“Okay, point taken. Do you think I should talk to Mr. P again, then? Try to get him on board?”
“I have no idea, Lou. This whole thing seems super out-there to me, but—” She shrugs.
I tap my pencil against my thigh. “But what?”
“But I know how much this place means to you. If I have to raise two million dollars fifty cents at a time by secretly selling cupcakes from the back of my car for a mysterious good cause, then I’m in. Even if it absolutely annoys the shit out of me.”
I drop my pencil, sort of floored by how cool of her that is.
She scoots forward, dangling off the foot of the bed to grab it for me. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, no, that’s just ridiculously nice,” I say, and it hits me right then, for the first time, exactly how awesome she’s been about everything.
“That’s me, you know, ridiculously nice.” She fakes a scowl and growls.
“You are,” I say, before I can stop myself.
“Well, don’t go saying that in public.” She looks back down at her notebook, and everything goes quiet for a moment. I shift my gaze down, studying my toes until the moment passes. It seems safer that way.
Seeley clears her throat, drawing my eyes back up to hers. “I need to talk to you about something actually important.”
“Saving the park is important,” I remind her.
“Right, of course.” She smiles. “But something equally important we need to talk about is you blowing your date with Nick.”
“A) I didn’t blow it, and b) it wasn’t a real date anyway.”
“I left you guys alone at the diner,” she groans. “I literally whisked his girlfriend away so you guys could hang out, and you seriously, honestly spent the whole time planning a bake sale?”
“Yeah. He’s been so lovey-dovey with Jessa anyway. Plus, he got super insecure about the bake sale idea. I almost feel icky messing with him now.”
“What does that mean? The diving pirate of your dreams, the last few months the universe is going to force you together, and you’re gonna walk away now and let him live happily ever after with his fake fairy princess? After everything?”
“I think she’s Cinderella, actually,” I say. “She has a blue dress and a prince and stuff.”
“What does she need a diving pirate for, then? Cinderella didn’t end up with a diving pirate.”
“Neither does the hot dog.”
“How do you know?”
“I just do,” I say, thinking about how he looks at her like she hangs the moon. “Besides, you’ve been totally against breaking them up this whole time—how come suddenly you’re all ‘Down with Cinderella, I only ship hot dogs and pirates’?”
“Probably because helping you win him over has screwed up my life, so I at least need it to be worth something.”
“It did not.”
“Lou, everybody thinks we’re together. Angie is pissed at me. I don’t even know what Sara thinks. And now you’re telling me that maybe it was all for nothing. And I . . .” She rolls onto her back and stares at the ceiling, letting her words trail off.
“You what?” I ask.
Seeley drops her hands over her eyes. “Just, seriously, make up your mind already.”
I fiddle with some pens on my desk. “I’m just saying, the more I get to know him, the less I want to ruin his life.”
“Dating you wouldn’t ruin his life!” she says, her voice kicking back up a notch.
“Come on, Jessa’s perfect; she’s beautiful, she’s nice, she’s loaded. Why would anyone want to give that up?”
“She’s only loaded because of her stepfather. Underneath it all she’s a townie just like us. She’s not any more perfect than you or anyone else.” Seeley bolts upright and glares. “You’re so frustrating!”
“I’m not trying to be. I’m just saying I recognize my limits. This is me accepting that.”
“That’s such bullshit.” Seeley shakes her head. “You’re pretending to be all noble about not wanting to break them up, but what you’re really saying is ‘I could never have him anyway.’”
“Why are you getting so upset?”
“Because you never give yourself any credit! You’re the most passionate person I have ever met. Not everybody’s like that!”
I roll my eyes. “Like what? Weird? Obsessive?”
“No, not weird. Amazing. Lou, listen to me.” She leans forward, her eyes searching mine. “You go out there and you make stuff happen, for better or for worse. And that’s just . . .” She looks down, shaking her head. “It just really pisses me off when you talk shit about yourself. You say you want to be noticed, and you say Nick does that, but so do a lot of other people. The only one who doesn’t seem to notice how awesome you are is you.”
