The Night of Your Life

by Lydia Sharp

  He has entirely too much faith in me, but okay. I follow his lead, looking for the fox as we pass the tree it was hiding behind, but it’s gone now. Even animals have to make the decision to keep moving forward, I suppose.

  After about twenty more feet, we stop. Kai leans his head back and stares straight up through the trees, so I do the same. This part of the park is more secluded, so it’s quieter, but not completely silent. Nocturnal critters let the world know they’re waking up now, and somewhere in the distance, a creek burbles over stones. The stars are just starting to become visible in the darkening bruise of the sky, twinkling between wispy clouds. Crisp air tingles in my throat. Away from the fire, the tip of my nose quickly cools. I lower my gaze and meet Kai’s. He’s got that look in his eye, the one that makes my mouth water and my throat go dry. Like he’s been traveling through the desert for days and finally found an oasis. Me.

  “I feel blasphemous,” he says, “for thinking you’re more beautiful than the sky.”

  “Is that all I am to you?” I tease, thankful for the breeze cooling my heated cheeks. “Just a pretty face?”

  “No.” His smile lights up my insides. “You’re a pretty face and a strong will and a complex, intelligent mind and the best thing that ever happened to me. So there.” He cradles the back of my head and draws me close to him. We breathe each other in and tangle our lips. He tastes like sweet promises and spicy heat, feels like where I belong. Alaska disappears, leaving only us.

  Then he pulls away, gasping, little puffs of mist mingling between us before they dance away on the breeze. “There’s actually something I wanted to talk to you about, away from them.”

  “Okay.” I will my head to stop spinning so I can focus. Of course I’d love to keep kissing, but Kai is the first guy I’ve been with who likes having a conversation with me, doesn’t just want to use me to get close to my mom to further his acting career. Those things don’t matter to Kai, but my opinion does. “What’s on your mind?”

  “I’ve been thinking about what’s going to happen after graduation. Everyone’s talking about college and majors and …” He sighs. “That’s just not for me.”

  “Yeah, I don’t like the idea of being stuck inside a classroom all day, either.” Right now we’re both homeschooled, with flexible schedules and the freedom to set our own pace. But my college tuition is already paid through the first year, and my mom insisted a degree would open more doors, even in the arts. I don’t care what school I go to, though. I just picked USC because it was close to home. Or it was, at the time.

  “It’s not even really about that,” Kai says. “Online classes are an option in college, too, and that’s no different from the homeschooling we’re doing now. I just want to be done with school after this. It’s enough.”

  “So what do you want to do?”

  Kai’s smile flickers toward his eyes. He takes my hand and we make our way toward his car, shuffling through wet, fallen leaves on the forest floor. “I’ve been thinking about going to visit my dad.”

  The man who abandoned their family? Why would he want to see him? “Where is he?” I say instead. Kai hasn’t talked about him much, and there has to be a reason for that. His dad is probably just as much of a sore spot for him as my mother is for me. I’m not going to prod his open wounds.

  “North of here,” he says.

  There isn’t much more of the world that qualifies as “north of here.” But at the same time, Alaska is huge, and we’re near the southern coast. “North of here” doesn’t narrow it down, either. I wonder if maybe Kai doesn’t know his exact location.

  “I haven’t seen him since he left last year,” Kai goes on. He’s speaking slowly, like he isn’t sure how to put words to his feelings. “And I don’t know when I’ll be able to see him again. I can’t leave home long enough to take a trip. Mom and Hunter need my help.”

  It’s never seemed fair to me that he has to pick up the pieces that his dad broke, but I get why he feels responsible. Both he and his twin brother, Hunter, switched to homeschooling after their dad left almost a year ago, so they could help out more with their brothers and sisters while their mom works double shifts to make up for the income that left with their dad. Kai and Hunter are the oldest of seven kids, there’s a nine-year gap between them and the next one, and the youngest is only two. There’s always something to clean around their house, or someone to feed, or some errand to run.

  My mind clicks into a new gear, trying to figure out a way to make this work for him. “What if you went during summer break? After you’re done with school but before Hunter is too busy with college to handle things without you around. How long would you be gone?”

