The Moment I Knew (Parkhurst Prep #3)

Chapter 1

one

My father’s mistress wanted to be my best friend.

Okay, maybe that wasn’t fair. She wasn’t his mistress anymore because he and Mum had separated, so now Hilary could officially be called his girlfriend. And it wasn’t so much that she wanted to be my best friend as much as that my dad had been pushing her to “bond” with me.

Either way, it was seriously getting on my nerves.

“I saw this color and just immediately thought of you!” she squealed.

Hilary said everything in a way that I could hear the exclamation at the end of the sentence. It was one of those attributes I might not have minded on someone else, but on her, it made me want to claw off my own ears.

She held out a bottle of sparkly neon orange nail polish that I wouldn’t wear in a million years with a huge smile on her face.

I struggled not to show my utter disgust. She had to be joking, right?

There was no way anyone could possibly look at that and think Imogen will love this.

I was tempted to tell her there was no way that polish was going anywhere near my hands, but then I thought of my dad.

When Hilary announced after breakfast this morning that she was treating me to a mani-pedi today, he’d been delighted.

I wanted to tell them both that I wasn’t lying to my mum and siblings about my location just so I could spend my time with Hilary instead of my dad, but I couldn’t hurt my dad like that when I knew how important this was for him.

So, I’d swallowed my annoyance, put on a smile, and said, “Sounds great!”

Which was how I ended up trying to wipe off orange nail polish with hand sanitizer I’d found in my sister’s glove box three hours later.

“So, how was your weekend?” Lavender’s voice was so neutral that I could tell she was doing it on purpose.

She was the only one of my siblings who knew where I was actually going every other weekend when I claimed to be sleeping over at friends’ houses.

I hadn’t even told my twin sister the truth, which was eating me up inside but I knew it was the only way.

If Ainsley knew I was visiting Dad, then she would try to stop me—or worse, tell Mum and probably break her heart.

I had to keep it a secret, at least for now.

When I finally convinced Dad he should break-up with Hilary and grovel to Mum until she finally took him back, then maybe I could come clean.

“Great,” I mumbled absentmindedly as I squirted some more hand sanitizer onto the tissue and started rubbing at my left thumb nail. The nail polish didn’t budge.

“Just take it off when we get home,” Lavender said, glancing at me as she drove. “I’m sure there’s nail polish remover somewhere in the house.”

“If I come home with it on then Ainsley is going to ask why I went to get a manicure without her. And then she’ll say I should have brought her along because it’s the ugliest color she’s ever seen and she would have helped me pick out a better one.”

“Well… she’s not wrong.”

“Not. Helping.” I ground my teeth together as I scrubbed my nail. Still nothing.

“Maybe we can stop at the store after the cafe and pick up some nail polish remover for you,” Lavender said.

I looked up. “Cafe? What cafe?”

“Mum asked me to pick up coffee and donuts while I was out picking you up from your…” Her gaze slid to me briefly. “Sleepover.”

My stomach knotted up with guilt with how she said the words.

It was obvious that even though Lavender said she supported my decision to stay in touch with Dad that she thought me going over there as much as I did was a bad idea.

But she didn’t understand. I was doing this for all of her and Sebastian and Ainsley, even if they couldn’t see it.

I wanted us to be a family again, and since no one else was talking to dad, it was my job to make that happen. Sparkly orange nail polish and all.

Lavender pulled into a parking lot a block later, pulling up right in front of a brick building with The Corner Cup listed in cursive letters in the window.

The name was familiar even though I’d never been here before, so I figured Dad must have mentioned it sometime.

Maybe it was his new usual spot in the mornings.

I didn’t like the idea of that. Even though he’d moved out of our house almost six months ago and I realistically knew he had to be building new routines where he lived now, I hated the idea of him getting too comfortable here.

The more his new place started to feel like home, the less likely it was that he would listen to me when I tried to convince him to go back to Mum.

“Do you mind going in?” Lavender asked. I barely heard her over my swirling thoughts. “I already paid and put the order in, so all you have to do is carry it out.”

“Sure,” I said, my mind still on Dad. I got out of the car and walked up to The Corner Cup, mulling over what I could do to get my plan of making Mum and Dad start talking again.

