Chapter Four #2
I’d thought so too. Jasmine had teased me mercilessly, but she took me there for a tour and a photography session in front of the monument until the heat wore us down.
One of those photos was my phone wallpaper for a couple of weeks until I got sick of feeling like every time my phone lit up it was a challenge to call her, and I changed it to a picture of my mom and me instead.
“Oh, duh, I forgot to put in the address.” Chase hands me his phone as he pulls out of the lot. “Can you check my texts? It should be the last one from Paulie.”
I’m basking in the glow of being trusted with his text messages, so it takes me a few beats to realize I already know the address.
I’ve been to this house. Picking up and dropping off my mother as needed, even going inside once when she made me wait too long and I had to pee like a racehorse.
I remember the bathroom being black marble, presided over by a light-up mirror.
I remember very shiny wood floors. I remember thinking, “Jesus, this is a big house for one person.”
But it isn’t for one person anymore.
“It’s thirty-seven Darlington,” I tell him, typing it into his phone’s GPS.
His eyes are on the road; he can’t tell I didn’t check.
And I don’t want the temptation of his text messages, of knowing what girls’ names I might see.
If he and his cheerleader ex, Brielle, still talk, I definitely don’t want to know.
If there’s a summer fling filling his inbox with heart emojis, that can stay in the vault.
We fill the space with easy and predictable conversation about the game, where we’re applying for college, and what scouts he hopes are coming to check him out, but I don’t expect any revelations, which is why I’m particularly surprised when he says, “Can I tell you something I haven’t told anyone? ”
“Of course,” I say automatically, even though I know all I’ll want to do with the secret is shout it from the rooftops to prove Chase Harding trusted me with special, classified information.
“Honestly, I’m hoping to stay local. Marist is pretty much my dream. It’s D-I ball, and Poughkeepsie is only, like, an hour away. Plus, I look really good in red.”
“I’ll bet,” I say, my heart fizzing at his confession. “Is it Stratford you’re so attached to, or your family, or what?”
“Both, I think,” he says, and I pick up a tinge of a blush in the dark.
“My brother goes to Arizona State because he wanted warmer weather and a fun party school, and he almost never makes it home. I don’t wanna be that.
I like doing holidays and stuff with my family, plus making my little sister be alone at home for everything would suck. ”
God, just when I thought my crush couldn’t get any bigger.
But then, Chase being an incredible big brother is one of the things that’s always made my heart pitter-patter in the first place.
His little sister, Kira, is a sophomore, and we were on the same Little League team as kids.
He used to sit in the stands on the Sunday mornings he had free, holding massive homemade signs covered in terrible handwriting, and shout her name every time she came to bat.
At first, it made me sad I didn’t have my own big brother.
Then it made me realize I wanted Chase Harding cheering for me.
And that’s how it all began.
“This only child can confirm it would kinda suck,” I say, although I’ve never known anything else, and I love my mom and our cozy holidays.
But I’d be lying if I said I never wished there were more than the two of us at our small round table built for four.
If I said I didn’t occasionally wish we had a big ol’ dining room to make festive and fill with stupid things like poinsettia placemats.
If my heart hadn’t twinged a bit on those summer nights when me, Jasmine, my mom, and Declan sat down to dinner together, feeling like a very weird but complete little family.
Without even thinking, as we stop at a red light, I reach over and squeeze his hand. “You’re a good brother.”
He smiles softly. “Thanks.”
Our hands stay locked until the light turns green.
The house is packed by the time we get there, with music blasting and people spilling out onto the lawn. We have to park two blocks away, which is perfect because it has Chase offering me his jacket to walk the distance.
I really, really want to say yes.
But Jasmine’s first vision upon entering Stratford High was me flirting with Chase, and I find myself imagining how I’d feel if she walked into my house wearing someone else’s jacket, and I can’t do it. Not yet. Not until she and I talk.
“It’s still pretty warm out, but thank you,” I say, hoping my smile makes clear this is not a symbolic rejection. “But I’ll take a raincheck for when it’s chillier.”
“Deal,” he says, tossing his jacket back in the car, but he doesn’t make a move to sling an arm around my shoulders or take my hand. I have to remind myself that a little space is what I implicitly asked for.