  “Depends on the weather. Also depends on if I find him … It’s been so long since we talked.”

  I swallow down the memory his words wrenched up from my gut—the last time I saw my mother. What was said. What wasn’t said. The lies she told before that. The lies I refused to tell from that day on.

  “Okay, so. Totally doable if you go right after graduation. We can talk to Hunter about it tonight, start getting everything in order that needs to be done before you go.”

  “Don’t worry about all that. I can handle it, okay?” He squeezes my hand and swings it between us. “I’ll figure it out. I just needed to vent, talk about it with someone who won’t tell me I’m crazy for wanting to go.”

  I get it, but that doesn’t mean I can’t help. He’s always quick to help me. Why can’t I do the same for him? I bump my shoulder against him, forcing his next step sideways. “Remember what you told me the day we met?”

  A boyish grin slides onto his face. Of course he remembers.

  “I dropped one of my bags in the driveway—”

  “One of your many bags—” he teases.

  “And you picked it up for me and said—”

  “‘Welcome home,’” he finishes with me. “You looked so lost, Gabi.”

  “That’s because I was lost. I didn’t know which door was mine.” Kai and I live in the same side-by-side duplex along one of the many creeks and rivers running through the outskirts of Anchorage. Some would call that fate. I call it an extremely well-timed coincidence.

  He didn’t just help me find the right door, though. He helped me turn a bad situation into a good one. He pulled me out of my self-pity and showed me how to have fun, over and over again.

  “I was lost and you helped me,” I say. “So whatever I can do to help you prepare for this, I will. If you want to see your dad, you’re going to see your dad. Got it?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he says through a laugh.

  “Be careful,” I tease. “I could get used to hearing that phrase. You’ll spoil me.”

  “You say that like being your eternal slave wouldn’t be my dream come true.” He leans back on a thick tree trunk and pulls me up tight against him. “What did I ever do to deserve you, Gabriella Flores?”

  I’ve asked myself the same question before, about him. And maybe that’s why we’re so good together—we both feel lucky to have each other. When so many things were going wrong in my life, Kai was a glowing beacon of right.

  After we’ve exhausted ourselves with kisses, the drive back home is quiet. No talking. No radio. Kai’s not even humming a song stuck in his head. This is a first. He doesn’t take his eyes off the road, doesn’t even glance in my direction. He’s so deep in thought I think he’s forgotten I’m here.

  “Kai?”

  “Hmm?”

  “You okay?”

  “Mm-hmm. You?”

  “Yeah.” Maybe it was nothing.

  He parks the old Subaru Outback he shares with Hunter in the double-wide driveway he shares with me, and then I follow him to his side of the duplex.

  The scent of herbs and spices welcomes me with a hug. I navigate the living room floor littered with various toys and small children. Diesel, the Locklears’ geriatric malamute, lies among them, watching their every move. His dark eyes flick my way for a
second, determine me neither a threat nor worth getting up to greet, then return to the Lego structure that’s about to topple. Diesel is huge and keeps constant watch over their family like a guard dog, but I’ve never once heard him bark, and anyone can quickly win him over with a belly rub. He’s a big softy.

  One of the identical twin four-year-old girls looks up at me, wisps of a loosened ponytail falling into her face, and waves like I’m a hundred yards away instead of a couple of feet.

  “Hi, Gabi!”

  “Hi, uhm … sweetie.” I still can’t tell them apart sometimes.

  Kai sheds his coat, hat, and shoes, then gives Diesel a quick scrub between the ears and goes to the kitchen to help his mom with dinner. “Need anything?” I say, raising my voice over the giggles of children.

  “No, thanks, I got this,” he calls back to me.

  I busy myself studying the family photographs lined up along the fireplace’s mantel. Their father is in most of them, looking happy and content with the children he later abandoned. Kai doesn’t usually seem too broken up over his dad’s absence, not even bitter over how dramatically it changed his daily routine. I’ve wanted to ask Kai why he left them, what went wrong. But it never seems like the right time. He’s over it. Why would I dampen his positive spirit with bad memories?

