The Summer Before Forever

by Melissa Chambers

  I chuckle. “All right then.”

  This time, I hit it with a good amount of power, and she whacks it back at me. After a while of this, I realize, she’s not hitting the ball, she’s hitting somebody’s face. It does her no good if I let the ball pass me, so I keep slamming it back to her, and she never misses a beat. She wasn’t kidding about being a tetherball champion. She might need to go pro.

  After a good while of the back and forth, her energy seems to be wearing thin. I think she’s probably had all the beat the hell out of the ball therapy that a person can take for a day, so I let a few whizz by me, and the ball wraps the pole for her win.

  “Remind me not to get on your bad side,” I say.

  She tucks a lock of hair behind her ear and turns back into the shy girl I know.

  “Do you like grilled cheese?” I nod at the Airstream food truck to our right.

  Her eyes gleam. “Is that one of those gourmet grilled cheese trucks?”

  “Yeah.”

  She bounces on her toes. “Jenna’s going to die. We heard they had these in Nashville and Chattanooga, but of course, they haven’t made it to the metropolis of Cliff Ridge yet.”

  I love how excited this is making her.

  She laughs. “We’ve looked online and tried to make weird ones like they have at these trucks with avocados and bacon and stuff, but we always burn them, and the insides are cold. It’s a mess.” She clenches her eyes shut, her features contorting into disappointment. “Oh crap. I don’t have my purse.”

  “I’ve got it,” I say with confidence.

  “I’ll totally pay you back,” she says.

  I wave her off. “No, I got this.”

  She grins, as she turns to look over the menu board.

  My heart sinks as I see the makeshift sign posted on the window that reads credit card machine broken. cash only.

  I hesitate, and she looks up at me with a worried brow. “Do you have enough cash?”

  I have the tips from today that I shoved into my pocket, but the money’s all disorganized and jumbled around.

  Heat rushes into my cheeks as the guy in front of us steps away, and the girl in the window, clearly used to efficiency in her line, shouts at us without a hint of a smile. “What can I get you?”

  Chloe looks up at me. “Should we go somewhere else?”

  The girl behind the window is already looking past us. I turn and find a family of five and two other couples have lined up behind us. Seriously?

  “May I take your order?” the twenty-something, fairly attractive blonde says, one step from hitting her irritation limit for the moment.

  I look down at Chloe, whose expression has fallen. I need to man up here. This is life. This is what I’ve got to deal with.

  “Yeah, Chloe, go ahead,” I say.

  I run my hand through the jumble of bills in my pocket, my mouth suddenly going dry. I can count out bills. I’m not stupid. It’s just that I need a second to think, and this girl behind the window clearly doesn’t give seconds.

  Window girl turns to me expectantly with pencil to her notepad. I haven’t even looked at the menu.

  “Same thing,” I say.

  “24.38.” She passes the ticket to someone else, and then turns back to me, her beady eyes bearing into me like razors.

  As I pull the wad of bills out, some drop to the ground. Chloe and I both bend down together and pick them up. “Thanks,” I say as she hands me a few of them.

  I stand and start counting them out. I’m somewhere around seven or eight when a kid behind me starts yelling at another kid, and I lose count, the numbers dissolving away in my brain. My face is hot, and I think beads of sweat are forming on my forehead. I did just play tetherball. But it’s not like I exerted myself.

  I’m somewhere in the teens now when I make the mistake of looking over at Chloe. She’s watching me intently, her eyebrows furrowed as she must wonder if I’m braindead or high.

  I stop again, and the numbers jumble this time, transposing themselves in my brain, turning themselves around and upside down.

  I close my eyes and take a deep breath, the humiliation raw in my throat as I start over.

  The girl behind the counter grabs for the bills. “Just give me the money. I’ll count it.”

  As the girl counts out the bills with the efficiency of a bank teller, Chloe leans in toward me. “Are you okay?”

