My Bittersweet Summer (26 page)

I made a face at him. “Goodnight, Carter.”

He shot me a cheeky salute and trotted off, headed back to the fire pit. Resigned, I started the car and pulled out of the parking lot.

There were worse ways to end a night than with cookies, after all.

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Walking up to the Robinson house in the dark was an unnerving experience. The place had terrified me during daylight hours when I was a kid, and no way would I have been on the grounds at night without an adult. The gazebo was especially sinister after dark; its shadows held the ghosts of endless hours of taunting and teasing. I shivered, the echoes of voices calling after me as I passed the structure.

Three in, six out.

Three in, six out.

Someday, I wouldn’t have to count my inhales and exhales. Someday, the mere mention of certain names wouldn’t send my pulse skyrocketing. Someday, I’d move through life without being afraid of who was around the next corner.

Believing that someday those things would be true kept me moving forward in life as much as they did the backyard of the main house. The light from the kitchen windows dimly illuminated the walkway and saw me safely to the door without tripping over my own feet. Pausing for the hundredth time to question whether or not being there was a good idea, I remembered what Carter said about regret, and turned the knob.

Zach was standing in front of the pantry, frowning at the contents when I stepped inside. When he saw me, he immediately perked up, his grin a little wider than his damaged face had allowed the day before.

“I wasn’t sure you’d actually show up,” he said, crossing his arms. “You were taking so long, I thought…”

“I went home to change first.” I motioned to my ensemble, my gray yoga pants and white t-shirt the very definition of haute couture. “Besides, Carter didn’t exactly give me a lot of leeway for bailing.”

He shrugged and winced, shuffling over to the other side of the island counter to lean against it. Judging by his expression, he was trying to hide his pain. “Nice of Carter to loan you out for a night.”

I rolled my eyes and walked over to him, pulling out one of the chairs and pointing at the seat. “Sit.”

“But—”

I grimaced. “Look, you’re clearly hurting and probably shouldn’t be out of bed, so if you’re going to insist on cookies, you are going to sit so I don’t get in trouble for letting you make yourself worse. Chair. Now.”

Zach lowered himself into the seat, holding his breath. He released it in a slow, steady exhale as he got comfortable on the high chair.

Once he was down, I made my way around to the pantry, preheating the oven as I went, and collected some of the things I needed, setting them on the counter by the stand mixer. Zach didn’t say anything as I worked, but watched my every move.

“For the record, Carter and I are only friends,” I said as I cracked an egg against the side of the bowl, probably a little harder than I needed to. “Not that it’s any of your business, but you can quit with the attitude about it.”

“I don’t have an attitude about it,” he huffed at me. “You can be friends with whoever you want.”

I turned and set a hand on my hip. “Thanks for the permission. And yes, you do have an attitude about it.”

His face scrunched up in a frustrated pout. “It’s just…”

“What, Zach?”

“Why are you hanging out with him? You know what he’s like.”

I sighed and shook my head, adding the butter to the mixing bowl. “Well, that’s hilarious. See, I
do
know what he’s like, and it’s not what everyone else seems to think. Then again, everyone else probably knows better than me. They were saying the same stuff about you not that long ago.”

That shut him up, and I added the vanilla and sugar, turning the mixer on to cream the ingredients together. As it ran, I looked at him again. “Did you forget that already? Because, from what I hear, other women are still getting in line for you as much as him. I’d argue their taste, but there’s plenty of stupid people out there.”

“Point taken.” He picked at some imaginary something on the counter.

“Is it?” I asked. “Because you seem awfully ready to start telling me what opinions I should have about other people while you’ve been working pretty hard to convince me they were all wrong about
you
. You can’t have it both ways, you know.”

I shut off the mixer and worked on the dry ingredients, trying not to let my irritation mess up my baking. “He’s the reason I’m here right now. You should probably be thanking him instead of criticizing my decision to hang out with him.”

While I stirred together the flour mixture, I heard him sigh. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”

I couldn’t help smiling a little. An apology
and
telling me I was right? Maybe he was learning.