“Seeley—” I start, my brain flooding with a thousand emotions.
“Besides, Jessa’s not all that perfect anyway.” She sighs and cracks her neck. “I’m pretty sure she’s been screwing Ari on the side since last summer.”
And that, right there, stops my brain right in its tracks, because what?
“No way,” I say. “I don’t buy that for a second.”
Seeley rolls her eyes. “Why not?”
“Because Jessa is ridiculously nice. And, I don’t know, if even people like Nick can get cheated on, what hope does that leave for people like me?”
“Jesus, Elouise,” Seeley groans. “You’re ridiculous.” Her phone buzzes with a new text, and she grimaces as she reads it. “It’s Nick.”
“What’s he want?”
A tiny divot appears between her eyebrows, the way it does whenever she’s concentrating too hard. “He wants us to come over.”
“When? Right now? Why?”
“He wants us to come over and bake cupcakes.” She sighs. “Which, I’ll admit, is a little bit cute.”
“More than a little,” I say, a smile spreading across my face.
“He’s really into bake sales, huh?”
“I think he’s just really into somebody being into his idea.” I bite my lip. “You can go alone if you want.”
“I’m not going if you’re not,” she says.
“He texted you. He didn’t text me.”
“It says both of us.” She shoves her phone in my face so I can read it. “Besides, it’s the perfect way for you to get more time with him.” Her phone buzzes again in her hand and she snatches it back, flicking open the message and laughing. “Oh my god, Lou, look!”
She holds it up, and I can’t help but smile at the picture he just sent. It’s him giving a thumbs up with a giant bowl of cupcake batter in his hand. He’s even in a “Kiss the Cook” apron and everything. A pathetic little “aww” rips out of me before I can catch it.
Her fingers fly over the screen again, and a tight smirk tugs up one side of her mouth as she presses send and shoves her phone into the pocket of her ridiculously tight jeans. I wonder how she can even fit her phone in that pocket. Honestly, I can’t believe the pockets are even real.
I sigh. “What did you do?”
“Told him you couldn’t wait.” She laughs, dangling her mom’s keys in front of me with a grin.
CHAPTER 22
Nick’s house is big—well, big for our town, and even big for the nicer, newer part his family moved to when they came here. It’s a huge two-story, with too many windows to count and landscaping that looks like it’s from a magazine. Nick’s dad is a doctor and his mom is a lawyer. They somehow managed to never get divorced, and it seems to have paid off.
Seeley doesn’t hesitate at all when she parks. In fact, she bounds up the steps to his porch, rapping twice on his door and then twisting the handle. I wonder how many times exactly she’s been over here, because she’s clearly comfortable. That feels weird.
“Helllooooo,” she calls
out, sticking her head inside.
“Come on in,” he shouts from somewhere, and I follow Seeley through the rooms.
We walk past the formal living room and the beautiful staircase leading up to the second floor. The house is cold, really cold, and the mix of dark hardwood floors and icy marble doesn’t help to make it any more inviting. Seeley weaves through the rooms, leading us to the back of the house.
Nick is in the kitchen. It’s a huge bright space, all open windows and great lighting that somehow seems to force out even the darkening night sky. Everything is pale wood and peach granite; not just peach, but peach with little flecks of gold in it. This is exactly the kind of place that a guy who dates a girl like Jessa would live in. My brain can’t help wandering back to the laminate countertop running the length of my own kitchen. No matter what Seeley thinks, who dates a laminate girl when you’re a golden peach granite guy?
Nick smiles when he sees us, all-out grins really. It’s literally impossible not to smile back when a boy in an apron looks at you like you just made his whole night. “Taste this.” He shoves a still-warm cupcake into my hand. “Tell me what you think.”
