Chapter 9
Callie
It’s too hot to be this close to other people.
The sun’s blazing down, sweat sticking the back of my thighs to the truck bed while Brad’s knee keeps knocking into mine. Luke’s at the wheel, Maddie riding shotgun, windows down and music blasting so loud we can’t even yell at him to slow down.
It’s one of those late summer afternoons where the air feels thick enough to drink, the sky so blue it almost hurts to look at. We’re heading to the creek to fish.
Mitch, Brad, Macy, and I are all crammed in the bed of Luke’s pickup truck, wind blowing every strand of my hair back, and we’re holding onto the sides every time Luke takes a turn.
When he heads the opposite direction, we all exchange a look. “Where’s he going?” Macy hollers.
He takes the next turn; the road leads straight into town in less than a mile.
“Where you going?!” Brad asks, banging on the back window. Luke and Maddie are in the cab laughing. He reaches back and slides the window open.
“Detour!” He laughs and shuts it before anyone can say anything. The rest of us panic as we get closer to town. One wrong person sees us and we’re toast.
“Luke!” Macy bangs on the window too. “Go around! Take a back road!”
“It’s quicker this way!” he yells out the window.
“Quicker to what—a fine?!” Mitch groans, ducking down into the bed. He grabs Macy by her shirt. Their parents will be madder than mine would be if they heard about this.
“Something tells me the academy wouldn’t like this on my record,” Brad says, laying down in the bed at the same time I do.
Luke slows down, stopping at the stop sign on the corner, and then takes a right and then another quick right. I look at Brad. “Ice cream? All this for ice cream?”
Luke throws the truck in park and the engine quits.
“Bunch of scaredy-cats. Who’s gonna say something? C’mon,” Luke says, giving us a hard time, and drops his tailgate.
“You guys look ridiculous.” Maddie laughs.
All of us hesitantly sit up and jump down.
“Maddie wanted ice cream.”
“So?” Brad scoffs. “I want a lot of things too. Can’t always get it.”
Luke whacks him in the back of his head and we walk toward the counter.
Lulu’s Ice Cream Shop sits on the corner, all pink and blue brick with lights that hum when the sun starts to dip and the town quiets.
You can smell vanilla, fries, and hot dogs from a mile away, depending on which way the wind’s blowing.
It’s just a window; you don’t go inside unless you work here.
You sit outside at the old picnic tables, unbalanced, weathered, and carved with initials I’ll never recognize.
I always thought it’d be fun to work the window, wear the blue dress with the baby-pink apron and the paper hat.
Like something straight out of the fifties.
My chest squeezes when I spot my Uncle Doug sitting at one of the picnic tables with Aunt Mallory. He’s the pastor of the local church, and I pray he didn’t just see me climb out of the bed of a pickup like some kind of stowaway. They both wave politely. I force a smile and wave back.
Inside, Lulu herself gives us that knowing smile. “You kids fishing or skinny-dipping?” she jokes, eyeing our swimsuits half-hidden under jean shorts and cover-ups. We all laugh. For seventy, she’s sharp as ever—witty, sarcastic, and somehow always in on everyone’s business.
Luke grins, nudging Maddie with his elbow. “Trying to.”
“Yeah, you two better behave yourselves,” Lulu says, pointing her ice cream scoop at them before turning her sights on Brad. “And you—you’re lucky Sheriff Evans isn’t on shift today. He’d’ve tailed you here and given you a heap of hell.”
Brad smirks, tugging off his hat. “Don’t I know it.”
She shakes her head. “You’re gonna give me gray hair, Bradley.”
“You already have gray hair,” he teases, leaning against the counter.
“And I earned every one of ’em listenin’ to you kids carry on all these years,” she claims with a smirk as she gets a notepad and pen, chewing on a piece of green gum, before asking what we want.
Maddie orders first, all confident and unbothered—mint chocolate chip in a waffle cone. Luke gets the same because he’s unoriginal. Macy goes for cookie dough, Brad a double chocolate, and Mitch nudges me with a smirk when I can’t decide.
“Vanilla with extra sprinkles,” he guesses.
I smile at him. “How’d you know?”
He points to the paper hung up on the window. ““Because they’re out of raspberry and it’s never anything else.” His grin is playful, teasing, because he’s right and he knows it.
I look back to Lulu. “Yep, I’ll have that.”
Mitch ends up paying, Luke and Brad throwing up a couple dollars and change to pitch in.
And once we all get our ice cream, we head toward the truck again.
Mitch, Macy, and I sit on the tailgate while Brad perches up on the side of the truck bed like he’s king of the world.
Luke and Maddie claim the curb. All of us eating our ice cream before it turns into soup.
The sun is hot, everything’s melting faster than we can keep up with, and I’m pretty sure I’ve got ice cream on my chin.
“Anyone grab napkins?” Luke asks, licking a trail of ice cream off his wrist.
“Nope,” I say, scanning around like maybe they’ll magically appear.
He groans and stands, brushing his hands on his jeans. “Be right back.”
Another car pulls in, Maddie mutters an “ugh,” and we all follow her glare toward the parking lot. Two girls from school—Sammy and Ashley. The kind of pretty that makes other people feel underdressed just by existing.
They walk by like they own the place, shorts too short, hair not even frizzy in this humidity.
