Chapter Eighteen Summer
Chapter Eighteen
Summer
“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” My mom calls after me as I hurry to the front door with my backpack hooked over one shoulder. “Where are you going so early?”
I slow my steps but keep moving forward. I turn to look at her only after I’ve twisted the handle and pulled open the door. The morning chill seeps in through the tiny crack.
“School. I have a test this morning and I want to study a little more.”
“At least have breakfast first.” She’s standing at the stove and the smell of eggs and bacon wafts through the air.
Dad sits at the table with a plate of both in front of him.
I close the door and trek back into the kitchen. I snag a piece of bacon and then kiss my mom on the cheek. “Thank you.”
She smiles, but says, “You need a good breakfast. Your brain will thank you later.”
“My brain is crammed full of anatomy definitions. It isn’t hungry.”
That makes her laugh. I move over to Dad and kiss him on the cheek too. He looks tired this morning and his cane rests against the table.
“Bad morning?” I ask him.
“Little pain. Nothing bacon won’t fix.” He winks at me.
I linger and he tips his head toward the door. “Go on. We’ll see you tonight for dinner.”
“Bye. Love you guys.” I shove the bacon in my mouth and head out.
When I get to school, I stop by the counselor’s office. I do need to study, but the real reason I wanted to get here early was to see her.
She’s just arrived and is placing her coffee on her desk next to the keyboard.
“Mrs. Carroll?” I ask, hovering in the doorway.
She looks up as she sets her purse on the bookshelf behind her. “Summer. Hi. Good morning.”
“Do you have a minute?”
“Yes, come in.” She waves with one hand. “I have five before a staff meeting. What’s up?”
“I want to attend FLU next year.”
“Great school.” She smiles.
I nod. “I have sort of an odd question. I’m working with the head of admissions, Kristy Leigh. A friend introduced us, and I’m helping out at their recruitment table at a few events.”
“That’s great. Kristy is a friend, and she’s lovely.”
I nod again. “Do you think…” I start, then rephrase. “Would it be off-putting in any way if I asked her about my application? She’s been so nice to me, but I don’t want to overstep.”
Mrs. Carroll gives me a reassuring smile. “Not at all. She may not be able to give you specifics, and she won’t give you assurances until everything has gone through the proper channels, but I think she’d be more surprised if you didn’t ask her than if you did.”
“Thank you.” My shoulders slump with relief.
“Are you applying to other schools as well?” she asks.
“Yes, but FLU is my top choice.” By a mile. By ten thousand miles. “They have a great women’s soccer team.”
She tips her head back and then nods in understanding. “That they do. Go, Cougars!”
We share a stifled laugh, and I back out toward the hallway. “Thanks, Mrs. Carroll.”
“You’re welcome, Summer. Let me know if I can help as you finish up your applications.”
* * *
During lunch, I bring my notebook.
“I thought your test was this morning,” Rowan says as he takes a seat next to me. He drops a bag of chips in front of me.
I briefly look up at him and then wish I hadn’t. At some point since he snuck out of my room Saturday night, he got a haircut. The strands still hang to chin-level, but the ends are neater and his overall appearance is somehow more handsome.
“It was. I’m working on an email to Kristy.”
“Kristy at FLU?”
I nod and then cross out the last two sentences I’ve written.
“Why?” Rowan asks, undeterred by my lack of conversation today. Or really the past thirty-six-ish hours.
Things were weird when he left Saturday night.
I had work on Sunday and then studied all night.
Rowan didn’t text, and I tried not to read too much into that.
He seems fine today, normal, like nothing happened.
Like he didn’t admit that he thinks about us together for real…
or, I’m not sure exactly what he admitted if I’m honest, but if I think about it too long, my brain feels like it’s going to explode.
“I want to talk to her about my application.”
“O-kay,” he says slowly like he still doesn’t understand.
I stop writing and look at him. My heart squeezes in my chest as I do.
This is bad. So incredibly bad. I cannot like him.
I can’t. We don’t make sense. We wouldn’t work.
I’m not sure he’s looking for anything more than casual, despite what he says.
The whole Amanda thing, plus Sophie—it’s messy.
I tell myself anything I can think of to stop from noticing the dark-blue flecks in his eyes and the slight smirk on his lips or remember the way he looked all casual and comfortable in my small bedroom.
“Getting a soccer scholarship is a long shot, but if I can get into FLU with a little academic funding, then I can hopefully walk on to the team, and I’ll get a job on the side to pay for the rest.” I know student loans are an option too, but if I can get out of college debt-free, that would be the best-case scenario.
