“Is everything okay?” I asked carefully.
He sighed. “Yeah. My parents are . . . well, this is normal.”
Normal? Screaming fights at eleven o’clock on a beautiful summer morning at the lake was normal? I couldn’t think of anything helpful to say, so I settled on, “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. Just go, okay? As you can hear, it’s not the best time for me to have guests.”
I nodded and turned to leave. As I reached the copse of trees, I glanced back at him again. He was still standing in the same spot, hands in his pockets and eyes on the ground. “So you’ll come with us tonight?” I asked. “Seven o’clock?”
“Yeah, sure, whatever,” he said impatiently as his parents’ voices splintered the air. “I’ll meet you guys there. Okay?”
Success. I nodded at him again and started picking through bushes and tree roots to get to the woods path.
“Careful going through the woods,” Emmett called from behind me. “During my run the other day, I almost got flattened by some moron on an ATV.”
I had to force myself to keep walking at an even, non-guilty pace. “Thanks for the warning!” I called back, grateful that he could no longer see my face.
I knew before the night even began that I’d made a huge mistake.
My first clue was when Nate showed up at Goody’s smelling like he’d just bathed in a tub of beer. Apparently, he and his twin brothers had spent the afternoon out on the lake, pretending to fish while they polished off the rest of the cans from the bonfire the other night. Idiots.
My next clue was Harper’s face when she spotted Emmett standing outside the restaurant and realized he was waiting for us. All I’d told her was that we were going to Goody’s for dinner and that Nate and some other people might stop by, too. I’d neglected to mention Emmett’s role in the proceedings. She looked at me, her expression vacillating between terror, excitement, and confusion.
When I smiled encouragingly at her, her eyes narrowed into slits. You did this, they said.
Awkwardness abounded when Sherry pointed us to a table and Nate quickly claimed the chair to the left of Harper’s, forcing me to sit next to Emmett. The tables were small and round, so personal space and elbow room were basically non-existent. Harper sat on my other side, simultaneously blushing and shooting me dirty looks. Nate was acting even douchier than usual due to his beer-guzzling party earlier, and Emmett seemed embarrassed to be seen with us.
All I could do was try to salvage the evening before it veered off the rails and took us all with it.
“So, Emmett,” I said, breaking several long moments of uneasy silence. “You live in Hyde Creek, right? What’s that like?”
He looked at me the same way he had at the supermarket yesterday when I’d almost run him over with the cart—surprised and a bit bewildered. “It’s okay. Where are you from?”
“Oh, my dads and I live in Weldon, right downtown.”
I watched Emmett’s face carefully as the words registered. People’s reactions to hearing “my dads” for the first time ranged anywhere from curiosity to awe to disgust. If Emmett was going to act weird or offended, the matchmaking scheme of mine would fizzle out before it even got off the ground. Harper would never want to hang out with someone who disapproved of her favorite uncles. Neither would I, for that matter.
But luckily, all he did was nod and say, “Cool.”
The waitress, a new girl named Cindy, arrived with our drinks and asked if we were all ready to order. Thankfully, we were.
The instant she was out of sight again, Nate reached into his shorts pocket and brought out a small bottle of vodka. “Anyone want to supplement their drinks?” he asked as he unscrewed the cap in full view of the entire restaurant. It was virtually empty, but still.
“Are you insane?” I whisper-shrieked at him.
He poured a large dollop into his Coke while Emmett watched in amazement, Harper buried her head in her hands, and I scanned the place for witnesses. Getting banned from Goody’s was all we needed.
“Last chance,” Nate said, glancing around the table.
We each shook our heads no. I wasn’t opposed to alcohol and even indulged now and again, but never when I had to go right home afterwards. My dads would smell it on me from miles away, even scentless vodka. Harper never drank, and as for Emmett, he didn’t seem like the risk-taking type. Either that or he thought we were all crazy and wanted to stay sharp and sober in case he needed to escape quickly.