  My stomach weaves into a softball at the humiliation. “Yeah,” I say, shaking my head. “I think I just got hot…or something.”

  She looks at the metal Airstream, and then to the sky. “Yeah, the sun reflecting off this thing is scorching in this spot.”

  I turn away from her while I gather myself, wiping the sweat off my forehead.

  “Here,” the girl in the window says, handing me back some bills and coins. I pocket them, and she rolls her eyes while she steps away from the window.

  That’s when I notice the tip jar. I imagine she’s expecting one for her trouble.

  I pull a wad of bills out of my pocket and start to put them in the jar when Chloe grabs my arm. “Are you kidding me? She was so bitchy. Don’t give her all that.”

  I consider the jumble of cash in my hand. I have no idea what to give her. I usually use my credit card and a tip cheat sheet I keep behind it.

  Chloe guides my hand to my pocket and eyes me conspicuously. Her touch both eases my stressed out brain and makes my stomach hum in a very good way. Too good.

  “I’m going to the bathroom,” I say.

  As I wash my hands, I catch my reflection in the mirror and ask myself what the hell I think I’m doing. I can’t like this girl. It’s not an option. It doesn’t matter how easy it is to be around her or how she stirs up crazy shit in my chest. She’s my sister. My. Sister.

  I head back to the piazza and find her sitting at a table with two brown bags and our drinks. She’s not eating, just watching some people play volleyball. She’s waiting for me to start eating. I groan. Could the girl be more likeable? She even has manners.

  I sit and take a bag. “Thanks.”

  She chuckles. “You paid.”

  She pulls her sandwich out and takes a bite. “Wow. This is so good.” She motions with the sandwich. “Thank you.”

  She makes me smile even though I don’t mean to.

  We eat in companionable silence, which is nice and atypical. I hate talking while I eat, but I always feel obligated to when I’m on dates—like the silence means I’m not compatible with the girl. But in this case, I think it means the opposite.

  When I finish, I crumble my paper and chips bag together. “It could be worse, you know.”

  “What could be?”

  “This.” I gesture between us. “Our family.”

  She wads up her paper and shoves it into the empty chip bag. “How’s that?”

  “I could be a bratty four-year-old you’d have to babysit.”

  She lifts an eyebrow. “I could be a twelve-year-old girl into the Bieb.”

  I make a gun out of my forefinger and thumb and stick it to my head. Pull trigger, fake death. “I could be twin eight-year-old boys who love to pull pranks on unsuspecting teenage girls.”

  She squints at me like she’s got the trump card. “I could be a newborn baby, and you’d have to change my diapers.”

  I hold up both hands in surrender. “You win.”

  “At least they make each other happy,” she says.

  I rake some crumbs from the table onto the ground. “I’ve been getting to know your dad. He seems cool.”

  She gives a humorless chuckle. “You probably know him better than I do. Have you spent much time with him?”

  “We’ve played golf a few times. Actually went deep sea fishing once, too.”

  “Then you’re way ahead of me,” she says. “We don�
�t really do stuff together.”

  “Don’t you have your court mandated daughter/father time?” I ask with a smile in my voice.

  “That’s been sketchy, especially since he started dating your mom last year. At first he was down here visiting a lot, then he’s been gone since January.”

  I get a pang in my chest. “I hope you don’t feel like we stole your dad from you.”

  “It’s not like that. Our alone time wasn’t anything either of us really looked forward to. When I would spend the weekends at his apartment, we did our own thing most the time, and he usually had a girlfriend over. He dated quite a bit after he split with my mom.” She jerks her head toward me. “I probably shouldn’t have told you that.”

  “Don’t worry. I don’t need to repeat certain things to my mom.”

  She drops her posture in relief. “I’m just not a daddy’s girl, in case you hadn’t already picked up on that. I’m surprised I was invited here for the summer to be honest.”

  “Why did you come?” I ask.

