50. THE ONE WITH THE LAKE HOUSE
CHAPTER FIFTY
THE ONE WITH THE LAKE HOUSE
Comment: A PRETTY LITTLE HEX? Swooooon
Comment: sex must be magic to have this dude so whipped
Comment reply: Bro stfu I just looked at your profile, and you’re on your third divorce
The local theater lets me in after hours to get some pictures taken, which was Joey’s idea, obviously. She said I needed to remember this moment.
After I get multiple rounds of shots by myself throughout the theater, acting a total fool the entire time—because it’s fucking awkward to be in front of a camera all alone when other people are standing around watching—I get a few with my parents, a handful with Kell and Enzo, and when the photographer asks if there’s anything else I’d like before she wraps up, what I’ll remember most about the night is the way Joey smiles when I tug her in for some pictures.
I’m not sure what the woman behind the lens caught, and I don’t care.
What I saw was Joey plop down beside me on the edge of the stage and scoot in close.
I hope I’m the only one who notices the devious gleam in her eyes before she leans in, pretending to fix her hair.
“As if you don’t already have enough pictures of me for your spank bank. ”
Joey’s warm laugh fills my stomach with butterflies, and I nearly skyrocket to the top of our atmosphere with no fear of crashing to the ground.
She calls Kell and Enzo over for a group shot. They kneel behind us, and Kell wraps one arm around Joey’s shoulder, squishing his head between ours for a few clicks of the camera.
I know Kell and Enzo are going to be sad to see her go too.
We wrap up the shoot, the photographer thanking me before packing her equipment to leave.
Kell and Enzo start talking to my dad, and Joey hasn’t moved from her seated position on the stage beside me.
Everything quiets when she gives me the smile I’ve never seen her give anyone else. It’s soft and doesn’t pull at the corner of her eyes. It doesn’t look forced like the ones she fakes when she’s overthinking something.
This one is her happy, cozy, safe smile. The one where her eyes relax, and she’s able to have a moment of calm in her always-moving brain.
It’s the smile Joey gives me right after I do the simplest of things. Holding the door open for her. Ordering her coffee correctly. Asking her if she’s read every single book that pops up on my For You Page—there’s a lot of them now, by the way.
I see it when she doesn’t think I notice her staring at me.
Goddamn it, I’m so in love with her.
I don’t think it was part of her plan to help me find the missing piece inside myself, to remind me who I can be when I let go of the guilt surrounding me being the one to live and not Micah.
Joey changed my life, and I don’t know if I can ever thank her for it. I’m afraid she’ll never give me the chance.
I have to tell her. Even if it scares her. Joey has to know that I love her.
Her phone buzzes in her lap, and we both look down, our smiles instantly disappearing.
Delta Airlines
It’s time to check in for your flight!
Joey leaves in twenty-four hours.
The fear of plummeting to the ground hits me only a millisecond before I crash-land.
I have to swallow back the words I want to say. The same ones I’d almost let slip in the dressing room.
I love you. Please don’t go.
Joey hits the button on the side of her phone, her screen going black. She slides it into her back pocket as she hops off stage. “I’m gonna go call Frankie… Make sure everything’s good for Thanksgiving. I’ll meet you out front in fifteen?”
I nod, unable to say much before she’s beelining for the exit.
Frankie told me not to give up on Joey, but what if she’s the one who gives up on me? I can’t beg someone to stay who doesn’t want to.
My head hangs, and I stare at my shoes until the sound of my dad’s voice draws me out.
“When I met your mother, I remember changing every single plan I’d ever made for myself because if they didn’t include her I didn’t want them.
” He sits down next to me, patting my knee as we watch Mom help the photographer carry her bags out.
We’re left alone in the empty theater. “You love her, don’t you?” Dad asks.
I open my mouth to answer, but there’s no point. If he’s asking, he already knows. I laugh and cross my arms.
“Oh, man, you’re a goner.” He’s smiling wide, wearing the dimples we share.
“I’ve never felt anything like this before.
” That’s only the tip of the iceberg, but I’m not sure what else I’m supposed to say when my heart has a twenty-four-hour countdown with a bomb strapped to it.
“But she’s too smart to stick around and run my social media forever.
” And maybe she’s too smart to stick around with me.
“Is that the only reason you want her around?” he asks.
