dorm room. Noah had flown back to Boston a couple of days ago. “So you’re all set?”

  “All set,” he confirmed. “I mean, I’m planning to come back next weekend. Pick up my car and anything else I’ve forgotten. Hey! You could always drive up to bring me back? I could show you the place, introduce you to whatever people I meet this week.”

  I grinned at him. “I’d love that.”

  For a second we just stood there, smiling at each other, before Lee sighed, his expression crumpling. He took my hands in his. “It feels so weird to be leaving without you.”

  It was weird for me, too. I knew it was stupid because it wasn’t like he was that far away, and we’d see each other plenty, but we’d barely spent more than a couple of days apart before.

  Lee had been emotional enough for all three of us when we’d cleared out the beach house. I’d been determined not to cry that day, and I was determined today, too.

  But my resolve broke, and tears filled my eyes. My voice cracked.

  “I’m going to miss you so damn much, Lee Flynn. You have to promise to call every day.”

  “Cross my heart.”

  “And you’ll FaceTime me after you’ve unpacked, to show me your room?”

  “Absolutely.”

  I sniffed, trying to take a few breaths. A rogue tear slipped down Lee’s cheek and I grabbed him into one last hug. “I love you.”

  “Love you, too, Shelly.”

  We broke apart and Lee cleared his throat gruffly, puffing out his chest and shaking his head.

  His mom, over by the trunk of the car, yelled, “Lee! Did you pack the box with all the cleaning products? I haven’t seen it yet.”

  “Damn, I was hoping she wouldn’t notice.” He winked at me and said, “I’ve gotta run back inside for it. Promise you’ll stay to wave me off?”

  “You couldn’t get rid of me if you tried.”

  We’d considered me joining Lee, getting in the car with them to drop him off at college. I’d have been welcome, and we’d have said our tearful goodbyes in his dorm room, but in the end, we’d decided it was better this way. Lee and I had driven up to Berkeley last week together, going to a few spots Ashton had suggested we check out, and that had been enough.

  Going to Berkeley wasn’t our thing anymore. It was Lee’s. Today was just for him.

  He disappeared back inside, and June stepped over to me after giving Matthew strict instructions on how to repack some things in the car.

  “Hey, sweetie. How’re you doing?”

  She wrapped me in a brief but warm hug, then held me at arm’s length, scrutinizing me.

  “I’ll be okay,” I settled on saying. Because, really, I was getting there.

  She nodded, smiling and dropping her arms. “All of you, so grown up. He made me promise not to cry, you know, but I think we all know I will. And you know if you want a hand doing any shopping or help moving in—just yell. We’re around. Matthew and I are happy to help out.”

  “Thanks. I know. But it’s okay—my dad and I have got it in hand. And Linda is going to come with us tomorrow to go shopping.”

  Linda joining us had actually
been my idea. She wasn’t so bad, I guessed. And she did have really good taste (and a penchant for coupons). Besides, I could see how much of an effort she was making for me; it was probably about time I returned the favor.

  “Oh! And I meant to tell you—we finally got everything sorted. All the paperwork and everything. Had to pay the buyers back for all their fees, but it’s done now. The beach house is officially remaining in the Flynn name.”

  I gasped, beaming at her. “That’s amazing news. Thank you, June.”

  “And all because of you. Don’t thank me. I was sorry to see that place go, too, but…turned out I just needed a little nudge in the right direction. Like someone else, huh?”

  The day after we’d left the beach house, I’d taken the photograph of me, Noah, and Lee down on the beach—one final picture of the three of us and a summer at the beach house—and gotten it professionally printed and framed before taking it to June and Matthew that same day.

  Matthew had started tearing up and left the room.

  June had looked at me, then the box full of the photos from the beach house and the new one I’d had made for them, and she’d grabbed her phone, calling the movers to tell them to stop.

  It hadn’t been easy, but they’d managed to cancel the sale and keep the beach house.

  I knew we all had to let go and grow up and move on—but I was so, so glad we didn’t have to lose the beach house to do all that.

  I helped the three of them finish packing up the car.

  Lee rolled down his window, the back seat piled up with pillows and a comforter beside him, and his backpack. “Just as well you didn’t come with us. There’s no room for you.”

  “Just as well,” I echoed. “Call me later, okay?”

  “Yeah, I know. I promised, didn’t I?” He grinned. “And hey! When you get home, check your garage. I got you a little going-away gift.”

  “In the garage?”

  He grinned and reached out to tweak my nose. I stepped back and blew him a kiss, then watched the car drive off, taking him to Berkeley.

  Just because we were growing up didn’t mean we had to grow apart. My relationship with Noah might have ended, but my friendship with Lee would last forever, whatever happened, wherever life took us.

  If there was one thing in life I could count on, it was that. It was him.

  Once they were out of sight, I walked home.

  How many thousands of times over the years had I walked to Lee’s house? I could walk this route blindfolded.

  I wondered when I’d walk it next.

  Back at home, the house was empty. I went inside to find the keys for the garage and hauled the door open.

  And right there, in the middle of the garage floor, taking up so much space and standing proudly, in all its bright pink-and-blue glory, speckled with rust and starting to fall apart, was our DDM machine from the arcade.

  “He didn’t,” I whispered, stepping inside slowly, reverently. “Oh, Lee, you didn’t.”

  A note was taped to the screen, and I pulled it off to read it.

  Shelly—Until our next dance. Your best friend forever—Lee.

  I clutched the note to my chest, tearing up all over again and running a hand over the old game.

  Classic Lee.

