CHAPTER TWO #2
Bottoms were a little harder to source, given that her ass was three times bigger now than it had been as a teen.
She settled on a pair of cut-off shorts that really only fit because the frayed hems rested on her upper thighs and let a healthy amount of butt cheek show. Still, beggars couldn’t be choosers.
Yawning widely, April padded down the stairs and ran a hand through her hair, fluffing it up. It still gave her a jolt whenever she caught sight of it and remembered she’d dyed it.
Her mom was in the kitchen, already seated at the rectangular dining table that spanned the length of the back wall.
The bench against the wall was typically where April and Noah had sat, with their parents on the wooden bench opposite at family dinner during the week.
She could almost hear the bickering of past her and Noah as she paused in the doorway before entering and gravitating to the fresh coffee still in the pot.
“Morning,” she rasped after she’d had her first sip. Typically, she preferred tea—herbal or flavored, ideally—but she could make do until she managed to get to the large grocery store in town.
Kathy looked up quickly from her paper with a smile and then did a double take. “You—Did you know your hair is green?”
“Teal,” April corrected, leaning against the kitchen counter and wincing when the stovetop dial dug into her spine. “And yes. I did it yesterday.”
“Yesterday,” her mom said faintly and April nodded, glancing over her shoulder as she found the still-warm stack of pancakes on a plate inside the microwave. “Before you left?”
April shook her head. “In the gas station bathroom. Are these for me?” She lifted the plate into the air and her mom nodded, her eyes flicking to the plate and then back to April’s hair.
“There’s blackberry jam in the fridge,” Kathy said and then opened and closed her mouth as if deciding what else to say.
April let her stew over it as she went to grab the jam—her mom couldn’t cook, but she did make a damn good jam.
Plus, if she was still picking blackberries then things couldn’t be all bad, could they? “Why, um, did you choose that color?”
April’s cheer faded slightly as she lifted the jar and saw the date on the label. July last year. Before Dad had died.
“April?”
She blinked, shutting the fridge door gently and turning around with the jam jar clasped tightly in her hand. “Sorry, what did you say?”
“I asked about the color choice. Is everything OK?”
What—a girl couldn’t dye her hair green without something being wrong? “It was supposed to be sky blue,” she said dryly, scooping out some jam with her knife and plopping it onto her plate before returning the jar to the fridge. “It just seemed like a good idea at the time.”
Kathy watched her intently as April swung a leg over the bench closest to the kitchen. Her mom was sitting in April’s usual spot and, given what she’d seen last night, it wasn’t the only change in the house.
“Mom—” she began but was cut off by a banging noise outside, making her jump as she put her first forkful of pancake into her mouth. “What the hell was that?” She swallowed with difficulty and took a gulp of her coffee while her mom sighed.
“I imagine it’s the mailbox. It came loose in a storm last week and I haven’t had the chance to fix it yet, so every time Roger delivers the mail it practically falls apart.” Kathy stood, blue eyes weary. “I’d better go grab the mail before the wind carries it halfway up the street.”
April waved a hand, standing abruptly. “You sit. I’ll get it.” And sure, if it meant avoiding more discussion about her hair, then all the better. Her mom sat back down, biting her lip as April nudged her plate away from the table’s edge. “I’ll be right back.”
It was strange, just the two of them being there. After the funeral, Noah had been around, and before that there had always been Dad. She’d never needed a buffer before, but now … things felt stilted. Like they were talking around an elephant in the room.
The front door snapped shut behind her and April cursed as she took in the way the front of the mailbox by the gate swung drunkenly open.
Thankfully, socks were one thing she’d found plenty of in her old room, so she wasn’t too concerned about the morning dew that soaked through the cotton while she walked. That was, until the wind kicked up.
April lunged forward, missing the edge of the envelope by a fraction as the wind dragged it across the top of the white picket fence and into the road. Then she wished she’d stopped for shoes, because through the wet socks she felt Every. Single. Stone.
Still, she attempted to grab the letter, bending down to the ground to retrieve it and cursing when it danced just out of reach of her fingers. By the third try, she had become more than a little frustrated.
“Oh, hold still, damn it—”
The tip of a man’s shoe caught the letter before she could, trapping it on the ground by one corner, and she panted out a relieved “Thank you.”
