Chapter 24 Playlist On Repeat
“YOU MEAN GREGORY?” I ask.
“Tall, dark hair, superhot?”
Felicity must see him now too, because she adds, “Yeah, in like a punk rock, bad boy sort of way?”
I scrunch my nose as I turn to regard Gregory again, who’s now almost within hearing distance. Obviously I know that Gregory is good-looking, but are we going as far as “superhot bad boy”? He’s wearing a fitted black shirt today, but that’s about as far as I can get with that description.
His gaze takes in my current company as he approaches, eyes widening the tiniest bit with recognition when he sees Kat. He sidles right up next to me and throws an arm around my shoulder, pulling me up against his side. “Amelia. Just the person I was hoping to find.”
He’s all cool. Casual. It’s hard to believe this is the same guy who, not long ago, told me not to touch him while he cried on the beach.
I side-eye him, wondering what he’s up to. “Gregory.”
“Well, this worked out perfectly. I’m starving, and you saved me a place in line.”
I make a point of eyeing the many people behind us. “You can’t be a line jumper.”
“Sure, I can.”
“That’s rude.”
He shrugs. “No one cares.”
“Yeah, Amelia, no one cares,” Kat says. She’s looking at me like, Why haven’t I heard about this new development in your life?
She and Felicity are basically salivating. Gregory knows they’re checking him out, and he flashes an obnoxiously wide grin. “Why don’t you introduce me to your friends?”
I sigh, unreasonably annoyed, and I feel him chuckle against my ribs. Even in the breeze his familiar scent surrounds me. I clear my throat. “Gregory, this is Kat Barlowe, Kingfisher Cove local who recently moved to New York. And this is her friend Felicity.”
Felicity waves, and Kat shines with her megawatt smile. The last time I saw it, she was trying to get the guy working the popcorn stand at the movie theater to give us our snacks for free. (It didn’t work.)
“Gregory moved here at the beginning of summer. Came all the way from the desert.”
“Like, Africa?” Felicity asks, eyes wide and oblivious. I glance at Kat, who looks positively mortified.
Gregory, to his credit, rolls with it. “Nah, Arizona. It’d be cool to visit Africa someday, though.”
“Arizona has the best hair weather,” I say, ruffling his.
Gregory pinches my shoulder, and I twist away from him with a squeal. Kat and Felicity look both confused and envious.
“Inside joke,” Gregory says. “So how does it feel to be back, Kat?”
“Great,” she says. “Especially today. Summerfest is the best day of summer.”
“We haven’t missed a single one since kindergarten,” I say. “It’s probably tripled in size since then.”
The line moves forward a little, and we go with it. I’m not even sure which food truck line we’re in—they’re all good, so it doesn’t really matter—but I hope it has a lobster roll.
“I bet back then we’d have much better odds of winning at cornhole,” Gregory says. “When I signed Amelia and me up, we were team number thirty-seven. Thirty-seven!”
Kat frowns at me. “Cornhole? We never play cornhole.”
Gregory raises his eyebrows at her tone, and I shoot her a look like, Don’t be rude. “I know, but I thought it could be fun to try something new this year,” I say. “If we win, we get a year of pies from Mrs. Reacher, and that’s gotta be worth at least a million dollars.”
Kat just offers a generic hum in response, her brow still furrowed.
“Your dad told me Summerfest all started as a town volleyball championship,” Gregory says to me, probably trying to dispel the weird energy suddenly permeating our little group.
“Really?” I say, because I had no idea. “I’m not sure if they even still do that competition.”
“They do,” Gregory says. “He organized a team from the store and roped me into filling a spot. We start at six.”
My brows shoot up. “You play beach volleyball?”
“Why do you sound so surprised?”
“Because it’s a ball sport and I’ve never seen you play it. And you’ve never mentioned it. And you’re from a landlocked state.”
“Arizona probably has a lot of sand,” Felicity puts in.