  Epilogue

  Laughter filled the air and chatter bubbled all around us. Electronic dings and schwoops sounded every so often. A ball collided hard with a wooden target board, followed by a splash and a chorus of cheers as a teacher plummeted into a dunk tank. Grass was trampled into the mud by hundreds of feet and the sun beat down on us. Music was being pumped out of speakers nearby, but you could barely hear it over the sound of everything else.

  A hand clutched my arm, turning me around, and a face I knew better than my own beamed at me. “There you are!”

  “Hey, you guys!” I took turns hugging Lee and then Rachel, like I hadn’t just seen them a couple of days ago, or video-called them just last night to make sure we were still on for the day.

  Rachel looked around, awestruck. “I can’t believe how…I thought it would’ve changed a lot more.”

  “It has,” I told her. “They got a brand-new moonwalk this year.”

  But I knew exactly what she meant. I’d felt it, too. Coming here today had been like stepping into a dream.

  The annual Spring Carnival. Our school was still running it, after all these years. This year, they were raising money for a climate-change organization. A lot of the booths were the same ones we’d known; kids were still hooking the exact same rubber ducks from a pool that we had used.

  It had been six years since we graduated high school. Six years since we’d all been back here together.

  I’d been back a couple of times. Parent–teacher conferences for Brad that Dad and Linda couldn’t make it to that I’d filled in on. Those had been weird as hell—but being at the carnival today was something else entirely.

  Six years, and Lee and Rachel had stuck it out together all this time. Rachel had moved back home after graduating from Brown. She and Lee had gotten an apartment together. He’d proposed at New Year’s.

  I didn’t have an engagement ring (or a boyfriend at all, for that matter), but I did have an apartment of my own, just downtown from them. Near my family, not too far from Lee, and within walking distance of work.

  “So where’s Brad?”

  “Probably stuffing his face with cotton candy.” I rolled my eyes. “That kid’s a dentist’s dream. Or nightmare, depending on which way you look at it. He’s gotta get another filling, you know.”

  “Living his best life,” Lee declared.

  Rachel swatted a hand across his chest before I could do exactly that. “Don’t encourage it.”

  “Good luck when you guys have kids,” I told her. “He’s going to be a handful. Especially on Halloween. Can you imagine? Although, that said, he’ll probably eat all their Halloween candy before they get a look at it. Oh my God, that’s weird, isn’t it? Kids. You guys might have kids one day. I swear we were just kids.”

  “We were,” Lee told me in a flat voice. “So please don’t, because I came here to have fun and relive my childhood, not have an existential crisis.”

  “You’re twenty-four,” Rachel scoffed.

  “Exactly. I’m a grown-up now. And I can have an existential crisis any time I want, thank you very much.”

  “Lee, you had cake for breakfast.”

  “Well, you shouldn’t have bought a whole cake, then, should you? Then there wouldn’t have been cake for me to eat for breakfast.”

  I laughed, looping my arm through Lee’s. Some things never changed.

  The three of us set off to explore more of the carnival, and speaking of things that never changed…

  “Oh my God,” I blurted, stopping in my tracks.

  Lee stopped too. “No way.”

  It couldn’t be.

  Just as we’d turned a corner, we saw a crowd around one of the booths. One we recognized all too well. The paint was a little faded now. Looking at it, I could still feel the wet splash of paint on my skin when Lee had flicked some at me while we’d been working on the booth. I could hear his laughter from that afternoon ringing in my ears.

  “Whoa,” he breathed, and clutched my arm. I grabbed him right back.

  Because right there in front of us, seven years later, was the kissing booth.

  As we watched, a guy walked up to the booth. He said something to the girl there and she blushed furiously, looking nervous before leaning in for a kiss.

  My stomach swooped and, just for a second, it was me sitting in that booth, with Noah sliding across two dollar bills and my heart hammering in my chest as he told me, “I didn’t pay to talk to you, you know. I paid to get a kiss.”

  I could feel my lips tingling.

 
; The couple in the booth broke apart. The guy said something and the girl laughed, tucking her hair behind her ear and nodding at him. They kissed again, and the crowd cheered.

  I’d never forgotten my first kiss. How could I? I could still remember the way Noah’s lips had felt against mine, the way he’d tasted.

  Even after six years, it was impossible to forget Noah Flynn.

  He didn’t come home that first Thanksgiving after we broke up: he spent it in Boston with Amanda. But he did bring her back for Christmas, because she was still having a hard time being around her parents while they fought out a bitter divorce. It had been weird, but not horrible.

  We’d stayed friends. Maybe not good friends, but it wasn’t as though we could really stay out of each other’s lives. We were friendly, at the very least.

  And I’d dated other guys since. I’d had other boyfriends. Just like Noah had had other girlfriends.

  But even so.

  Noah was…something else.

  I looked away from the couple in the booth—and my eyes landed on a tall figure moving through the crowds toward us. Piercing blue eyes, his dark hair cut short, a simple gray shirt and jeans that didn’t have a single loose thread for a change.

  “You made it!” Rachel enthused, hugging Noah hello while Lee and I exchanged a baffled look.

  “I made it,” he confirmed, cracking a smile and gesturing at himself. He smiled so much easier now. It was nice to see. He caught my eye, just for a second, then hugged Lee. “All right, buddy? Long time no see. And, hey, now I can say it properly, face to face: congrats on the engagement.”

  “Uh, y-yeah, thanks.”

  “Come on,” Rachel said, tugging on Lee’s arm. “You can buy me some cotton candy.”

  “But—”

  She hissed something at Lee and he shut up. I cast him a brief, somewhat desperate look before they disappeared around the corner.

  Leaving me and Noah alone together for the first time in years.

  “Been a long time, Shelly.”

  I laughed. “Oh, please. I thought I dropped that nickname ages ago. I, um…I didn’t know you were back in town.”