Seeley laughs and wipes at her nose. “I did. And then you kissed me.”
There’s a clunk behind the door and the curtains shift again. I roll my eyes because seriously, guys, seriously? I stand up and pull Seeley to her feet, bolting into the house and up the stairs to my bedroom before anyone can stop us, careful to never let our fingers disconnect. Seeley wraps our hands tighter, laughing as she kicks the door shut and falls onto the bed on top of me. She sits up, and she’s practically kneeling in my lap, her legs pressed hard and warm against the outside of my thighs, her fingers wound around mine, holding them tight.
I stare up at her. “You liked the note?”
“I liked the note.” Her words come out sort of breathless, sort of quiet, and her eyes get all watery to match mine. “But I love you, Elouise May Parker, and I’m in love with you too. Both things.”
“But . . . ”
“But what?”
“How long—” But the knock on my door effectively shuts downs that line of questioning.
Nick peeks his head inside, and I fight the urge to throw my pillow at his face. Seriously, guy?
He glances down at our hands and grins. “Glad you got my text, Seeley.”
My eyes dart back between him and the girl on my bed. “You told her to come?”
“I may have texted her that I had a sad sack on my hands, and that she had better get her ass inside because I was sick of you guys both moping around when we have cupcakes to sell.”
Seeley rolls her eyes. “I was already in the driveway when I got it, which you know because I pulled in right behind you.”
“Wait, what?” I ask, but they just talk over me.
“I’d like to think I at least helped get you to the door faster.” He drops down into my desk chair with a satisfied smirk. “Listen, I’m sure you guys have hours of angsty conversations and kissing ahead of you, but if we don’t get this stuff done, our sale is going to be a total bust.”
“Five minutes.” Seeley gestures toward the door. “Give us five minutes, and we’ll be down.”
“Fine,” he grumbles, and pushes up off the chair. “But I’m setting the timer on my phone.”
“Fair enough.” Seeley follows him to the door and flicks the lock, crossing back over and pushing me back down. Her lips turn up against my cheek when she settles in beside me. Her arm winds over my stomach, and she finds my hand and laces our fingers together again.
I turn, leaning my head back to look at her even if it makes me go a little bit cross-eyed. “You love me?”
Seeley nods with a sleepy smile.
“You’re in love with me?” I clarify, because I don’t think this can be really happening, can it? But she smiles and nods again, leaning forward to kiss the tip of my nose.
“Both things?” I ask. Even though she said it once, I have to be certain before I can dare to believe it.
She nods again. “Both things.”
This time when she leans in, her lips meet mine, gentle at first, but then more urgent. It feels like lightning striking right in my chest as she rolls over on top of me. We barely stop for air before her lips are back on my skin, teasing and tasting, and when the tears come this time, they are happy, so happy.
CHAPTER 42
She tells me as we drive that I can kiss her whenever I want.
So I do.
Twice at a red light, and a third time when we park. Kisses four through seven take place as we unload the cupcakes from the back of her mom’s car and onto the little folding table that Nick found in his basement. Kiss eight is after we sell the first cupcake of the day.
I didn’t realize I was such a tactile person, but I can’t stop touching her: my hand on the small of her back as we walk from the car, my fingers tucking her hair behind her ear when it falls in her face. I even drag her chair so close to mine our legs are touching. I didn’t realize how much my skin needed her skin until I had to face the idea of living without it.
I am impossibly distracted during the bake sale, which is fine, I guess, because so is Seeley, but somehow we’re still managing to sell a ton of cupcakes.
Or rather, they’re selling themselves.
We strategically placed our table just inside the parking lot, right where you have to walk to get to the park entrance. Seeley made a big banner filled with pictures of happy cupcakes on amusement park rides, so it’s all very hard to miss. We priced everything at one dollar each, a price point that even the stingiest parent seems to be able to rationalize. I mean, even the kids who come to smoke pot on the Ferris wheel and the gondolas start buying three each.
“Holy shit,” Nick shouts, jumping up and down.
I hand some change back to a very harried-looking mom, and glance back at him. “What?”
“I just got an email from that guy on the news. The good news guy. He saw the update to our GoFundMe about Mr. P’s granddaughter and he wants to do a story on it!”
“The good news guy? That doesn’t sound like a real thing.”
Nick flips his phone around, and sure enough there it is, an email from the news station asking if we can do an interview tomorrow. I read it, raising my eyebrows. “This says he heard about it when our fund-raising page picked up steam? What’s he talking about? There’s like a hundred dollars in there—since when did it pick up steam?”
Nick grins. “I may have shared it a bunch of times last night after you told me the real reason the park was closing, and then my mom and a lot of other people started sharing it this morning, and it kind of blew up.”
My eyes get huge. “Are you saying we went viral?”
“Well, viral for around here anyway.”
“Awesome, so how much is in there now?”
“About two thousand last time I checked, and that’s not even twenty-four hours. People really love Mr. P, you know.”
“That is the best news I’ve heard all day,” I say. Seeley kicks my foot and raises her eyebrows. “Second best, I meant, obviously.”
Nick slides his phone into his pocket and laughs, turning back to talk to a customer.