Gregory points at her and nods, like, Thank you! But then he elbows me good-naturedly. “Okay, honestly? I’ve never played. When your dad asked me, I warned him that I’d probably suck, but he said he’d take his chances. Said his only other option was you, so.”
I’d like to be offended by that on principle, but I’m really, really terrible at volleyball, and it hurts my arms. I’d rather get up at dawn for a week straight than fill in on my dad’s team, which is really saying something.
“I can’t wait to watch this.” I stroke my chin. “Do they sell popcorn anywhere around here?”
“You’re so tall, I bet you’ll be fine,” Kat says, and I frown at her. I’m just messing with Gregory—that’s what we do. She doesn’t need to defend him from me.
“Yeah, Amelia. I’ll be fine.” He waggles his eyebrows, and I stick my tongue out at him.
“So, Gregory, do you like tennis?” Felicity asks.
“Not really.” He leans into me a little. “I’m more of a music guy.”
A light bursts open in my rib cage.
“You still haven’t given me my playlist,” I remind him.
“It’s still not ready,” he replies, matching my nagging tone. “Did you make one for today?”
“I’ve had a Summerfest playlist since I was twelve. I add songs every year.”
“Send it to me.” A new music act starts up on the stage nearby, and Gregory bops to the beat.
“Would you settle down?” I say when he taps me with his hip. “You’re acting like you’ll die if you stop moving.”
He sighs dreamily. “I love it when you talk shark to me.”
My jaw drops.
He leans in and says into my ear, “That’s right. I’ve been doing a little reading on your favorite animal.” Goose bumps flare down my skin as his breath brushes my neck, and he turns back to the rest of our group. “Did you know that some sharks have to move to stay alive?”
Kat’s staring at us, and I try to act nonchalant even though I’m indecently flattered. This feels different from the time he researched horseshoe crabs.
This feels like it’s for me.
As a group we inch forward again. We’re close enough now to see the menu posted on the side of the food truck, and we fall quiet for a moment while we read.
“Oh, Kat, look!” Felicity says. “They have a grilled cheese. You should give them your special recipe, because I guarantee theirs isn’t as good as yours.”
My chin jerks in her direction. “What?”
“I’m sure you know all about Kat’s Famous Grilled Cheese,” Felicity says to me, and directs the rest of her comment to Gregory.
“Kat makes the best grilled cheese. Seriously, I’ve never had something so good in my entire life.
The secret is a crap ton of cheese, a layer of some local jam she gets from here in Kingfisher Cove, and…
” She frowns and squints one eye, then looks to Kat for help.
“What is it you use on the bread instead of butter?”
Kat’s eyes are on the ground. “Mayo.”
“Mayo! Right. Anyway, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to order one from anywhere else again. Kat had a bunch of us over the other night and made them for everyone, and we couldn’t stop talking about it for days. Kat’s basically famous in Pinecrest now. It’s that good!”
No one speaks for a beat, and it’s about this time when Felicity notices that Kat’s not smiling. I’m not smiling. And Gregory looks pissed.
“Huh,” he starts, and I feel a sliver of unease creep up the back of my neck.
“It sounds really good,” I say, shooting him a warning look. Yes, this bothers me, too—because how hard would it have been for Kat to just say, My best friend used to make it back home?—but I don’t want to make things awkward.
“It does,” he says, and I know in that moment that he’s going to ignore me.
“But you know what’s weird? It sounds a lot like Amelia’s special recipe.
Which she created. Doesn’t it, Amelia?” I keep my mouth shut, because I don’t think I’m supposed to actually answer that.
He’s eyeing Kat as he says it. “Yeah, it’s got Mrs. Reacher’s fig jam, so much cheese that it’s obscene, and that smear of mayo that I swear should make it taste terrible but doesn’t.
The first time Amelia made me one, I could have eaten ten of them right then and there.
Amelia’s Famous Grilled Cheese. Sounds a lot like the one you’re describing, doesn’t it? ”
Felicity, bless her heart, just says, “Yeah, it really does.”
