Second Chance Summer

“Got it,” I said, glancing back at the clock. I stretched my arms over my head, glad that I had only half an hour left on my shift.

“What’s wrong with your dog?” Elliot asked, apparently deciding to join this conversation.

Nora frowned at him. “Who are you?”

“Elliot,” he said, pointing to his name tag. “Taylor’s boss.”

I rolled my eyes at this. “No, you’re not.”

“Her superior, at any rate,” he amended, unfazed.

“Anything else?” I said, turning to the girls.

“Nope,” Gelsey said. She held out the bag of frozen M&Ms to me, and I shook three into my palm. Unlike Skittles, I didn’t care what color my M&Ms were. “See you later!”

“Bye,” I called as she and Nora walked away, heads bent toward each other, already deep in conversation.

“Your sister?” Elliot asked, pushing himself up to sit on the counter.

I nodded. “And next-door neighbor. They’re kind of a package deal these days.” I heard my phone beep with a text, and pulled it out of my back pocket. It was from Lucy, but instead of the message I’d been expecting, asking me to come back to our spot so we could keep talking, there was just one word: FRED!!!

“Fred’s here,” I hissed to Elliot, as though Fred would somehow be able to hear me. Elliot hopped off the counter and I looked around for something that I could pretend to clean, when the side door opened and Fred, looking sunburned and grumpy, stepped in, with his tackle box and a large cardboard box that he dropped on the ground with a thump.

“Hello, Fred,” Elliot said, in a much-more-cheerful-than-usual voice. “How were the fish?”

Fred shook his head. “Not good. Haven’t gotten a bite in days. I swear, it’s like they all got a memo or something,” he said, taking off his hat. I blinked, then made myself look away. The top of his head—which was covered by his fishing hat—was a totally different color than the red below it, with almost a straight line dividing the two. I wondered if I should be the one to tell Fred about the magical invention of sunblock. He looked around and frowned. “Where’s Lucy?”

“Right here!” she said as she pushed the door open. “I was just doing some inventory,” she said, not meeting my eye as she crossed the snack bar, wearing her best “responsible employee” expression.

“Uh-huh,” Fred said, clearly not buying it. He gestured down at the box at his feet. “I just picked up the posters for the movie night. I’ll expect you three to do your part and ask the local businesses to hang them up. Okay?”

“Sure,” I said, and Elliot gave Fred a thumbs-up.

“Are we all set for Friday?” he asked, speaking directly to me this time.

“Absolutely!” I said, trying to sound much more confident about the movie night than I actually was. This time around, I’d had more to organize. It was up to me to pick the movie, rent the screen and projector, and order the posters. I was pretty sure everything was taken care of—except my introduction. I was trying not to think about it too much, and hoping that if I felt as nervous as I had about the last one, Elliot or Lucy would step in and do it for me.

Fred left after that, and I tore open the cardboard box, holding up one of the posters and admiring it. When I’d looked at the beach’s collection of movies, and had seen the title printed on the side of the box, I’d known there was only one choice.

“What’s the movie?” Lucy asked, peering over my shoulder.

“Casablanca,” I said, scanning the poster quickly for spelling mistakes, feeling like I probably should have done this before I’d given the text to Jillian in the office.

“Never seen it,” Lucy said with a shrug as Elliot made scoffing noises.

“Me neither,” I said. I felt myself smile as I remembered what my father had said. “But I have a feeling it’s going to be great on the big screen.”

Chapter twenty-five

I LEFT WORK A LITTLE BIT EARLY, SO THAT I COULD COLLECT THE dog, who was most likely thinking that he’d had it better when he’d been wandering free around the neighborhood. Life had probably been more restful, at any rate. I also had some posters with me, figuring that I could ask Wendy if Doggone It! could put one up, and maybe Henson’s Produce as well. I had just pedaled up Main Street and secured my bike, and was all set to head into the pet store when I looked across to the bakery. Without really thinking it through, I was walking across the street, posters in hand, my heart pounding hard.

I pushed open the door and stepped inside, glad that I was the only customer. Henry was leaning over the counter, reading a book, and he looked up. “Hey,” he said, looking surprised but not upset or angry, which I took as the evidence I needed to press forward.

“I think we should be friends,” I blurted, without thinking about it first.

“Oh,” Henry said, his eyebrows raising. “Um…” He clearly didn’t know what to say after that, as nothing followed.

“I just,” I started, as I took another step into the store, “I think that it would be good. Bury the hatchet, and all that.”

“I didn’t know there was a hatchet,” he said, smiling faintly.

“You know what I mean,” I said. Even though every instinct I had was telling me to turn and go, just leave the store and keep on walking, I made myself cross the floor until I was standing in front of him at the counter. Which might not have been the best idea, because now I was close to him—close enough to see the freckles across his nose, and the smudge of flour on his cheek, and the confusion in his green eyes. I looked away, then took a breath and continued. “What I did was horrible,” I said. “Just leaving like that, with no explanation.”

“Taylor,” Henry said slowly, his brow furrowed. “Where is this coming from?”

I didn’t want to tell him about my conversation with Lucy or what I’d realized the night of the slumber party. But I couldn’t stop thinking about him. And if I was totally honest with myself, I hadn’t ever really stopped. That in a lot of ways, he’d been the only boy that had mattered in my romantic life so far. My first love, even if I hadn’t been able to admit it, before I even really knew what those words meant. “I just… miss you,” I said, wincing at the words even as I said them, hearing how lame they sounded. “And I’d really like to be friends. Just friends,” I amended, remembering the girl at the ice-cream parlor, not wanting him to think I was hitting on him.