Clearly, I just needed to give him a bit of a push.

Would Ainsley be angry if I invited him to our birthday party in a couple of weeks?

Probably. Maybe it would be better if I pretended he’d just shown up without me mentioning it, but now that he was here already, we couldn’t just ask him to leave…

The bell over the door rang as I stepped inside. I kept my eyes on the floor, counting the scuffed tiles as I crossed the café, already rehearsing what I’d say if Mum asked why he’d been invited.

“Hey—order for Lavender?”

I looked up. The boy behind the counter was my age—maybe a little older—with dark hair falling into his eyes and wearing a Northern High shirt with rolled-up sleeves that made my brain go inconveniently blank.

He was staring straight at me with a flat expression, like he was already annoyed with me for coming in here when I hadn’t even done anything yet.

Or maybe he was just annoyed because I was staring at him instead of answering the question. That could be it too.

“I’m Imogen,” I said, then immediately cringed. He hadn’t asked for my name, he’d asked if the order was for me.

I shook my head to clear it and stepped up to the counter to grab the trays of drinks—trays, plural, because apparently Lavender was getting coffee for the whole freaking town.

I was just debating if I could stack one tray on top of the other, then tuck the bag of donuts under my arm when the trays were shifted back, out of my reach.

“Hey!” I frowned at the boy. “What was that for?”

“This order is for Lavender,” he said.

“Right,” I said slowly. “It’s for me.”

“You just said you’re Imogen.”

“Well, yes I am, but—”

“So you can’t have it.” He nodded toward the other end of the shop. “You can order over there.”

“But I don’t need to order. Because this is my order.”

“No, it’s not.”

“It’s Lavender’s order and—”

“You’re not Lavender.” He crossed his arms over his chest and if I hadn’t been so annoyed with him right now, I might have enjoyed the way it made his muscles bulge under his work shirt.

“Lavender,” I said slowly, “is my sister.”

He narrowed his eyes and I got the strange sense he didn’t believe me. “Okay.”

“And she’s in the car.”

“Uh-huh.”

“And she sent me in. I swear.”

He studied me for a second, like he was deciding whether this was worth the effort. Then he sighed, uncrossed his arms, and slid the trays back across the counter.

“Don’t spill it,” he said.

I grabbed them before he could change his mind.

I stacked the two trays of coffees just like I’d imagined and picked them up carefully, letting most of the weight lean against my torso so they wouldn’t tip the other way.

Then I lifted an elbow to grab the bag of pastries under my arm.

It maybe wasn’t the safest way to carry it all, but with Lavender parked just outside, I was sure I could make it.

I could feel the boy’s eyes on me as I turned away from the counter, walking so carefully that I probably looked like an idiot.

I made it to the door with no trouble, only realizing once I reached it that I had no way of opening it.

I peered through the glass toward the car, but I couldn’t see through the windshield, which meant Lavender couldn’t see me.

And my phone was buried too deep in my pocket to be able to call her.

That, unfortunately, left only one option.

Keeping my chin on the lids to help them stay balanced, I slowly turned back around. But the boy, who had been behind the counter only a second ago, was now nowhere to be seen.

“Uh… hello?” I said. My voice was barely at speaking level. I cleared my throat, feeling incredibly uncomfortable as I called at a louder voice, “Hello?”

No response. Nothing, except the door behind me swinging open. I realized what was going to happen next, but not in time to stop it.

“There you are!” Lavender said as the door smacked straight into my shoulder. The impact knocked the tray forward, tipping right off my hands.

One cup fell. Then another. Then everything went wrong at once.

Coffee splashed across the floor and all over my tights.

The bag slipped and spilled open, sending pastries flying.

I watched a vanilla sprinkle donut go rolling across the floor until it finally hit a dark shoe that had appeared from the employees section, and I slowly lifted my gaze up to the face of the person standing there.

The boy stared at me, a muscle in his jaw twitching. For a moment, I was sure he was going to yell at me for doing the one thing he’d instructed me not to. But finally, he just said, “I’ll get the mop.”

I stood there in shame, covered in coffee and my face flushing bright red, as I watched him turn on his heel and go back into the storeroom.

I can never come back here again.