My eyebrows scrunch. “Of course not.”
Dad stares like he’s solving a puzzle. “Then what’s the problem?”
The problem is… The problem is… Fuck!
The problem is I fell in love with the most stubborn woman on the face of the planet, and if she says she’s going to do something, she’s going to do it—even if it kills her. Or me.
More exclamation points pop up every few days on her list, proof that Joey’s still fighting with herself.
3. Do not fall for West fucking Isakson!!!!!!!
The use of my last name has always stood out to me. Not West fucking Parker… West fucking Isakson. The real me.
West Parker is the part of me the world gets to see, with bits and pieces of the real West sprinkled in. He’s the flirtatious hunk in a backwards hat who makes sex jokes and is known to get himself involved with a MILF or two.
West Isakson is the obsessed lunatic who buys a HexedHeroine T-shirt off a sketchy resale site for $100 in hopes it would give Joey a reason to talk to him again after knowing her for approximately twenty minutes.
“She got her dream job back in Boston. She starts after the first of the year.” It’s the easiest, most straight-forward answer I can give.
“I heard Boston’s a great place to live,” Dad says without a trace of sarcasm. “Plus, as much as we love you and would love to have you home, I think we’re both happy if it’s the same country for now.”
Enzo and I have talked about what’s next for my career a lot, especially over the last few weeks. The way we’re running things right now isn’t sustainable with my current growth. I’ve got to build a team around me, which means starting with a talent agency.
“We said no feelings.” I sigh.
My dad laughs, and the acoustics in the theater throw the booming sound around us.
I scrunch my face, eyeing him with confusion. I hadn’t even said anything funny.
He puts a hand over his stomach and takes a deep breath. “West, my god.” Dad pats me lovingly on the back. “You both failed miserably at that, didn’t you?”
“I failed miserably,” I correct him.
He slides off the stage, still smiling as he shakes his head in a short line. Reaching into his pocket, he pulls out a set of keys. I know which ones they are before he tosses them to me. There’s an old truck key, a tarnished gold key, and a worn University of Michigan key on the ring.
The truck key still has the M Micah carved into it after he and Dad finished the 1977 Ford Bronco they started as a project Micah’s freshman year of high school.
He’d been driving the stupid Audi R5 I bought the summer before on the night of the accident.
Dad’s smile fades into something softer. “Micah would have liked Jo.”
He would have absolutely loved her—there’s not a single doubt in my mind.
I rub my thumb over his initial. “I still miss him a lot,” I say through a tight chest. “I think about him every day.” Even when I hadn’t wanted to.
Dad has always tried his best not to let me see how much Micah’s death haunts him, especially in moments where we’re supposed to be celebrating me. It’s hard not to miss someone even when you’re happy, wishing they could be there too.
“I know, buddy. Me too,” he admits.
We stay quiet until the theater door opens and mom’s voice can be heard again.
“Your mom’s secretly hoping you’ll come stay at the house tonight, but I went by the lake house today and stocked the fridge, gave the place a quick dusting…
because I know what I’d want if I were twenty-five and it was the night before the last show of a very successful tour.
” He shrugs, putting his hands in his coat pockets and taking a few steps backwards. “But a hangover would suck tomorrow.”
When my dad’s gone, I shoot Enzo and Kell a text.
Me
Lake house is ours if we want!
Kell
I’m gonna crash at my parent’s place for the night. Mom wants to do breakfast with my sister and her husband in the morning, but they wanna come by and see you before the show.
Enzo
Have you and Joey filmed the last video yet?
I groan, my head falling back. I stare at the bright stage lights until my eyes water.
No, we haven’t filmed the Hex and West Parker breakup video, and that’s absolutely the last thing I want to do tonight, or tomorrow, or next week, or month, or year, or forever!
Me
No…
Enzo
Good thing your parents love me so much. I know I always have a place to stay when you take girls back to the lake house.
Me
Woah woah hold on a second!!!!
This isn’t something I just do all the time!
Kell
I lost my virginity at the lake house. So did Micah. And so did you. It’s KNOWN for sex!
Me
OKAY YEAH BUT IT’S NOT LIKE THAT WITH JOEY!
Their replies come in at the same time.
Enzo
We know.
Kell
We know
Everyone knows.
Even Joey.