By the time our food arrived, Emmett and Harper were barely speaking at all and Nate was a few sips away from full-on drunk. The more he drank, the more combative he became.
“Hey Emmett,” he said in a stage whisper as he leaned toward him. “You know why these two refuse to go out with me?”
I leaned across the table to slide his vodka-and-Coke closer to me and out of his reach. “Eat your cheeseburger, Nate.”
“Um, isn’t she . . .” Emmett said, confused as he gestured to me, “out with you?”
Nate laughed. “Yeah, right. Kat made it very clear this morning that this was not a date. You know why? She thinks she’s too good for me.”
“Quit it,” Harper snapped at him. “You’re being an ass.”
He ignored her. “Or . . . wait, I have another theory. Maybe a bit of all that gay rubbed off on her and she’s not into guys at all. Is that the problem, Hurricane? Because I can think of a few ways to change your mind.”
I dropped my French fry and gaped at him. “Seriously?”
“I don’t think that’s how it works,” Emmett said wryly.
Okay, maybe he was decent after all. Or maybe . . . maybe he was gay. I’d never considered that possibility. Even though I’d been raised by same-sex parents, my gaydar was terrible. Case in point, I’d spent two months last year flirting with a cute guy who lived in my building, completely oblivious to the fact that he wasn’t really responding to my advances. Finally, he just came right out and told me one day that he played for the other team. It was so humiliating.
“McTurdy, the reason Kat won’t go out with you is because you’re a jackass,” Harper said, sounding more animated than she’d been all evening.
I nodded in agreement. Even though Harper was probably furious with me for setting this up without her knowledge, she still had my back.
“Well, fine by me,” Nate said, lifting himself off the chair and reaching across the tablecloth for his glass. As he plopped back down again, his unfocused gaze skimmed over the pink crop top I wore with my floral lace skirt. “I prefer skinny girls anyway. Hey Harper, you up for it? Oh wait . . . I prefer really hot girls.”
Nate had always been insufferable, but never to the point of nastiness. I would’ve liked to blame the vodka, but sadly enough, he could be just as douchy while stone-cold sober. In his mind, since Harper and I refused to spend our summers making out with him, we had to be either stuck-up snobs or lesbians. He was just that full of himself. I didn’t care what he said about me—I’d heard worse around school—but he wasn’t allowed to antagonize Harper like that.
“You’re an asshole,” I told him.
“Fair enough.” He drained his glass and stood up. “This asshole has to go take a piss. Try not to miss me too much while I’m gone.”
He staggered off to the washroom while Harper, Emmett, and I stayed put at the table and picked halfheartedly at our food. This had to be the most unsuccessful secret setup date ever attempted.
“This was a great idea, Kat,” Harper said around her milkshake straw. “So glad you thought of it.”
“Is he always like that?” Emmett asked.
She nodded. “Pretty much.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah,” Harper agreed.
Wow indeed, I thought. At least Nate’s repulsive behavior had gotten them talking—sort of—which was more than I’d thought was going to happen between them tonight. Perhaps my epic fail of a plan hadn’t been a total waste of time after all.
chapter 8
During the week that had passed since the near-accident with Emmett in the woods, I was still too traumatized to get back on the ATV. But when Saturday morning dawned so clear and so beautiful, I could no longer fight the urge to suit up and ride. This time, I thought as I started the engine, I’ll pay better attention to my surroundings and keep my eyes peeled.
As it turned out, the extra vigilance was unnecessary. I didn’t spot anything in the woods aside from a few squirrels and a garter snake. The only time I paused was when I came across a small blue tent set up near the narrow brook that ran deep in the woods. People sometimes camped there so its presence wasn’t unusual, but I slowed down a fraction in case someone suddenly popped out of it and stepped in my path. Luckily, no one did.
When I got back to the cottage, Harper was seated at my kitchen table, keeping Dad company while he drank his coffee and read the morning paper. He’d arrived yesterday evening, exhausted from a long week of work.