“I want to see if she has any tips or ideas for me to make my application stand out.”
“Why don’t you just ask her in person instead of scratching out some formal email?” He glances down at the paper where I’ve written and crossed off a dozen different attempts.
“I won’t see her again until the next recruitment event I signed up for, and the early admissions deadline is before then.”
He continues to stare at my paper as he nods absently. “The chips are for you.”
“Thank you.” I reach for the bag and open it. He’s started doing this almost daily, grabbing something extra from the lunch line for me. A cookie, a bag of chips, a Gatorade, an extra serving of fries that I’m sure the lunch lady intended for him.
“What are you doing tomorrow night?” he asks, finally glancing up at me.
“Practice, studying…”
“Have dinner with me and my family.”
I choke on the chip and cough several times to dislodge it from my throat. My eyes water and I take a long drink of water before I meet his gaze again.
“Sounds that tempting, huh?” He grins.
“Chip went down the wrong way.” My voice is still tight as I speak.
“My parents are back in town this week. I’ll ask them to invite Kristy over, and you can ask her your questions then.”
“At dinner with your parents?” I reiterate to make sure I’m understanding him correctly.
“Sure.”
“Won’t that be…”
“Awkward?” he asks, smirk still firmly in place like he’s in on a joke that I’m not.
“Do I need to remind you that the last time I saw them, I spilled water all over your dad and nearly got fired?”
“Oh, right. I had forgotten that.” Rowan chuckles softly. “They won’t remember, and even if they did, they won’t care.”
It feels too easy. The answer can’t be this simple. That might be Rowan’s life, but it’s not mine.
He pulls out his phone, and while he’s scrolling I glance back at my notebook.
It would be less intimidating to talk to Kristy in person instead of firing off a stiff email and hoping she doesn’t think I’ve violated some unspoken rule of reaching out to the head of admissions.
Or, worse, getting lost in the thousands of emails just like mine from other desperate applicants.
“Done,” Rowan says, setting his phone on the table.
I blink out of my thoughts. “What?”
“My mom said yes and she’s calling Kristy now.” The bell for next period rings and Rowan grins bigger as people start to move around us. “Too late to back out now, Lindsey.”
* * *
The Blakenship’s house is big. Huge. Massive. My shoes echo in the entryway.
“Everyone is in the kitchen,” Rowan says as he leads me through the house.
His steps are too quick for me to gape too long at anything, but everything is beautiful.
Immaculately decorated and organized. Big, flashy artwork and furniture that’s perfectly sized for the space.
I picture the big sectional at my house that my mom always complains is too big and the old photographs in mismatched frames on the wall.
My stomach is a ball of nerves. Voices greet us as Rowan steps into the room. Their kitchen might be bigger than our entire first floor.
Everyone stops talking at once, and as Rowan moves to my side, all eyes are on me.
I swallow around what feels like a giant cotton ball in my throat.
“Hello.” His father is the first to speak. “You must be Summer.”
I nod and wave.
“Nice to meet you,” his mom says. “We’re so glad you could come.”
“Summer, these are my parents, Lee and Tonya. And you know Kristy.” Rowan waves a hand to motion toward each and then steps forward and snags a carrot off a platter in the middle of the counter.
“Thank you for having me,” I say to his parents and hope they don’t notice the quiver in my voice. Then I meet Kristy’s gaze and smile at her.
“Hi,” she says, flashing a friendly smile back at me. If she has any idea that this was a setup to pump her for information, she doesn’t show it.
“What can I get you to drink?” Mrs. Blakenship asks, pulling open the fridge. There’s a row of neatly organized drinks.
Rowan steps forward and grabs two different kinds of sparkling water, then holds them both out to me. I take the grapefruit flavor, and he grins like he expected that’s the one I’d pick.
“Rowan tells us you play soccer as well,” his dad says as I take a drink.
I nod until I can speak. “That’s right.”
“And you’re a senior?” his mom asks.
“Yep.”
“I’m surprised we haven’t met you before,” his mom says. “Have you always lived in Frost Lake?”
“Summer switched schools this year from Oakley,” Rowan answers for me.
“Your senior year?” His mom has the level of shock and horror that I felt all summer. “That’s awful.”
“It was, but I’m adjusting.” I glance at Rowan.
“More than adjusting. You’re killing it,” he says, then looks up at his parents. “The girls’ soccer team has a winning record for the first time in a decade because of Summer.”
My cheeks heat. “Not only because of me.”
“Mostly because of you.”