Chapter One Sera #2
I blink away the memory and drop my bag on the window bench. I’m heading to the closet, looking for bedsheets, but Abbi stops me in the hall.
“Are you ready? I need coffee, like, now.” She’s already changed out of Cam’s hoodie and into a pair of black jeans and a white crop top.
Her jewelry is layered, the only thing with color besides her hair, and her sunglasses rest on her smoothed-out curls.
She’s even had time to swipe on some mascara.
I look down at my black leggings and old volleyball league sweatshirt.
“Do I need to change?”
Abbi’s silence is enough of an answer, so I slip back into my room and pull on a pair of jean shorts and a fresh long-sleeved T-shirt. There’s a little knot of anxiety in my chest. I try to ignore it as I run a brush through my hair and steal one more glance out the window.
Abbi appears at my door, giving an unapproving eye to my outfit.
“Let’s go.” I grab my tote bag and pretend to ignore the look, pushing past her. She catches up to me as I turn left out the driveway, away from the ocean and toward downtown. I send off a quick text to Maddy letting her know we’re heading to Lorell’s.
Calling it “downtown” might be too generous.
Unlike Brookline, the total sum of Northport’s center is one street barely a quarter mile long.
Sure, there’s the back half facing the harbor too, but a lot of those places are abandoned.
Northport isn’t as fancy as other towns on the Cape.
There are tourists, but the strong year-round population can be a little off-putting to outsiders.
Locals take being a local very seriously.
Thankfully, even though we were only ever here a few months a year, we’ve always been treated like locals, probably because of how close we are with the Tisdales.
I worry our two years away and my rift with Luke have changed that.
Like she can read my mind, Abbi loops her arm through mine as we turn onto Main.
“It’s good to be home,” she says. “I missed the smell.”
I take a deep breath in. The dense salty air calms me. “Me too,” I say.
“Ooh, look.” Abbi points as we come upon the first of the downtown shops.
The storefronts already have their themed summer art on the windows.
I recognize some of the artists’ names, both from gallery shows I’ve been to and even kids I went to camp with down here.
Art school is on my maybe list, though the idea of spending more time in school, even art school, grates on me like a sunburn.
I just want to move, see the world, live. I’m tired of wasting time.
When we reach Nyeman’s Antiques he’s not in there. It’s too early.”
“Right,” I say, catching up to her.
“You still haven’t talked to him?” she asks as we step around a family with three little kids who are crowding the tiny brick sidewalk.
“Nope.”
“Don’t you think you should?”
“Why?”
Abbi sighs and shakes her head but doesn’t say more. She and Maddy are the only people who know what happened with Luke, and talking about it with them once was embarrassing enough.
At the bookstore, I stop to stare through the decorated window at the new releases, hoping for some good science fiction and wondering if Lori, the owner, has shelved any good books in the used section upstairs.
“Oh, Cam’s calling me,” Abbi says, glancing down at her phone. “You got the Lorell’s order, right?”
“You know my summer job hasn’t started yet,” I reply, raising an eyebrow.
“Well…I’m a broke college student, so, not it.” She’s already walking over to one of the rocking chairs on the bookstore’s porch.
I roll my eyes and head toward the bakery three doors down.
Thankfully there’s no line yet. I step inside and the heavy tang of coffee mixed with baked goods brings a smile to my face. But as I weave through the tables toward the counter in the back, I see someone sitting by the window, and my heart has a fit, in a nonmedical way.
Luke Tisdale sits there staring at me like I’m a sea monster crawled onto shore.
All that worry over him being home next door or in his parents’ shop, and he’s here.
It’s like he knew I was coming. Like he was sitting in wait to ambush me about where I’ve been for the last two years.
I start to sweat, and my legs tense, ready to turn and leave.
Because it’s Luke. My ex–best friend and the boy who literally has two pieces of my heart. Crap.