  She puts her elbows on the table and rests her chin on top of a closed fist. “Why not? It’s Florida, it’s away from my mom and her boyfriend, and I got to bring my best friend.”

  I narrow my eyes at her. “So her parents were cool with her leaving for the whole summer?”

  “They’re both bluegrass musicians. They got a gig on a summer tour that lasts six weeks. She got stuck with me…us I guess.”

  I like the idea of an us. “That sounds sweet. Why didn’t she go with them?”

  Her soft lips open into a smile and she laughs. “Can you imagine Jenna cooped up on a tour bus for the summer?”

  I grip the bench, stretching out my arms. “You’re right about that. I was cooped up in an SUV with my dad and his new wife and baby over spring break, and I thought I’d lose my mind.”

  “Your dad has a baby?” she asks.

  “Toddler, I guess now. A boy.”

  She blinks. “Oh, my gosh. What’s that like?”

  I shrug. “I don’t know. I don’t really don’t see him much. It’s cool when I do, and I love him and all, but…” I’m not sure how to finish that sentence, so I don’t.

  “They have their own family,” she says.

  I meet her gaze. “Yeah.”

  She nods, lips tight like she understands. I love how she cuts through the bullshit. Ashley was always telling me to try to understand my dad’s side and how he’d always love me no matter what because I was his first son and all this crap. Chloe acknowledges that it sucks and doesn’t try to fix it.

  I don’t want to talk about my dad and his new family, so I look for a subject change. “You and Jenna don’t seem like likely best friends. How’d you get hooked up with her?”

  She gives a huff and a smile. “She moved to Cliff Ridge mid-year our freshman year. She fell right in at the top of the food chain with the most popular girls, of course. But she wasn’t okay with their unspoken rules, I guess. She found me sitting alone in the cafeteria, plopped down, and starting eating my carrot sticks before she even introduced herself to me.”

  I imagine the scene with ease. “Sounds like her.”

  “I’ll never forget it. These girls were sitting at the table across from us giggling, all bitchy. Jenna held up her middle finger and started complaining about having to read Beowulf. She couldn’t have cared less what those girls thought of her. Or if she did, it didn’t show.”

  I give an appreciative nod.

  “Opposites attract, I guess,” she says. “What about you? What’s your best friend like?”

  “I don’t have a best friend. I have a lot of friends, but I’ve never found one person I clicked with enough to share my deepest and darkest shit with.”

  “You have deep and dark shit?” She waggles her eyebrows.

  I laugh. “Not really.”

  She narrows her eyes at me. “What’s your deep dark shit, Landon Jacobs?”

  Goose bumps scatter across my arm at the way she’s looking at me…like she wants inside my head. She’s not getting in there.

  “Just a lot of useless information,” I say.

  She holds her narrowed gaze a couple of excruciating seconds longer, and then tapers off with a small smile, one of those I’ve got your number ones.

  “I noticed that you like to read biographies,” she says.

  I inwardly exhale. “You mean when you were snooping in my room?”

  She rolls her eyes.

  “I love history,” I say.

  “So all those books—are they for pleasure or school?”

  “Will you think I’m a geek if I say pleasure?”

  She laughs. “I doubt anyone’s ever accused you of being a geek.”

  I shrug in concession.

  “I don’t love school,” she says. “I don’t even like school. In fact, I don’t like to learn. And the last book I read for fun involved a girl my age who was out to save the world but was stuck in a love triangle.”

  I’m a little relieved she’s not a brain who’s obsessed with AP or IB. “It’s probably hard for you creative types to find interest in school.”

  A little smile tips up the corner of her lips, but she just considers me. “So you don’t listen to music, like ever?”

  I stiffen a little, and then meet her gaze. “That bothers you, doesn’t it?”

  She sits up straight. “Yeah, if you want to know the truth, it does.” She holds my gaze, not backing down.

  I furrow my brow and shrug. “It’s not my thing. You said reading wasn’t your thing. This isn’t my thing.”