  Mrs. Locklear steps out from the kitchen. There’s a fine sheen of sweat on her forehead, and she’s holding a sauce-covered wooden spoon. She catches a drip before it falls, then licks her fingertip. “Gabi, hi,” she says. “Excuse the mess.” She herds the children into the dining area and sets up a couple of booster seats. “Are you staying for dinner?”

  “Do you mind?”

  “Of course not.” She waves a hand at nothing. “You’re practically family.”

  Family. I’m not even sure what that word means anymore. Everywhere I look, families are broken, pieces of them floating here and there, sometimes thousands of miles apart.

  Hunter thumps down the stairs, piggybacking his two-year-old brother. He nods to me in greeting and then starts setting the table. In the three months we’ve been neighbors, I can count on one hand the number of exchanges we’ve had. He doesn’t go out with me and Kai, so I only see him when I visit their side of the house, or if we both happen to be in the yard at the same time. Not because he’s purposely avoiding me, though. He’s never rude and doesn’t ignore me, but he isn’t the type to strike up a conversation or engage in small talk. Hunter and Kai were born from the same mother on the same day, but that’s the only thing that makes them twins. They aren’t identical, on the outside or the inside. Hunter is taller than Kai and has a thicker build, with copper-tinged skin like their dad, and his brows are always knit together like he has bad news to deliver and can’t think of how to word it gently. Kai has laughter playing on his lips and soft eyes flecked with sunshine. Whenever I’m cold or missing home, all I have to do is look into his eyes and I’m back in SoCal, comfortable and warm.

  Hunter sets an extra plate for me and pulls up an extra chair. Once we’re all seated, Kai right next to me, holding my hand under the table, I notice he’s still not as talkative as usual, letting his energetic younger siblings dominate the dinner conversation. He must still be thinking about visiting his dad.

  After dinner, Kai and Hunter clean up the table and load the dishwasher. I ask if he needs help again, and again, Kai refuses.

  “I may have grown up with a live-in maid,” I say, “but I am capable of helping.”

  “You still have a maid,” Kai points out. “You’ve never washed a dish in your life.”

  Whatever. “Then I’ll enlist one of your brothers or sisters to help—they’d do it if I offered them candy.”

  “That’s bribery,” Kai says through a laugh. “You’re a bad influence.”

  “Can’t be any worse than their older brother, who thinks it’s okay to jump nearly naked into a freezing lake.”

  Hunter glances at Kai over his shoulder. “You’re still doing that?”

  “It’s tradition!” Kai says.

  “It’s also stupid.” I grab a wet dish towel and snap it at his back.

  “Ow!” he yelps, then turns and spears me with a devilish grin. “So that’s how you wanna play, huh? All right, then. My turn.” He yanks the spray nozzle from the sink faucet, its hose following like a snake, and aims it at me.

  I squeal, unsure if I should run or duck, at the same time that Mrs. Locklear enters the room. Her palms fly up. “Don’t you dare make a mess in my kitchen!”

  Kai doesn’t move, still aiming the nozzle at me, as if he’s considering how much trouble he’s willing to get into for this.

  Hunter takes it out of Kai’s hand, feeds the hose back into the faucet.

  “I could have done that,” Kai says, the lines of his jaw hardening.

  “I know.” Hunter shrugs. “But you didn’t.” He casually goes back to sorting silverware in the dishwasher cubby. Like nothing happened.

  Kai doesn’t move.

  “Go on,” their mother says. “Finish this so Gabi isn’t waiting on you.”

  Kai’s face softens and he goes back to cleaning up. I mouth thank you to Mrs. Locklear and she gives me a wink.

  Later, we laze about on the living room couch, giving Diesel belly rubs with our feet, watching surfing videos on my phone, and stealing kisses when Kai’s brothers and sisters aren’t looking. A few times I catch him staring at the pictures on the mantel, lost in memories that don’t include me. Too soon, Hunter ushers their three youngest siblings upstairs for baths and story time, giving Kai a look that clearly says “come on, we got work to do,” while their mom takes care of the other two, who are trying to talk their way out of going to bed. The post-dinner peace of a few moments ago is suddenly a postapocalyptic chaos. I reluctantly say good-bye and head home. A whole ten steps across the driveway.