“Relax, you’re the best news of my life.” I drop back into the chair next to her. “Not just the day.”
“Yeah, yeah.” She smiles.
My dad walks up to the table with some money in his hand, and I don’t think I could look any more surprised. He glances at Seeley, and then at me, and then he looks at where our hands meet under the table. The biggest grin stretches across his face, and he holds up a hundred-dollar bill. “Hello, girls, I would like as many cupcakes as this will get me.”
“That would get you all the ones we have left and change, Mr. Parker,” Seeley says.
“Hmm,” he says. “Then I would like two cupcakes and to donate the rest of the money.”
“Coming right up,” Seeley says as I scoot around the table.
“What are you doing here?” I ask. “How did you even know where we were?”
“First of all, you made the posters in my kitchen, and I was there. Second of all, the whole town knows where you are! It’s all over Facebook, and the news station called our house a little while ago,” he says. “If your plan was to keep things quiet, you screwed up big-time.”
I look around behind him and notice that most of the crowd isn’t actually going inside—they’re just hanging out, eating cupcakes. Pretty much everyone and their parent is milling around the parking lot buying cupcakes and donating money, and wow, that’s kind of cool.
“Touché.” I smirk.
“Here you go, Mr. Parker,” Seeley says. I didn’t think I could love her any more than I already did, but when I realize that she definitely picked out the best two cupcakes we have left for my dad, I sort of do.
“Thank you, Seeley,” he says, taking the cupcakes. “And I’m glad to see you girls made up.”
“Me t
oo,” she says.
“You saving one for later?” I ask, gesturing to the two cupcakes in his hands.
“Nope.” Dad looks back behind him, and I notice that Seb is standing there, and then it hits me who he’s standing with.
“Seb’s mom?”
“Hey, you told me it meant something that she said hi back.” He raises his eyebrows. “Let’s test the theory.”
“Go get ’em, tiger,” I say, and then dissolve into giggles.
“Thanks, kid,” he says. And when he walks up and holds out the cupcake, she takes it with a smile.
Seb wanders over a little bit later, shoving his money in the donation box and swiping a cupcake out of my hand that wasn’t even meant for him. “I think your dad just asked out my mom with a cupcake. Adults are so friggin’ doofy.” He takes a bite out of his cupcake, and his eyes go wide. “Shit, is this bacon-flavored frosting?”
“Yeah, Nick got a little mad scientist on the flavors,” I explain.
Seb raises his cupcake toward Nick and gives him a nod. “Compliments to the chef, dude.” Nick rolls his eyes, but I can tell he’s totally beaming inside. Good, he deserves it. Seb takes another bite, chewing thoughtfully. “Your dad seems all right, but if you end up my sister, that’s gonna be weird as shit.”
“Okay, slow down,” I say. “Let the kids have their date before you go planning a wedding.”
Seeley shakes her head, pulling me back down into my chair, and this is when it hits me: this is one of those forever moments. One of those impossible “I can’t believe it when” moments that I’ve been chasing all summer. It’s real, and it’s better than I ever imagined. Mark it down, today’s the day the impossible came true. I lean my head against her shoulder, not even caring that it kind of bounces around as she makes change for everyone.
Barely a minute goes by before she pokes me in the ribs, because here comes Mr. P marching down the pavement looking like he wants to throttle us. I sit up, bracing for impact. Either someone spilled the beans, or Mr. P realized there’s an unusually high number of patrons wandering around with homemade cupcakes; either way, he doesn’t look happy.
He stomps up to the table and blots his forehead with his rag. “What are you up to, Ms. Parker?” He scans the banner, but it only says BUY CUPCAKES FOR A GOOD CAUSE. He looks so disappointed that I have to look away. “We discussed this in my office. I thought we came to an understanding.”
“We did.” I stand up and hold out a cupcake for him. “This isn’t about the park.”
He takes it with a confused frown. “Then what is it about?”
Marcus comes up behind him then, along with Angie and Jessa and a few other people, which, awkward, plus like who’s running the park? But whatever, they stand next to us, just sort of waiting for the big reveal. I clear my throat because having everybody here makes the moment feel bigger and more important than it otherwise probably would, and I don’t want to screw this up.
“Well, like I said, you’ve always been there for us.” I stand up a little bit straighter and try to sound confident. “Like when you let me work here a year early so I could start with Seeley, and that time you let Marcus borrow your car, and I don’t specifically know what you did for Seb, but I’m sure you did something.”
“He gave me free rounds of laser tag when my cat died,” Seb helpfully supplies.
I look at him like he has two heads, and then turn back to Mr. P. “There you go, apparently you gave him free rounds of laser tag when his cat died, which is probably not the way that I would choose to mourn a beloved pet, but this is a judgment-free zone.”
“Get on with it, Ms. Parker,” Mr. P says, and I can tell by his face that he means it.
“Anyway, my point is that you’ve always been there for us, and now it’s our turn to be there for you.”
“I appreciate the sentiment, I do, but I need you to understand that I cannot, and will not, keep this park open. My mind is made up.”
“This isn’t about Magic Castle,” I say. “This is about helping your granddaughter get better.”