“So the only reason you’re here is because Carter told me on the phone you’d come?”

Pausing with my hand on the mixer switch, I considered it. Rather than answer, I started adding the dry ingredients to the wet little by little. When all that was left was the chocolate chips, I stopped the machine.

“No. He also told me it was okay to like you, and that I’d probably feel bad that I didn’t come see you.
Carter
said those things. The same Carter everyone tells me is only out to sleep with as many people as possible. That guy.” I snatched up the bag of chocolate chunks, cutting it open with a satisfying
snickt
of the scissors. “Maybe it’s just me, or maybe it’s just this island, but apparently it’s become my job to collect lost causes and hand out second chances like free samples at a mall food court.”

I dumped the chocolate in the bowl. For a while, the only sound in the room was the
whirr whirr
of the stand mixer. I watched the paddle fold the chunks into the dough until it looked consistent enough and shut it off.

“So… why do it?”

Lifting the head of the mixer, I scraped the paddle clean and set it in the sink. “Because I got one when I left here the first time, and I want other people to know what it feels like. I won’t be a person who steals other’s hope. If I become that, then I didn’t deserve that second chance.”

The oven beeped in readiness, and I spooned out the dough onto cookie sheets. My mind wandered as I worked, the task more muscle memory than anything. Putting the first sheet in, I set the timer and started on the next one. When all but the last small lump of cookie dough was ready to go, I picked up the bowl and the spoon I’d used to scoop and walked around the island to where Zach was sitting, looking pretty sorry for himself.

“It sort of clashes with the bruises when you wallow.” I slid the bowl in front of him. “I usually find this helps.”

He poked at the raw dough with a spoon for a moment, then sighed. “I’m sorry I made you come up here tonight. I didn’t know you’d be… out. That was kind of a jerk thing to do.”

I reached over him and snagged a fingerful of dough for myself. “You didn’t
make
me come up here. And I was leaving the beach anyway. Carter was walking me to my car when you tried to give me a heart attack with that text message.”

A little of his smile returned. “I didn’t really spin you up that bad, did I?”

I pointed my dough-loaded finger at him. “After all that crap last week, and knowing you’re still busted, what do you think? I thought you were going to tell me Matt drove a car through your house or you were bleeding internally or something.”

He chuckled and examined a chocolate chunk. “Well, it’s a little comforting to know it took you all of ten seconds to call when you thought I was in trouble.”

“Pretty sure that’s what friends do, isn’t it?” I stuck my finger in my mouth and froze that way, stunned at what I’d said without even thinking about it. Friends? Were we friends already? Did I really mean that? I sucked the cookie dough off my finger as quickly as possible, looking at anything but him in the weird awkwardness that followed.

Blessedly, the oven timer went off before either of us could say anything. I pulled out the first batch and let them sit for a minute while I put the other sheet in and dug out the cooling racks. Glancing at him, Zach was on the edge of his seat, practically drooling over the cookies as I moved them over. I sat down again and leaned on my hand, watching him as he scraped the last molecules of raw dough out of the bowl.

“Are you okay with that?” I asked, knowing he probably had something to say on the subject of friendship.

He stared at the spoon, remnants of dough clinging to the wood. “Does that mean I’m sitting at one-hundred percent now?”

I shrugged a shoulder at him. “Eh, I think you’re a solid ninety-five. Let’s not get too crazy.”

Grinning, he waved the spoon at me. “Then, yes. I’m fine with it.”

My eyebrows lifted a little. “Really?”

“Well, there’s still room for improvement,” he said and stuck the spoon in his mouth, winking.

Without thinking, I landed a light punch on his shoulder, but instantly regretted it when he sucked in a gasp through his teeth.

“Oh my God, I am so sorry.” I stood and set a hand on his arm. “Are you okay?”

He coughed a laugh. “Should I be worried that being your friend comes with a constant threat of violence?”

“If I said yes, would it make a difference?”