“No problem.” The voice was smooth, deep, and amused. Annoyingly familiar.
She jerked upright and swallowed hard as her gaze went up, up, up. God, she’d forgotten how tall he was. “Luke,” she said stiffly, brushing the dirt from the envelope before daring another look into his shockingly blue eyes.
“April.” The way he said her name, silky and taunting, had never failed to piss her off. “You look well.”
She stuffed down her irritation in favor of civility.
It had been a long time since she’d seen Luke Pointer, and an even longer time since they’d been high-school rivals.
Neck and neck for valedictorian, opposing captains of the girls’ and boys’ tennis teams respectively, forever fighting for first place.
She’d been competing with Luke her whole life, and sometimes old habits die hard.
“So do you,” she said, the words stilted and odd even though they were true. A cool breeze ran over them and she gripped the letter tightly so it didn’t fly off again. Shivering slightly, she nodded to the house opposite her mom’s. “You visiting your parents?”
“Yeah, we have a standing breakfast date every Saturday.” He smiled in the direction of the house, just across the street from her own, before glancing back at her.
His eyes dropped to her chest and his lips twitched before he looked away.
What—he had a problem with her shirt? Maybe their rivalry wasn’t as buried as she’d thought.
“I like the hair,” he said eventually, when she remained quiet. “It suits you.”
Was he being sarcastic? Her eyes narrowed as she squinted at him suspiciously. “Thank you.”
He nodded, the breeze playing with the dark hair that curled slightly above his ears as a hint of pink touched his cheeks. “I better get inside; coffee’s getting cold.” He lifted the bag she hadn’t even realized he was carrying. “But I’ll see you around?”
“Sure.” The word was clipped, wary, and when he took a step toward her she immediately took one back.
It didn’t deter him, though. A large hand cupped her jaw and she froze.
The warmth was pleasant, though the touch was wholly unexpected, and a strange fluttering kicked up in her stomach when Luke’s thumb brushed across her bottom lip.
He let her go as quickly as he’d reached for her, smiling crookedly while she blinked at him in shocked silence. Then he lifted the thumb to his mouth and sucked. “Blackberry jam,” he said, grinning. “Say hi to your mom.”
“Yeah,” she said faintly. “Sure.” But Luke was already walking away and toward the house on the opposite side of the street, glancing back just once before he went inside.
It wasn’t until she shivered again that she was able to pull herself out of her trance and walk back toward her parents’ house in her lightly soggy socks.
Her outfit wasn’t quite early-March-appropriate and without a bra she was cutting glass in the middle of the street—not that it mattered much; only Luke had seen her and she couldn’t care less about what he thought.
Jam incident inclusive, it was the kind of crap he’d been pulling on her since they were teenagers.
Anything to get in her head and throw her off her game.
Though, what his intentions were that morning was anybody’s guess.
Who knew how Luke’s twisted, brilliant mind worked?
The door shut quietly behind her and she wrinkled her nose as she peeled off the damp socks and padded back into the kitchen barefoot. Her mom took the letter from April’s outstretched hand and raised an eyebrow.
“You were gone a while.”
“You were right. It flew up the street,” she said, the words not quite a lie.
“I thought I heard voices.”
“That’s brave of you to admit,” she said, settling back in front of her plate and frowning at the blackberry jam on her plate.
Kathy snorted and April bit back her smirk.
It was good to see her mom happy, even if it was only for a moment.
“So, last night …” She tried again, eager to change the subject away from anything to do with Luke Pointer.
“I came down for water and you were asleep on the sofa.”
Kathy sipped from her sage-green mug, fingers tapping the sides gently. “I must have dozed off.”
“Mom—”
“What happened in New York, April?”
Any lingering warmth in her veins turned to ice and April’s mouth snapped shut as they eyed each other across the table, a stalemate. Fine. She didn’t want to talk about the sofa? Well, April didn’t want to talk about New York. Not yet. “The pancakes are good. I missed them.”
Triumph gleamed in her mom’s eyes, making them sparkle in the way they used to do whenever April’s dad challenged her. “I missed you too.”
April smiled. Even if the way it had come about was less than ideal, she was glad to be home.