I take a bite; it’s buttery, light, and absolutely perfect, even though it doesn’t have any frosting on it at all. “This is so good,” I blurt out. I at least have the decency to look embarrassed when a few crumbs drop from my mouth and land on the counter. Seeley brushes them off with a glare.
“Be cute,” she whispers through her teeth, and I would die right now except I’m still holding Nick’s half-eaten cupcake and that would be rude.
“Do you really like it?” he asks. “Or are you just saying that?”
“What mix is this?” I ask, after I’ve wiped my mouth and set the cupcake down on a napkin that Seeley dug up from somewhere.
“I made it from scratch.” He smiles so wide that I can’t help but smile back. “I googled it.”
“You googled it?”
When he turns back around to grab his iPad, Seeley gives me a little shove. I lose my balance, catching myself on the counter beside him. He grins and leans into me, flipping the screen around to show me the recipe.
“It has the highest rating,” he says.
And yeah, he really did do it from scratch, and even has the mess to prove it. I feel a little warm, a little giggly, thinking about him taking the time to do all this; to research it and make it and then to be too excited to wait until tomorrow to share it with us—like he’s not only sidelong glances and dripping hair anymore, you know? He clears his throat, taking his iPad back and cutting off whatever type of moment we had going on.
“C’mere.” He walks over to the other side of the counter and shoves a spoon in my hand. If this is homemade frosting, there’s a 97 percent chance that I’m about to combust.
I lick the spoon. Yep, I’m for sure gonna combust. “No way.” I take another lick. “Is this buttercream?”
He nods and I groan from the pure unadulterated joy that comes from eating homemade icing in the kitchen of a cute boy. Okay, so maybe that’s oddly specific, but still. It’s accurate.
“Made it myself,” he says, like I didn’t already know. Seeley laughs a little from her seat, but then goes back to looking at her phone. “You have a little on your—” he says, gesturing at my face.
My cheeks burn because of course I do, of course. I wipe at my face and look up at him. “Did I get it?”
He shakes his head, and I wipe at the other side, but that just makes him laugh and shake his head even more.
“You’re making it worse.” He reaches his hand up and rubs at my lips with the pad of his thumb, exactly the way he rubbed grease off my face that night in the rain.
“What’s going on?” Jessa’s voice cuts across the room, and I twist around, praying I don’t look as guilty as I feel.
“Frosting cupcakes.” I’m blushing so hard my face is on fire.
“With your lips?” I can tell by the tone of her voice she’s not impressed, and I guess I can see why. I mean, she did walk in on her boyfriend’s fingers on another girl’s face, and that’s got to be weird. I look over at Seeley, but she’s frowning into her phone, her fingers flying across the glass.
Nick grabs another spoon and dips it into the frosting, crossing the kitchen to stand toe to toe with his girlfriend. She narrows her eyes, somehow engulfed in his shadow even in this, the brightest of rooms. He drags some frosting across her bottom lip with a smirk and then leans down to kiss it off. She purses her lips, fighting the inevitable smile, but I can see her eyes crinkling up even from here.
He smiles. “Better?”
“Better.” She sighs, but I don’t miss the way she looks at me and at Seeley. I swear I catch her rolling her eyes; not in an obvious way, more like a way that will give her plausible deniability or whatever. Still, coupled with that look she gave me earlier, I don’t like it.
Jessa looks down at the cupcakes dotting the counter. “You made these?”
“Yeah.” His voice is all shy and tentative now, not excited and loud like he was when we first got here.
She picks one up, turning it around in her hand slowly. “You’re really into this, huh?” I can tell by the way his whole body kind of deflates that that wasn’t the reaction he was hoping for.
I look back at Seeley, who sticks her tongue out at me before reaching out her hand. I fall back to her, lacing our fingers and bumping her with my shoulder. It’s probably good that we sell our relationship, especially with Jessa here looking all suspicious.
“Okay, what’s the plan?” Seeley asks.