  I find Dad zonked out on the couch and the credits of a movie scrolling up the TV screen. I don’t have to wonder if my mother was in it; I only wonder which one of her movies he obsessed over this time.

  Here we are, the ex-husband and daughter of the Marietta Cruz—Oscar winner, sex symbol, property of Home Wrecker Studios—trying to forget her and the only life we’ve ever known. We’ve stepped out of her spotlight—extremely far out of her spotlight. So far that even during the height of Anchorage’s tourist season over the summer, there was no finger pointing, no puzzled looks like they were trying to place a familiar face, no cell phones held out to snap a picture. Here, paparazzi is a foreign word. These people outside of LA, these normal people in the normal world, didn’t give a second glance to the fiftysomething divorcé and his un-noteworthy teenage daughter.

  Except Kai. He noticed. And I can’t imagine what life in Alaska would be like if he hadn’t.

  This book was very fun to work on but happened to come about during some very turbulent times in my life. You would not have this book in your hands now if not for the following people:

  Thanks to Laura Bradford for continuing to prove just how lucky I am to have you as my agent. This book—and quite literally everything that I write—would not exist without your support and guidance. You keep me going through it all. You help me sort out my wackadoodle story ideas that hit me at 2 a.m. You push me to do better. Thank you to the moon and back!

  Thanks to Emily Seife for digging into this story and helping me shape it from the very start, since before I even had a complete manuscript written yet, and all the way until it was ready to print. I appreciate your editorial care, how you helped me figure out the best way to tell JJ’s story—over and over and over again. Working with me probably felt like a time loop itself, like the revisions might never end. I know it can’t be easy to work with an author who just doesn’t “get it” sometimes and who can admittedly be stubborn. Thank you so much for all your hard work and patience with me. Thanks also to everyone else at Scholastic who worked on this book, from edits to design and beyond. I may not know all of you, but I sincerely appr
eciate you!

  Thanks to this wonderful group of fellow writers who helped me at different times during the process, providing valuable feedback and, at times, much-needed emotional support: Jen, Kelly, Victoria, Judy, Cathy, Joyce, and Tara. I couldn’t have done any of this without you.

  Thanks to Dahlia Adler at LGBTQ Reads for everything you do. I can’t say that enough. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

  Thanks to my second family at Entangled Publishing for being the most lovely group of coworkers I could ever ask for. Books are my favorite thing in the world, and I’m extremely lucky to have a career making books with you folks day in and day out. Liz, Stacy, HR, HH, Judi, Candy, Jess, Curtis, Hayden, Holly, Bree, Debbie, Robin, Nina, Brenda, Alethea, Erin, Katie, Rebecca, Riki, Meredith, and in case I forgot anyone … ALL of you are the best! Thanks also to all the authors I work with at EP—you remind me every day why I love editing books as much as I do. You’re all so wonderful, so creative, and a joy to work with.

  Thanks to my former coworkers at Kohl’s who have stuck with me even though I don’t clear out fitting rooms and merchandise pretty things with you anymore. You are more than just former coworkers—you are my friends. There are too many of you to list, but thanks especially to DJ, Sarah C, Sarah B, Kristy, and Elizabeth for your friendship and support. I love you more than a Lowest Prices of the Season sale with a 30 percent off coupon and Kohl’s Cash.

  Thanks to Mama and my sister, Dianna, for reasons too numerous and too personal to list, and for always being there to pick me up when I fall. Thanks to my Italian family and my Italian American upbringing, which had a strong influence on this particular story. Lucilla Bellini came to life because of you. So did my unwavering addiction to pasta and pizza.

  Thanks to Joe, my ex-husband. We were married when I started this book and divorced when it was all done. Our life together didn’t work out how we planned, but you were always supportive of my writing career, since before I could even call it a career, and I will never forget all you did to help me, how you never let me give up on my dreams no matter how tough things got. This book (and the one before it) exists because of you, too, and I’m grateful for that.