Maddie’s jaw tightens. I get it. She used to run with them before she started dating Luke and found out they were…
not the nicest humans. Then Sammy started flirting with Luke sophomore year, and, well, it was a whole thing.
We try to mind our own business, but of course, the girls spot Luke up at the self-serve counter getting napkins. They join the line behind him, and within seconds, they’re talking to him—hair flips, giggles, the whole performance.
Brad’s oblivious. He’s too busy calling out people driving by.
“There’s Mr. Keeler!” he yells, waving. The teacher honks back and keeps driving.
“I hated his class,” Brad adds casually.
“I think he hated you too,” Mitch says, laughing.
When Luke finally comes back out, he’s got a handful of napkins and a look that says he knows he’s walking straight into a storm.
He hands them out, then drops down beside Maddie. “Your favorite girls are here,” he says, grinning like a fool.
She doesn’t even blink. Just stares ahead, stone-cold.
Luke’s grin falters. “I’m kidding?” he says, voice lilting like a question.
“What did they say to you?” she asks, eyes still forward.
“Nothing,” he says quickly. “They just asked if we were going to Mitzer’s tonight.”
Mitzer’s is a field surrounded by woods, and you can’t see it from the road.
I’m not sure why we even call it Mitzer’s.
The people who own it have the last name of Franklin.
But anyway, it basically just houses bonfires, loud music, underage drinking, and mudding.
We went a few times last summer, but it gets a little too out of hand for me.
Even Brad thinks it’s too much. That says a lot.
“Why would they ask that?” Maddie asks, voice tight as she stares Luke down.
“Because we’ve gone before?” he says slowly, like it’s obvious.
Macy catches my eye, and I hold my breath. We both know what’s coming.
Luke leans closer to Maddie, lowering his voice, saying something along the lines of “Don’t do this right now,” his go-to whenever Maddie’s fuse starts burning.
Brad leans toward Mitch and whispers, “Here it comes.”
“Yeah,” Mitch says with a sigh.
Barely a minute passes by before Maddie stands, tosses her napkin at Luke, and starts walking.
Luke groans. “Oh, come on, babe.”
“Hey, that’s littering, I’ll write you a ticket for that in a few more months,” Brad calls after her.
Luke watches her for a second before he shakes his head and dives back into his ice cream. She turns up the side street and out of sight, arms crossed, ponytail swinging.
“What’s she gonna do, walk home?” Mitch jokes.
“Looks like it,” Luke says, finishing up his ice cream. He acts like he’s not bothered by it, but we all know he is.
We all finish up in the quiet, throwing our trash out.
Luke starts the truck and we all climb into the bed again as he peels out of the parking lot, heading down the side road Maddie disappeared onto. We wind around the creek bend before we spot her.
Luke leans out his window as he creeps the truck beside her, inching down the road. “Maddie, get in the truck, babe.”
She doesn’t even look at him, just keeps walking.
“Maddie!” Macy shouts. “Come on, just get in!”
“She’s so petty,” Mitch mutters beside me, shaking his head.
Luke keeps coaxing, all gentle and steady, like he always is with her.
“Bro, c’mon, you’re holding us up,” Brad grumbles, bouncing impatiently. “I gotta whiz.”
Luke edges forward another few feet. “Maddie, I was just getting napkins.”
Still nothing.
Maddie’s home life is complicated, which is why I try to give her the benefit of the doubt.
Her mom left when Maddie was twelve, and her dad’s barely home, driving trucks across the country.
I think that’s why she gets like this. She just wants attention.
She doesn’t have anyone else to trust, so she leans on Luke for everything.
And Luke’s not much better off—his parents took off early, and he’s been living with his Pappy ever since.
I guess it’s always been the two of them against the world. Luke and Maddie had to grow up before they were ready, and they do it together.
Brad groans and stands up on the wheel well, fumbling with his belt. “That’s it. I’m gonna pee.”
“Don’t you dare!” Macy shrieks.
“No, for real,” Brad says, grin wide. “If she doesn’t get in this truck, I’m doing it right off the side. Let it rain, baby.”
Maddie stops and spins around, eyes blazing. “Brad!”
He throws his hands up, grinning. “I’m just saying—your attitude’s about to make this a public indecency situation!”
Macy smacks his arm. “You’re disgusting.”
Luke’s half out the window now. “Babe, please. You’re making a scene.”
“I’m making a scene?” she fires back.
“Technically, yes,” Brad adds.
Luke sighs, puts the truck in park, and jogs after her, leaving the rest of us sitting in the bed, pretending not to watch like it’s the latest episode of a soap opera.
Mitch leans toward me. “Ten bucks says she actually walks home.”
“She’ll get in,” I whisper. “She always does.”
Brad snorts. “She’s stubborn, but not stubborn enough to walk three miles in flip-flops.”
Sure enough, after a minute of sighing and gesturing—and Luke flashing that boyish grin that could melt asphalt—Maddie stomps back to the truck and climbs into the passenger seat.
“She doesn’t wanna fish,” Luke says. “I’ll drop you guys off and take her home.”
“Are you coming back?” Mitch asks.
Luke glances at Maddie, her arms folded tight, and shakes his head. “I don’t know. Maybe.”
“Well, then drop us at my place,” Mitch says. “We’ll take my truck.”
And off we go, back the other direction, wind whipping through the truck bed as we rattle down back roads toward Mitch’s house.