Page 16 of Meant to be Mine

“He offered me a job,” I said, curious what they would say.

My parents both looked at me.

“Just a temp thing. The store is doing some big summer promo. There’s a few events happening over the next month, and he said he could use some help keeping everything organized. He needs someone he trusts.” I looked at the fresh soil. “I told him I’d sleep on it.”

“Why wouldn’t you do it?” my dad asked. “Sounds like fun. And it’s a far cry from being in a classroom all day. It sounds like a nice change of pace.”

“I came home to be here with you two.” I gestured at the garden, at the house, at both of them. “That’s the whole reason I didn’t teach classes this summer. I didn’t come home to work.”

“It sounds exciting, though,” she said. “Helping plan a fashion event at a beach club in Malibu? With your best friend?” She tilted her head at me. “When will you ever get an opportunity like that again?”

“Probably never,” I admitted.

“Don’t say no on our account, Kensey. Your father and I aren’t going anywhere. We’ll be right here.”

“That’s the point. I want to be here with you.”

“And you will be. You’ll still come home every night.” She paused. “But hey, I’m happy to have you home with me all summer. I just bought a thousand-piece puzzle. Three polar bears in a snowstorm. And it’s round,” she added. “No corners. It’s going to take all summer. You’re welcome to help me with it.”

“I’m not sure I want to,” I said, shaking my head.

“Well, so whatever you think is right, but don’t turn down something interesting because you think you need to sit here with us all summer long.” She nodded firmly, like that was the end of the discussion. “Go help your friend. If you want to.”

I looked at my dad. He gave me a small, warm smile and said nothing, which was his way of agreeing with everything she’d said.

“I have to give him an answer today,” I said.

“Then give him one.”

“I’ll pass on the puzzle,” I said.

She laughed. “I know you will, sweetheart. It’s not for the faint of heart.”

I went inside and left my parents to argue over the tomatoes. The house was cool and quiet after the heat of the garden. I kicked off my shoes by the back door and headed upstairs to my bedroom. I had my own bathroom. Nothing big. It hadn’t been updated in forever, but I always felt spoiled getting my own bathroom.

I stepped into the warm spray, let the water run over my shoulders, and thought about Drew. Of course. I couldn’t seem to stop thinking about him since I saw him yesterday. The way he’d looked at me when I walked up behind him in the store. He’d been genuinely happy. God, that expression made me feel like a million bucks.

I’d been telling myself for years that I had it under control. The thing I felt when I thought about Drew Blackwell was just the natural result of a long friendship. The fact that he’d always been kind to me when kindness from certain people in that school had been held back.

I remembered the first week. I was the new girl at a private school where most of the kids had known each other since before they could read. I’d gotten a scholarship and I was terrified every single day that someone would figure out I didn’t belong there the way they did. They’d laugh when they learned my house didn’t have a pool. My mom drove a Honda Civic and bought me secondhand clothing. The other kids weren’t all terrible. But they weren’t warm. They were careful about who they let in.

Drew had been nice from day one. I would never say he was the typical awkward teen, but he had been shorter than the other boys. And then he’d gone and gotten tall. And broad-shouldered. At seventeen he should have been modeling just so the world could see how gorgeous he was. He’d only gotten better with time.

I turned my face up into the water and exhaled.

I was a grown woman and I had a crush on my best friend. I had been managing it quietly for the better part of a decade. I was not going to do anything about it. I never had and I wasn’t about to start now. He was the most important person in my life who wasn’t related to me. I had watched him move in and out of relationships like he was trying on shoes, never quite finding the right fit, always a little restless, always eventually looking for the door.

I was not going to be an uncomfortable pair of shoes he tried and decided they cramped his style.

The water ran down my back. I thought about his arms around me when he’d picked me up in the middle of the store. Strong and warm. He smelled so damn good. The pull I felt toward him was stronger than it had been the last time I’d seen him. Maybe it was the two years. Maybe it was the suit. Maybe it was all those feelings bubbling up.

Probably all of it.

I turned off the water and stood there dripping for a second before reaching for the towel.

So I had feelings. That was fine. Feelings were manageable. I had been managing them for years. The summer would be the same as it always was. We’d be friends. We’d laugh. We’d eat muffins and he’d make me feel like I belonged everywhere I went, the way he always did. And at the end of the summer I’d go back to New Jersey and the distance would do what distance always did, which was make everything easier. I wrapped the towel around me and stepped into my childhood bedroom that hadn’t been updated in twenty years.

I grabbed my phone, hair dripping down my back. I opened my messages and typed before I could argue myself out of it.