“How was your ride?” he asked, looking up from his newspaper.
“Peaceful.” As I kicked off my boots, I noticed the gym bag by Harper’s feet. “Did Erwin open up a health club over the winter or something?”
“No. I start practice with the soccer team this morning, remember?”
“Oh, right.” To keep her skills up over the summer, Harper had joined a local women’s soccer league. She’d badgered me to join, too, but I’d declined. Not only was I rusty and out of shape, but I saw summer as a time for relaxing, not adhering to a grueling practice schedule.
“I came over to see if you wanted to go with me,” she said.
I filled a glass with water at the kitchen sink. “Sorry, but all I want to do right now is stand in a freezing cold shower.”
“You’re coming to our first game though, right? It’s Monday evening.” You owe me, her eyes said.
It was true. I owed her that and more after Tuesday night’s disastrous “double date” at Goody’s. Well, the night hadn’t been a total loss. Harper’s irritation with me all but disappeared when Emmett paid for our food and then offered to walk us back to our cottages. At that point, Nate was still in the bathroom, likely puking up everything he’d ingested in the last several hours. The decision to leave him behind was unanimous. The jerk deserved to be ditched.
As the three of us strolled down the gravel road to the cottages, Emmett must’ve been swept up in a sense of camaraderie because he was no longer the quiet, reticent boy we’d seen at the bonfire and during dinner. In fact, we’d been able to coax quite a bit of info out of him. I let my mind drift back to our walk home.
“Are you starting college in the fall, Emmett?” I asked him. Harper walked between us, so I had to lean around her to see him.
“No,” he said, his eyes skimming my face before returning to the road in front of him. “I’m going to be a senior.”
Like me, I thought. Harper and I exchanged a surprised look. There was something in his demeanor—a hardened maturity—that made him seem older, like he’d been through a lot. Or seen too much.
“And you’re on the cross-country team, right?” Harper asked in her quiet, reserved way.
“For the past two years. My brother ran cross-country, too. He’s the one who got me into it.”
Brother? As far as I knew, it was just him and his parents at the Canting cottage.
Emmett obviously sensed our confusion because he added, “Older brother. Wes. He works on the oil sands out west and rarely comes home. He was supposed to fly home this summer to spend a couple weeks at the cottage, but”—he shrugged one shoulder and tilted his face away from us and toward the tree line—“he and my dad don’t get along.”
Harper nodded. She understood. “A change of scenery doesn’t usually help.”
“Exactly.” He cleared his throat like he was working up to something. “I think my parents bought the cottage here because they thought quiet summers on the lake would strengthen our bond as a family. Or something.”
“And is it working?” I asked.
He shot me a quick glance, eyebrows raised, as if to say What do you think? I dropped my gaze, feeling a little stupid. Clearly, the new peaceful backdrop wasn’t helping at all.
I hadn’t told Harper about that morning when I’d gone over to Emmett’s cottage and heard his parents arguing. I figured it was his personal business, up to him to discuss when—or if—he chose to. He still barely knew us, after all, and he didn’t come across as the type to blab about his family issues to anyone, even people he did know. I got the sense that he wanted me to pretend that morning had never happened, so I quickly got us off the subject of his parents and started talking about sports instead. Athleticism was the main thing he and Harper had in common, and just as I’d hoped, it got them talking about training and injuries and various other things that were no longer a part of my vocabulary.
In fact, they were still gabbing away when they dropped me off at my cottage and continued down the road together without me. She’d just needed a push, after all. I was sure she’d have a bunch of juicy details to share with me in the morning, in between thanking me profusely for bringing them together in the first place. But that wasn’t what happened. In reality, Emmett had simply left her on her doorstep without so much as a departing handshake and neither of us had seen or heard from him since.
I shook my head to clear it. Maybe they both needed pushes.
“Of course I’ll be at your first game,” I told Harper as I refilled my water glass. “Though I’m sure the Erwiners are going to stare at us like we’re circus freaks.”