  She raises her eyebrows. “Okay.”

  I consider her. “It’s really important to you.”

  She shifts on her bench, sitting on her hands. “God, yes. I can’t imagine not loving music.”

  I try for a minute to imagine a world where music doesn’t remind me of my shortcomings. “All right, so tell me about it. What do you love so much about music?”

  She gazes deep into my eyes. “So, when you’re reading a biography on say, Winston Churchill…”

  “I haven’t read that one yet. I’ll have to get it.”

  She drops her chin in exasperation.

  “Sorry. Go ahead.”

  “So what’s that like for you? I mean, I know you process the information, but I’m trying to figure out how it’s enjoyable for you.”

  I imagine her in a science lab coat with glasses on, her hair up in a bun, and a pencil behind her ear. I hold back a grin. “How is music enjoyable for you?”

  She closes her hands over her chest and shuts her eyes. “When a song I love comes on my iPod, especially if I’m not expecting it, my heart fills with…like…wholeness, like I’m being charged up or something. And if it’s really good, I can feel it all the way through my body. Like I have actually felt music in my fingertips before.”

  Now I want inside her head…her body. I want to be the music that lights her up like this. “That is not how I feel when I read biographies.”

  She laughs, her cheeks turning pink as she looks heavenward with a little shake of her head. She’s so damned cute when she’s embarrassed.

  I fold my forearms onto the table in front of me. “But it is how I feel when I make a catch on the field.” I imagine myself jumping to catch a ball and diving into the end zone, the refs’ arms jutting straight up.

  She studies me. “You said you were a wide receiver, right?”

  I smile, impressed that she remembered. “Yeah.”

  “But you’re wrestling in college?”

  I adjust myself in my seat, averting my gaze to the trash on our table. “Yeah.”

  “So, how do you feel when you do something cool in wrestling?”

  I shrug. “The same, I suppose…when I make a takedown or a reversal on the mat.”

&
nbsp; She takes a long look at me. Enough to make my heart skip a few beats and my body to heat. I could really get used to her looking at me like that.

  “You’re not really built like a wrestler, are you?” she asks. “I’m just thinking about the guys on the wrestling team at Cliff Ridge.”

  Get it together. “No, I’m really not.”

  “Does that work against you on the mat?” she asks.

  “Sometimes. It sounds screwed up, but the taller you are, the weaker you are. My long legs leave me vulnerable for a takedown. But I’ve got a longer reach with my arms, so it gives me a slight advantage for defense.”

  She squints at me. “So what made you choose wrestling over football?”

  That’s the second time she’s asked me that question. It’s going to seem weird if I blow her off twice. “I don’t know. Wrestling was the easier road, I guess.”

  She tucks her auburn hair behind her ear. “It doesn’t look easy.”

  “You should come see a match sometime,” I say.

  She bears her gaze at me. “I think I’d rather see you play football.”

  My chest heats up all over again when I see the look she’s giving me. “Why?”

  She sits back and crosses her arms over her chest. “Because when you talk about football, you get this gleam in your eye. When you talk about wrestling, you sound you’re going through the motions.”

  My stomach churns with her honesty. She has no idea how right she is. She’s the only one who has called me out on this, but she’s also the only one who doesn’t know what I’m up against.

  She sits up and grasps the seat of her bench on both sides. “Are you sure you don’t want to go on to be a pro wrestler like The Rock?”

  I match the sly smile on her face. “Why would I want to do that?”

  “You could be a big star. You’re all good-looking and stuff. The camera would eat you up.”

  Heat rushes to my ears. I know I’m a decent looking guy. But hearing her acknowledge it is both comforting and disheartening. If she were really attracted to me, I doubt she’d be so bold as to compliment me like she just did. She’s not the aggressive type…I can tell.

  My ego can’t handle her seeing me like a brother…even though that’s how she’s supposed to see me. “You think I’m good-looking?”