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“Where are you off to in such a hurry?” Lillian called out late the next morning as Brooke pulled open the car door.
She threw her bag on the passenger seat, and looked back to check that Nick’s seatbelt was safely fastened. Her mom was standing at the corner of the driveway, her hand shielding her eyes from the lunchtime sun.
“Out for lunch at Delmonicos with friends.”
“That’s a shame. I was going to see if you wanted to join me for coffee.” She rolled onto the front of her feet, checking to see that Nick wasn’t listening. “I thought you could tell me all about Alex,” she whispered.
“Nothing to tell.” Brooke slammed the door shut, walking around to the driver’s side. “I showed him around the gardens, he walked me home, we said goodnight. End of story.”
She really didn’t have time for this right now.
“Did you…” Lillian cleared her throat and pursed her lips, smacking them together.
“No!” Brooke wrinkled her nose. “Now honestly, we’re late. Can we do this later?” Or preferably never.
“Whatever you say.”
“Bye, Mom.”
Within a minute, she’d drove out of the iron gates, separating the Newton estate from the road down to Angel Sands. To her right, the sun was glinting off the ocean, illuminating the white tipped waves and the warm blue water. As she followed the road into the town itself, she could see people were out in force – covering the sand with umbrellas and blankets, as surfers and body boarders threw themselves at the sea.
“Mom?” Nick asked, his voice carrying through from the back seat. “Where are we going again?”
“Out to Delmonicos on Paxton’s Pier,” Brooke said. “To see an old friend, remember?”
“The place that does the buttered noodles? And the cheesy garlic bread?”
“That’s the one.”
“Grandma hates it. She says anywhere with plastic table cloths should be banned.”
Brooke tried not to laugh. That sounded exactly like something her mom would say. “Yeah, well she doesn’t have to do the laundry, does she? Maybe she’d change her mind if she was constantly loading the washing machine.”
“Grandma doesn’t change her mind about anything,” Nick pointed out. “She says only the weak minded do flip flops.”
Maybe it was time to limit Nick’s visits over to her mom’s house.
“What’s your friend’s name?” he asked.
“Aiden Black.”
“That’s a strange name. Is she from your school?”
Brooke took the turn onto Beach Street, steering the car around a delivery vehicle outside the Fresh ‘n’ Easy. “She’s a he. Aiden’s a man’s name. You’ve met him already. At Lucas and Ember’s house when we went over the other week for a party, remember?”
Nick frowned, clearly not remembering at all. “Did you go to school
with him, too?”
“No. He went to a different school. We knew each other when we were kids, though. His mom used to work for Grandma.”
“How old is he now?”
“A few years older than me.”
“Oh.” Nick sounded disappointed. “Does he have any kids for me to play with?”
