Chapter 21 Tyler #2
“It’s all good. I get it.” He waves a hand casually through the air, tossing me the keys with a grin.
“The things we’ll do for the girls who run our lives, right?
Just don’t burn the place down or anything dumb.
Oh! And stay away from the freezer if you know what’s good for you.
Last time I was here with someone after-hours, it involved a lot more risk of frostbite than most girls consider romantic. ”
I blink at him, and he shakes his head. “Never mind. Make good choices!”
He winks at me—something only a guy that disarmingly good-looking can pull off—and leaves before I can do anything other than blush furiously. The window frames a grinning Harper waiting for him. He immediately tucks her under his arm, and the two of them head off into the sunset.
I hurry through my closing routine, Sabrina typing on her phone in the corner of my vision. The only thing I leave undone is a few dishes in the kitchen, because I have a plan for tonight.
And that plan involves milkshakes.
I plop two overflowing glasses topped with whipped cream and cherries in front of her—strawberry for her, vanilla for me. She smiles and shakes her head while pulling the strawberry one toward herself. “I still can’t believe you’re a vanilla guy. Everyone knows that’s the most boring flavor.”
I raise an eyebrow. “Are you calling me boring?”
“Your words, not mine…”
I pluck the maraschino cherry from my drink and throw it at her, but she just catches it in her mouth.
“Wow.” I blink. “Is that your talent?”
“Put me on the gymnasium floor,” she says without missing a beat.
I raise an eyebrow. “How about that one where you tie the stem in a knot with your teeth?”
She leans forward across the booth, pulling the cherry from her lips and twirling it teasingly. “Now you’re getting carried away. I’m not consuming a morsel of this. Haven’t you heard how these things cause cancer?”
“No!”
She nods emphatically. “Read it somewhere science-y.”
“Well, in that case…” I lean forward. “I’ll eat it for you.”
“My hero.” She flutters her lashes, and I lean across the booth to plant a kiss on those strawberry-sweetened lips. She hums into my mouth, and any nerves I had about our first real date melt away along with the whipped cream.
Sabrina and I are good. Good when she’s driving me home, when we’re secretly orbiting each other at a party, when she’s cheering on the sidelines, when I’m doing her bidding so she can continue to strive for world domination. And we’re good here, too.
Then her phone rings. The instant she looks down at the screen, her entire expression darkens. It’s instinct to follow her gaze—but when Dad lights up the screen, I wish I hadn’t.
She swallows hard, meeting my eyes again. “You okay?” I keep my voice low.
“Yeah.” Sabrina shrugs. “I just… He hasn’t really taken responsibility for anything he did to my mom.
Even this summer, we never talked about it.
This is the first time he’s called this year!
And it makes me so mad, but I don’t want to cause more problems. And I certainly don’t want him to ruin tonight. ”
I want to bundle her into my arms, but the best I can do is cover her hand loosely with mine. “That all makes sense. It’s your right to talk to him when and how you want. But trust me—” My lips quirk into a gentle smile. “He couldn’t ruin tonight if he tried.”
She smiles back, interlacing our fingers. She doesn’t talk about this stuff much, and I don’t want to overstep, but…
“You said your mom’s been busy. Is that just because of her schedule? Or…?”
Sabrina snorts. “Yeah, it might have something to do with avoiding the implosion of her marriage. I’m hardly ever home either, so I guess I recognize that coping mechanism.
” She makes a face. “And Dad has a new girlfriend already, and all he can text about is her? I don’t want to talk about that, obviously, and I feel weird giving him any information about Mom and our life that she might not want him to know, right?
So, I just feel like nothing is normal except school. ”
Suddenly her fear of rocking the boat at Hamilton Lakes makes a lot more sense. It’s her only remaining source of connection. For someone as people oriented as Sabrina, losing that would be devastatingly lonely.
I nod. “I get it. I don’t blame you for keeping yourself busy.
” I look out the dark window of the diner, where our own pale reflections shine back at me like two moons orbiting each other.
I string one careful word after the other, figuring something out as I speak it aloud.
“What else can you do, when you’ve been left to start your life all over?
We have to move forward. And sometimes we move the fastest when we’ve left the biggest pile of rubble behind. ”
When I look back at Sabrina, her expression is more serious than I’ve ever seen, her eyes fixed unblinkingly on me.
“Exactly,” she whispers. “What about you? How’s your adjustment this year?
” With a twist of her mouth, she adds, “You’ve moved so fast, there must be a pretty big pile of rubble behind you. ”