“This is for Adelyn?” Mr. P asks, his voice all quiet.
“I mean, it’s not much or anything.” I look over at Seeley, who’s still counting the money.
“There’s four hundred and forty-one dollars here so far,” she says. “But the whole town is basically donating to the website, Nick said it’s at around two thousand dollars, and they want to cover it on the local news, which will hopefully mean even more.”
Mr. P covers his mouth with his hand.
“Yeah, Mr. P,” Nick says. He steps around our little table and drops his hand onto Mr. P’s shoulder. “We figured it was the least we could do after everything you’ve done for us. We wanted to help however we could.”
“I don’t know what to say.” He sniffs and wipes at his eyes; they’ve gone all bloodshot and runny and yeah, mine too.
“Group hug!” Seeley shouts and then sort of dives against Mr. P, who looks totally confused for a moment, but then we all scurry around the table to hug him too, and pretty soon everybody is tearing up and hugging and saying thank you to each other. I tell Mr. P I hope we can raise more, and he says it doesn’t matter how much we raise—it only matters that we cared enough to do it.
* * *
• • •
Later, when the crowd starts to die down, Seeley and I grab some popcorn and go watch Nick’s dive show, right out on the bleachers like a couple of non-stalkers, and he points at us before he does the high dive.
It’s pretty damn perfect.
Oh, and it turns out that Nick’s whole looking-at-the-sky-before-he-jumps thing isn’t all mysterious and spiritual like I imagined it was. Apparently, there’s a bunch of pigeons that roost up at the very top where the flag is, and he’s just pleading with them not to crap on his head before he jumps—which I feel like is kind of fitting in light of the sort of summer we’ve all survived so far.
After Nick’s show, Seeley and I say our goodbyes to every- body and head to the car. I tell Seeley it’s my turn to drive, and she tosses me her keys with a smile. And if we happen to notice Jessa and Ari holding hands as they walk to the parking lot, neither of us mentions it. We leave the radio off as we drive, content with the music from the wind whipping past our windows and the pavement buzzing beneath our tires.
I put my hand on her leg and squeeze, because it’s been five minutes since we touched, and I’m already scared that none of this is real. Seeley puts her hand out the window, her palm making waves as it coasts through the wind.
We park so close to the sidewalk that the wheels scrape the curb. Her mom will probably yell at us about it later, but I don’t even care. Seeley pulls the blankets out of the backseat. I shut the door but then open it again to pull out some water bottles. And then shut it and reopen it to grab a box of leftover cupcakes. And then do it again once more for bug spray. Seeley shakes her head, and I blush down to my feet. I don’t care that she’s making me nervous, because at least she’s making me something.
“Where are we going?” It’s nice to hear her voice again; it’s the first thing that she’s said in a while.
“Over here.” I trudge up the side of the hill and find a spot half hidden by trees and shrubs. It’s as much privacy as we are liable to get, especially with my dad, Nick, and probably half the town all desperate to know what’s happening with us.
I shake the blanket out and spread it wide, dropping the cupcakes and water bottles down on the edge. Seeley kicks off her flip-flops and sits in the middle, pulling her knees up to her chin. It feels so perfect, being here with her, and I whip out my phone to take a picture.
“What?” She blushes, messing with her hair.
I bridge the gap between us, kissing her quick and then sitting back.
“Hi,” I say, because I still can’t believe she’s here.
&n
bsp; “Hi yourself.” She slides her foot forward and jabs me with her toe.
I rock backward a little, savoring the moment. “This is where Butters and Racer are going.” I point to the wide grassy area beneath us. “We’ll be able to come here whenever we want to take them for a ride.”
“Really?” Seeley stares at the empty expanse of land like she’s sizing up every blade of grass to see if it’s worthy. “That’s kind of amazing.” She smiles a real smile then, wide and perfect, and it hits me square in the chest. I’m dead, knocked off my feet, pinned beneath the weight of it. I flop backward onto the blanket with a groan.
“You okay?”
“I’m better than okay.”
“Well, good,” she says and lies down next to me, tilting her head enough to see me out of the corner of her eye.
“I’m so glad you’re here.”
“I’ve always been here, Lou.” She props herself up on one elbow to look at me. “I mean, I cared about Sara too. And I tried to give Angie a chance because she’s great, and I didn’t think you would ever see me the way I saw you.”
“Oh,” I say, because it hits me again, what we’ve gone through to get here, what I’ve put her through to get here.
“I just told you I’ve been in love with you forever. Don’t look so depressed.”
I trace my fingers over the freckles on her arm. “I’m sorry I make everything so messy.”
Seeley rolls her eyes but smiles, and I’ll take it.
“That kiss on Founder’s Day was kind of amazing, though, wasn’t it? You don’t know how bad I’ve been wishing it was real.”
Seeley raises her eyebrows. “It was real.”
I snort. “We were wasted and I made you.”
“That’s not how you kiss someone you don’t want to kiss.”
I tug her closer until she settles across me, her head on my chest, her arm over my shoulder. This is heaven, and the afterlife, and eternity, and reincarnation with a cherry on top, all in one fell swoop.
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