I wriggle my toes on the cold tile and slip my messenger bag down, opening it up to fish out a pair of fuzzy socks.
“You carry socks in your purse?” Jessa laughs, and it’s not a mean laugh really, but my ears burn just the same.
I bend down to slip them on. “Yeah.”
“She never travels without them. She has the coldest toes on the planet,” Seeley says. “I think it’s adorable.”
“It’s something,” Nick says, but in a tone that makes it smart a little less.
“Anywho, how about Jessa and I handle the rest of the baking, and you and Elle handle the frosting,” Seeley says. “We’ll make a few different flavors, and tomorrow we can bring them all in and see which ones get eaten first, kind of like a taste test before the big day.”
Jessa looks down at a messy mixing bowl with a frown. “The big day?”
“The day we launch our parking lot cupcake invasion, of course,” Seeley says, spinning around all dramatic-like. “Elle and I figured out that we both magically have the weekend after next off, so it’s perfect for the bake sale.”
I glance over at Nick in his apron. He looks at his calendar and seems a little disappointed. “I have three shows both days,” he says.
“We can work around it.” Seeley shrugs, and I can tell she’s actually given this some real thought. “You go on at twelve thirty, two thirty, and four thirty on Saturdays, right?”
“Yeah.” He wrinkles his forehead a little, no doubt wondering how she knew. I mean, I’ve had that schedule memorized since I could read, and probably so has she by default.
“I’m thinking we’ll do cupcakes that morning until like twelve, and then Elle and I can come back here or to my house to grab some more or bake them if we run out. We’ll reconvene around five to catch the late crowd leaving. If we don’t sell out in the morning, Elle and I will hang around selling off the rest while you dive.” Seeley crosses her arms and leans against the counter. “Am I good or what?”
Jessa stirs the mix a little harder. “I work all day every Saturday, not that anyone bothered to include me in the plan.”
“I didn’t realize you wanted to help with the actual sale,” Seeley says, scrunching her eyebrows together. “We can definitely work around your princess stuff.”
&nbs
p; Jessa sighs. “No, it’s fine. It would be too obvious if we all left.”
“Yeah, good call.” Nick kisses her temple. “All right, enough talking. Let’s get to work.”
* * *
• • •
It takes two hours to finish baking all the mix he made up; we have chocolate, vanilla, and something pink that I think is supposed to be strawberry but doesn’t taste quite right. Once they’re all frosted and packed away, Nick volunteers to be the one to bring them in the morning. The plan is to leave them scattered around the break areas at work and to see which ones go first.
It was as good a night as any, but I’m grateful when Seeley and I are back in my room picking frosting out of each other’s hair.
“I think Jessa hates me now,” I say.
Seeley checks her phone again. I wish she’d put it down. “I’m not sure she’s capable of hate.”
“She didn’t seem happy that I was partnered up with her boyfriend all night. I don’t know what she thinks she has to worry about—I’m a taken woman.” I laugh.
“I wouldn’t stress about it.” Her phone vibrates again, and she stares down at the screen, the divot reappearing in her forehead. “Shit, I’m sorry, Lou. I gotta go.” She grabs her backpack and starts shoving her stuff back into it.
“You’re not staying over?”
She hesitates, but her phone buzzes again, which gets her moving. “My mom keeps texting me. Grandma Bobby is having a bad night, and she wants me to come home, just in case.”
“I’m sorry.” I mean it too. “Do you want me to come?”
“No, it’s okay. It’s probably another false alarm. I’ll come back over if I can. In the meantime, think of more bake sale ideas and stuff. I’ll leave you the notebook.”
“Okay.” I bite the inside of my cheek, suddenly feeling like I’m not doing enough. “See you soon, I hope.”
“Definitely.” Seeley starts to walk out the door but steps back, leaning her head in enough to see me. “But seriously, Lou, can it with the low-self-esteem crap. You’re better than that. A lot of people really do prefer hot dogs to princesses, I promise.”
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