As the house—mansion?—comes into sight, I continue cycling through my Jasmine thoughts. What if she’s every bit as cold tonight as she was outside school? What if she’s already drunk? And the worst thought—what if she’s with someone when we get inside?
Somehow I’m standing next to Chase fucking Harding, about to fulfill item number seven on my high school bucket list (rolling into a party on his arm), and I’m thinking about how badly I would want to throw up if I saw Jasmine Killary making out with someone on the other side of that door.
Literally everything is wrong with this picture.
What am I doing here?
I don’t have a chance to rethink my plans, because the door swings open and a stream of Stratford kids comes pouring out.
I recognize them as the tennis team, and a bunch of them say hi to us as they curl around the house and head into the yard.
A quick peek past them shows it’s probably too crowded inside to get to the French doors that exit to the deck with the hot tub, and oh God I remember this house so much better than I thought I did, which somehow makes everything feel worse.
The minute we walk in, Shannon, Kiki, and Gia descend on me, pulling me toward the kitchen while Chase accepts high fives and shoulder claps from adoring fans and teammates.
“So? How was the ride?” Kiki asks, waggling her eyebrows.
“Did you discuss his tight end?” Shannon’s voice could not sound pervier.
Gia spares me—dirty humor isn’t her thing—but her big Bambi eyes widen and I can tell she’s waiting for a response.
I roll my eyes. “It was a car ride. We talked about normal things. We’re friends. We talk about things.”
“We’re friends,” Shannon says mockingly. “Oh, please. Fine, play it cool here, Bogdan, but when you’re done with work tomorrow, we’re going to Lily’s and we’re getting waffles and you are giving us a full—”
“Here you go, as promised!” A long, bronzed arm jangling with bangles reaches between us and holds out two long-necked bottles, which Shannon and Kiki pluck from familiar purple-tipped fingers.
“And a cider for you.” Jasmine hands a bottle to Gia with her other hand, and only when she has nothing left to offer does she realize I’m standing there with them.
“Hey,” she says with far less enthusiasm.
“Hey, yourself.”
“Oh, you two have met!” Kiki says.
It’s exactly the opening that can break open the truth. I could say, “We spent the summer together.” I could say, “My mom works for her dad.” But like with Chase’s jacket, I don’t want to make any moves until she and I talk—really talk—and I find out what the hell is going on.
“We’re in English together” is all I offer, and I watch as Jasmine takes in my answer, takes in that I haven’t told my friends about her. I try to convey with my eyes that it’s a temporary response, that maybe it can change if she wants it to, but she just nods.
No upset, no surprise—just acceptance.
Suddenly, it’s too much. It’s all too much. The secrets and the summer hanging heavy between us and the meshing of my OBX life and my Stratford life, here in Jasmine fucking Killary’s kitchen … it’s too much.
“Can you show me where the bathroom is?” I ask Jasmine in a rush.
She starts to respond, and I motion as if I can’t hear her.
If she thinks she’s getting out of having a real conversation, she’s got another think coming.
Thankfully, that she picks up on pretty quick, and soon she’s leading me out of the kitchen and—as soon as no one’s paying attention—up the stairs and to her bedroom.
It takes me a few seconds to realize that’s what room we’re in, because it looks so wildly unlike her, it’s hard to imagine that this is where she sleeps.
Even her vacation house had more personal character than this.
There are no photos, no posters, no colorful scarves draped on anything, and she’s gone from an entire case of books in her Outer Banks house to a single shelf here, most of which are for school.
There isn’t even any makeup strewn over her desk.
For the millionth time since I first spotted her in Stratford, I wonder if the Jasmine Killary I knew this summer was real.
“I see we’re sticking with the secret route,” she says, and I was so lost in observing everything that isn’t there that I’m startled by the sound of her voice. I open my mouth to say that we don’t have to, but she adds, “I think that’s a good idea.”
Even though I was expecting it, it feels like a shot to the heart. I don’t answer right away, instead giving myself a little tour of her room. “Where’s all your stuff?”
“In Asheville, mostly. My mom’s selling the house and moving near family, so it didn’t seem worth it to drag everything up here when I’d just be moving again next year.”