“Here you go,” I say. I hand Cooper his phone back, tossing my ponytail in an arc that I hope is high enough to whack Everett in the face. “Let me know when you’d like to get together, okay?” I tilt my head and smile up at him, turning just enough for Everett to see.
“I will,” Cooper says, attention back on me. “Hey, crazy idea.” He glances at Laurel, to make sure she’s listening. “What if you all came down to my house for dinner while you’re here?”
Everett shifts behind me. I can feel the edge of the top tomato box dig into my back and I lean against it, pushing it back toward him.
Laurel lets out a thrilled laugh, clapping her hands together at the idea. “Wait, but what if you two did it?” she asks, looking between me and Cooper.
Everett coughs behind me, and I press my heel into his toes.
“Did what, Laurel?” I ask in as saccharine a tone as I can muster with Everett’s infuriating scent floating into my nose.
“Cooked!” she exclaims again. “Two chefs are better than one, am I right?”
Cooper is looking at me, a knowing smile on his face, like he’s familiar with Laurel’s antics. “That’s what they say,” he says.
“Free this Wednesday?” I ask.
“Wednesday’s great,” Cooper says. His phone buzzes and he glances down at it. “I’ve got to take this, but I’ll call you, okay? We’ll set up lunch and I’ll clear Wednesday’s menu with you.”
“It’s a party,” Laurel says.
“Looking forward to it,” I say.
The tomato box jabs into my spine.
nine
First Summer
We said tearful goodbyes outside of the cottage on our last morning there. Laurel’s eyes were puffy and red by the time she climbed into the back of Davi’s car, Gabe in the passenger seat.
“You’ll be okay?” she asked, leaned out her window as I crouched down to squeeze her hand one last time.
“I’m fine,” I said. I’d woken up to an email that morning that my flight had been canceled and the next one I could get a seat on was Tuesday morning. I could take the change or cancel and get a hefty travel credit, and now that my best friends were going to be living so far away, I’d decided to get a rental car and make the drive back up to San Francisco rather than fly. But I also wanted to milk one more afternoon of lying on the beach before starting the drive.
“Maybe someday we’ll all live here,” Laurel said through a fresh round of tears.
I squeezed her hand, smiling. “Maybe we will.”
I walked back to the steps, where Everett was also standing, to watch as they drove away. Davi had to reach behind him to grab Laurel by a belt loop as she leaned out her window, waving one arm so thoroughly she almost toppled out onto the road.
“You okay?” Everett asked when their car rounded the corner.
I looked up at him, hands wrapped around my elbows. I knew the tip of my nose and the tops of my cheeks would be red, the one tell I couldn’t master. I nodded, swallowed. “Great,” I said.
“Hey,” Everett said. “It’ll be alright.”
I looked at him and nodded again, though I wasn’t sure I believed him in that moment. I’d started to settle into just being friends with Everett—or friends adjacent, because calling Everett myfrienddidn’t really seem to sum up our strange relationship—so much so that I’d agreed to his offer to drive me up to Los Angeles later this afternoon. I’d find a rental car there and crash in a hotel for the night.
We had to be out of the cottage by noon. Everett wanted to surf one last time, and I had my sights set on downloading enough podcasts to get me through the drive while lounging on the warm sand, so our plan was to head to his favorite beach and leave from there.
But by eleven, an hour after everyone else had left, it was clear we wouldn’t be spending any time in the ocean today. Rain started pelting down hard and fast, the driveway in front of the cottage quickly turning into a river.
“Do we just wait it out?” I asked Everett as we stood by the front window, watching.
“Maybe,” he said.
After another hour, though, the rain had hardly let up, and the weather service was recommending emergency travel only because of a landslide warning.