Kat’s cheeks are pink, and Gregory’s jaw flinches. While part of me relishes the fact that Gregory just stood up for me, the secondhand embarrassment is too much.
“Oh shoot,” I say, snapping my fingers. “I was supposed to get my mom lemonade right when I got here. I, uh, I’d better go do that real quick before I meet Shelby.
We’ll catch up with you later, okay?” I wave a hand in Kat and Felicity’s general direction as I walk backward, pulling Gregory along with me. “Gregory, why don’t you come with me?”
The smile he gives me is so warm and happy, it’s like he didn’t just eviscerate my (sort of? prior?) best friend in front of me.
“Sure, I’d love to see your mom. Oh, do you think she brought the shirt I left in your room?”
I hear Felicity suck in a breath behind me, and I swear, I don’t know if I want to slap him or give him a high five.
“I don’t like her.”
“I couldn’t tell,” I deadpan.
“I don’t like her friend, either.”
I pinch the bridge of my nose and let out a long, slow breath. “What the hell was all that?”
“Seriously? She stole your sandwich! Claimed it as her own and took credit for the most delicious creation on planet Earth! It’s like an amateur artist claiming they’re the one who painted the Mona Lisa instead of Leonardo da Vinci!
It’s, it’s…” It doesn’t seem like he’s quite done, so I wait a moment.
“Cheese plagiarism!”
There it is.
“Okay, yes.” I pat his shoulder because he worked himself up pretty good.
“Let it all out.” My emotions are all over the place—part of me secretly pleased that Gregory called her out on stealing something of mine to make herself look cool, while another part reminds me I don’t know those people, so why should I care?
And I’ve totally destroyed the promise I made her regarding Myles, so.
At this point she probably deserves the sandwich.
Gregory opens his mouth to say something, but I hold up a hand. “That’s not even what I’m talking about, though. What’s with the arm around me? The shirt comment? Now they think we’ve, like, messed around at my house!”
Gregory grins. “Haven’t we?”
“No!”
“There are lots of ways to define ‘messing around,’ ” he says, as if the combination of me and Gregory and the term “messing around” doesn’t fluster him like it does me.
The image of us in my bed rises unbidden in my mind—hands in hair, breaths mingling, limbs entwined.
“I dumped a pregnant stray cat in your garage, toured your room, and left a super sexy selfie on your wall, and then you cooked me the best meal of my life. I think it’s fair to call that ‘messing around.’ ”
I shake myself out of my hormonal state. “That’s not what they’re thinking right now, and you know it.”
“So let’s go do the other thing instead of visiting your mom.” He waggles his eyebrows. “Then they’ll be right.”
I choke on air. “You’re in rare form today, you know that?”
“I blame the festival.”
I would argue, but he’s right. People get a little wild at Summerfest. Two years ago Mr. Sweeney had about five too many Cape Codders and went streaking through the arts and craft tent.
And last year Miss Davenport, the elderly librarian, played two Prince covers on her electric guitar during the open mic.
“Okay, look.” He rubs a palm over his head. “I don’t like what she did to you, okay? I don’t know Kat, like, at all, but I know that someone who could leave a friend like you behind without looking back isn’t someone I’ll ever understand. Or anyone I care to get to know.”
I let that land and slowly sink in. It’s an option to correct him and tell him all the times when Kat was a great friend to me.
Explain that the last two months shouldn’t be the only measuring stick used for her, and I have years of material to prove she’s actually a good person and someone worth giving a second chance to.
But it just feels so good for someone to see me and care enough about me to defend my honor.
Or, my sandwich’s honor, but still. I wouldn’t have had the balls to call Kat out, and Gregory doing it on my behalf makes me a little emotional.
I also feel a little unworthy, because maybe someone should call me out too.
“Come on,” he says, pulling my attention back to him. “Let’s go get our faces painted like unicorns and eat our weight in ice cream.”
“Okay,” I say. “Then we have to go find Shelby.”
He nods with a little hum, loops his arm through mine, and tugs me through the crowd.
“So, how many hours do you spend each night staring at my selfie, anyway?”