Chapter Four #2
“Looks like it.” I buried my toes deeper in the sand. I didn’t see how any sort of thinking could magic us into visiting five countries and sleeping in a castle. “Any intel on the new chef?”
“Zero. For the next twenty-four hours, work does not exist to me.” Nina stretched out her legs, then bolted upright seconds later. “I almost forgot! I have a surprise for you.”
I tensed. Nina’s surprises weren’t always the good kind.
She pulled out her phone. “Before my . . . incident . . . at the bar the other night, I managed to get Hot Guy’s number.”
“What?”
“Hot Guy from the Bar! While you two were talking, I snuck his phone from the bar and texted myself—not hard, seeing as his passcode was 1-2-3-4.” She shook her head. “Then I deleted the text from his phone and put it back during your kiss—which was quite lengthy, by the way.”
I stared at her in disbelief. “Nina, that’s . . . outrageous. And maybe illegal.”
Nina shrugged. She looked down at her phone, and a second later mine buzzed.
“And now you have his number. You two are meant for each other. He has a shitty passcode. You have no passcode at all. You have a shared distaste for phone security.” She turned to me, pushing her sunglasses on top of her head.
“I wish you’d put even a shitty passcode on your phone.
I worry about your identity getting stolen. ”
“I have nothing to hide. You know I don’t like to waste precious time typing in a passcode. If a stranger really wants to hack my phone, they will.”
“Who says it’s a stranger trying to hack your phone? It could be someone you know. It could be me.”
“You’re welcome to hack my phone whenever you want.”
“Josephine, I’m being serious.”
I ignored her, opening the text and staring at the number. “What am I supposed to say? Chick who kissed you at Mitch’s here. I know you didn’t give me your number, but my best friend stole it from your phone. How does dinner at eight sound?”
“Sounds good to me.”
“I’m not calling him.” I slipped my phone into my beach bag. “I told you, I don’t need anyone new in my life. All my relationship spots are filled.”
“You’re no fun, Jo.”
I sighed back into my chair. “Why do people keep saying that?”
A few minutes later, Mia and Kitty returned, bringing with them a teenage girl I didn’t recognize.
Despite being a few inches taller than Kitty, she seemed to be about the same age.
Her chin-length blond hair and bright blue eyes made her a stark contrast to Mia and Kitty.
When the three of them reached us, the girl plopped down on a towel beside Kitty as if she’d known us all her life.
“Look, Aunt Jo, we found a friend,” Kitty said.
“I see that.”
The girl grinned at me. “I’m Greyson.” She stuck her hand out for me to shake, then turned to Nina after I told her my name.
“Wow. I love your bathing suit. I saw one like that on Instagram but couldn’t get it because I once bought an industrial-sized box of glitter slime, and now my dad says I’m not allowed to buy things from Instagram anymore, not that they had my size anyway, but oh well. ” She shrugged.
“Are you visiting your grandparents?” I asked. I thought I’d met all my neighbors’ grandchildren or at least seen them on Christmas cards.
“She just moved in with her dad,” Kitty said.
“Not only old people live here, obviously,” Mia said, gesturing to me. “Don’t be so ageist, Jo.”
“Yeah, Jo,” Nina added.
Greyson rested her chin on her knees, her fingers twisting together around her legs.
“My grandparents are hippies and travel all over in an RV playing music. I asked Dad if we could do that, but he said he’s already spent enough of his life on wheels, so we moved here instead.
I asked why we had to live like old people, when Marla and Tom were going around adventuring, and he told me to stop calling Grandma and Grandpa Marla and Tom and go do my homework.
But it’s not as bad as I thought. I like the pool, and the beach, and the exercise room has a rowing machine, and—” She paused, and her expression fell.
“Am I talking too much? Katie Rose, this girl at my old school, said I talk too much and that’s why no one likes me, but I can’t help it.
I think something, and it comes out my mouth.
Well, I don’t think, that’s what my teachers say anyway. ”
I smiled at Greyson. Sure, she talked a lot, but there was something charming about it. The energy, her constant movement, it reminded me of Sam. “I think more people should say what they think.”
“Katie Rose sounds like a real bitch,” Mia said, and Nina leaned forward to give her a high five.
Greyson looked around at us, her face bright again. “Yeah, she kinda is.”
The girls spent the next hour chatting as they stretched out in the sun. Watching Mia and Kitty was like watching a home video of me and Beth, though when I was Kitty’s age, we’d already been without Dad for a year.
After Dad died, I’d gone into isolation.
I stopped answering the phone, sat by myself at lunch.
For a few years I stopped putting myself out there.
Beth, on the other hand, latched on to Mark and her friends.
She went to more parties, drove recklessly, stopped coming home on weekend nights.
Recklessness was how Mia had come into this world, so it wasn’t all bad.
And I marveled at how it was impossible for some of the best things in my life to exist without the worst.
A voice called out Greyson’s name, and all of us turned in the direction of the pool, where a man stood waving his hands over his head.
“Phone’s dead,” Greyson said. “Dad’s gonna kill me.” She jumped to her feet and sprinted up the sand to the pool, hollering, “Nice to meet you!” over her shoulder.
“I didn’t get a good look,” Nina said when Greyson and her dad had disappeared, “but I think Greyson’s dad might be hot. Let’s call him Hot Single Dad, as a code name.”
“How is that a good code name? It’s longer than just calling him Greyson’s dad.”
“Yes, but ‘Greyson’s dad’ doesn’t have the same pizazz. You should get his number.”
“Which is it, Nina? Do you want me to get with Hot Guy from the Bar or Hot Single Dad?”
“Why not both?”
I rolled my eyes and turned to Mia and Kitty. “At least you’ll have someone your age to hang out with this summer.”
“I like Greyson,” Kitty said. She rolled onto her back, draping an arm over her eyes. “It’ll be nice to hang out with someone who isn’t Mia.”
Mia kicked sand Kitty’s way. “Please. Don’t act like you don’t follow me around twenty-four seven.”