Harper grabbed her bag and stood up. “Great. I need my own cheering section.”
“I’ll bring my pom-poms,” I promised.
She laughed like I’d made a joke and then waved at us on her way out the door. “Say good morning to Uncle Bryce for me.”
When she was gone, I took her spot next to Dad at the table. “Where’s Pop?”
“Sleeping in.” Dad put down his paper and looked at me. “How many hours did he spend writing this week, Katrina?”
A wave of guilt hit me and I dropped my gaze to the placemat. Whenever Dad was gone, he relied on me to make sure Pop didn’t waste away in front of his laptop. I’d been so preoccupied with my matchmaking scheme and hanging out with Harper that I hadn’t done a very good job of monitoring Pop’s well-being. I knew for a fact he’d skipped several meals and at least one shower in order to pound out a few extra thousand words. He always got like this near the end of a book. The story consumed him and he could think of little else until he finished it.
“He was working on an epic battle scene,” I said defensively. “I didn’t have the heart to interrupt him.”
“His agent wants the book by September and he’s feeling all this pressure from his readers . . .” Dad sighed and ran a hand over his face. “God, I think I liked it better when he wrote user manuals for a living.”
“But he hated being a technical writer,” I reminded him. “Writing this series makes him happy.”
The corners of Dad’s eyes crinkled as he smiled at me. “True. Now go take a shower before you scare someone with that helmet hair.”
A couple hours later I was stretched out on my stomach on the dock, soaking up UV rays and reading a dog-eared romance paperback I’d left at the cottage years ago. It was my favorite time of day—the sun had finished burning off the morning fog, leaving behind a clear, brilliant blue sky. The lake was a sheet of glass, its stillness interrupted only by an occasional breeze or fallen leaf. Or in the case of that particular morning, the motor of a small aluminum fishing boat.
“Hey, Hurricane!”
I shut my eyes and muttered a four-letter word. I’d been hoping it would be Dr. McCurdy passing by in their boat on his way to catch some rainbow trout. No such luck. When I glanced up from my book, Nate was steering himself toward me. I watched as he killed the engine and floated the rest of the way, reaching an arm out to grab the ladder that hung
off the end of our dock. The front of the boat bumped against the corner, shaking the boards beneath me. His father would kill him if he knew how his son treated his beloved boat.
“What do you want?” I asked, returning my gaze to the book. Harper and I had been avoiding him—or maybe he’d been avoiding us—since we’d ditched him in the washroom at Goody’s.
“Look, Hurricane—”
“Kat.”
“Look, Kat, I know you guys are pissed at me for the other night and I wanted to come over and tell you that I’m sorry.”
I peered up at him through my big sunglasses. He sat on the boat’s bench seat, shirtless and disheveled, his body swaying slightly from the small waves the motor had produced. For once, he wore an expression of what appeared to be genuine remorse, usually a foreign emotion for Nate.
“You acted like a complete dick,” I told him, not quite ready to fall for his apology. “I asked you to go out to dinner with us so Harper and Emmett would feel less awkward, but you made everything even more awkward. All you had to do was sit there and behave like a normal human being, and you couldn’t even get that right.”
“I know,” he said, hanging his head. “I shouldn’t have gotten drunk beforehand, or brought that vodka with me. It was a stupid thing to do.”
Okay, he was starting to freak me out. Nate thrived on doing stupid things. The summer we were thirteen, he’d tried to jump his bike over a huge patch of thorny bushes (he made it about halfway). The summer we were fourteen, he threw a water bottle filled with gasoline into a fire and almost burned the forest down. When we were fifteen, he convinced Keaton to eat some suspicious mushrooms he’d found in the woods, which luckily turned out to be just plain mushrooms and not the poisonous kind. Last summer, he “borrowed” his father’s Lexus and backed it into a tree. His idiocy knew no bounds. My dads blamed it on “a lack of discipline and structure in the home.” I blamed it on the fact that he was a boy.
Any Other Girl Page 6