His eyes turned up to the ceiling, thoughtful for a moment, but it didn’t last long. Zach reached over to the cooling rack and snagged a cookie. “I think I’m willing to overlook it, but only if I get these as compensation.”

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A strange, happy calm settled over my life in the following weeks. What started as a tentative truce between Zach and me gradually became… Well, we really did become friends.

He was told not to work for two weeks after the fight with Matt, but after that he was allowed back, pending he didn’t have to do a lot of heavy lifting. I’d occasionally catch him fighting through the pain of his cracked rib and help where I could, but for the most part, he refused to let people baby him. It was actually kind of inspiring to see him trying so hard.

The biggest change in my life didn’t have much to do with him, however. Well, it did in that with Zach on prep, it freed me to move up to the line, where the real cooking happened. I was smiling so much my first shift there, it even rubbed off on the normally grumpy Chef Antoine. Kareem told me later that he’d never worked a shift where he’d been yelled at so little. Granted, that might’ve been because I totally rocked everything I did that night, but I liked to think my cheery disposition made a difference, too.

When we weren’t working, Zach and I actually spent quite a bit of time together. We watched movies, played video games, hung out at the beach with Destiny and some other local kids, and we even went out on his parents’ boat one day. I wouldn’t say we were inseparable or anything, but it stopped feeling awkward pretty fast and became a normal thing. When I realized that, I was probably more surprised than anyone.

“No boyfriend today?” Destiny said with a smug look over the rim of her mug.

I gave her a flat look and leaned back in the cafe chair. “He’s working, and I really wish you’d quit with that. We’re just friends.”

She laughed. “Friends with Zach Robinson. So freaking weird. I mean, we’ve all hung out together and everything, but…” She shrugged. “I’ll get used to it. I guess people really can change.”

Leaning on the table, I frowned a little. “Do you think so? It feels like he has, but there’s still this part of me that’s holding my breath and waiting for him to do something terrible. I don’t like feeling that way, I just can’t help it.”

Destiny shrugged and scratched the scalp between her blonde cornrows with a perfectly manicured fingernail. “Not sure what to tell you, Margie. I don’t see him as much as you do, but he’s definitely not the Zach he was in high school. Like, he was a little different after Chad died, but not like now. Maybe it’s true what they say about graduation being a turning point for people. People either get stuck in high school forever, or move on to better things.”

“Speaking of, you’re really staying here after this summer? I thought for sure you’d had enough and were ready to get off the island.”

With a wistful sigh, Destiny set her mug down and broke off a piece of biscotti, dunking it in her latte. “Eh, this place doesn’t bother me. I’m going to take classes at the community college in Galloway, but it’s not a huge deal. I like working in the bakery, and my mom can’t do it forever, you know. I don’t bake like you do, but I enjoy it. I’m okay with not having fancy dreams of Paris, except maybe for a vacation someday. I like it here.”

I sipped my chai and smiled at her. “You know that’s okay, right? You aren’t required to have delusions of grandeur like me. The important thing is that you know what you want in life. A lot of people don’t, and I think that’s why they end up miserable.” I smirked at her. “Well, that sounded good coming out of my shrink’s mouth, anyway, so it seems like a smart opinion to have.”

“So when are you heading for the train station? NYC tomorrow, right?”

I absolutely couldn’t control my grin at the reminder. “My train leaves at nine, but I’ve been packed for a week already. I’m
so
excited about this trip. You don’t even know.”

“I bet. What show are you going to see?”

Ducking my shoulders, I was a little embarrassed to admit it. “I know it’s sort of old and cliché, but I’d love to see
Les Miserables
. I know all the music, but the one time I had the chance to see a traveling show in Providence, I got the flu and couldn’t go. The movies just haven’t done it for me.”

“Well, if you get to see more than one, you should try for tickets to Wicked, too. I saw it last summer with my dad and it was awesome.”

“That’s what Angela says we should see,” I said. “If we end up having to choose between them, it could get ugly.”

She blew out a long, sad exhale. “I really wish I was going. I wouldn’t want to live in New York, but visiting is amazing. Maybe I can con people into going down one weekend this fall.”