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Chapter 1
Sophie
Oliver Tate is an egotistical jerk and I hate him.
I’m in the outdoor seating area at a milkshake shop—alone. The purple plastic table across from me has an enormous wad of gum stuck under it. I bet mine has gum under it, too, and it’s probably been there ever since I was a minimum wager.
Yes, I used to work at this shop—called Shake, Shake, Shake—in the touristy Colorado hamlet of Longdale. That was somewhere around the time when Lady Gaga wore a dress made of meat, and I fantasized about Justin Beiber singing “Baby” to me while I drifted off to sleep.
I’ve since moved up in the world. I’m no longer burning my fingers on the fry baskets or scraping melty ice cream from the blenders. Instead, as librarian, I scrape sticky cracker drool off toddler books and make sure the romance section of the mobile library in our town stays well stocked with the latest and greatest. Those pocket novels are full of dashing men way more exciting than anyone here in Longdale.
Speaking of dashing men, the one I’m supposed to meet here is over an hour late. Every minute I’ve been sitting here, he’s become less dashing and more maddening. How dare he? I know he’s gotten too big for his britches for our silly game, but geez, he could have let me know.
Should I send him hate texts? Or should I count myself lucky that we can finally forget this charade and move on with our lives?
I take in the shop, with its neon words of “Shake, Shake, Shake” at an angle in the window. The whole aesthetic isSaved by the Bellmeets Beachy Shabby Chic. Longs Peak and the Flatirons loom in the distance, a rugged and wild panoramic.
Casting ornery thoughts about Oliver, I consider leaving the shake shop and going home. He’s not here yet, but I always have the niggling fear that my grandparents might see us together, which would cause a lot of hand wringing and forehead wrinkling. Even though I’m a grown woman, have a Master’s Degree in library science, and live on my own, I still worry about that. Theyhatethe Tates.
The shake shop isn’t exactly my grandparents’ scene, and they haven’t told me they’re coming into town, but you never know. A small part of me likes that the fear makes it even more exciting.
Look at little Sophie now, living dangerously.
I might as well tattoo a sleeve of pythons on my arm and quit flossing my teeth.
I twiddle my thumbs and look up and down the street. Chilled, I pull my jacket tighter around me. Why is Longdale windy and chilly tonight? It’s August, for heaven's sake. But it is August in the mountains of Colorado, so any range of temperatures is up for grabs.
I pull my book out of my bag, a Margaret Atwood novel, fitting for the melancholy that has settled in my bones. My thoughts meander around the words on the page, flicking to reflections of Oliver, the mobile library I run, and my petition for a new library location that I don’t have to drive around and that doesn’t smell like diesel.
The sky has grown dark, and the crowds from earlier have thinned. Trying my best to ignore the kid in the shop who’s making it very clear he’s ready to lock up any time now andwhy are you sitting there all by yourself like a loner, I unlock my phone for the twentieth time. Still no text from Oliver.
He’s never been this late before.
When I first started working here at age sixteen, I heard a rumor that one of the Tate boys would be hired on. I’d hoped it would be the oldest, Sebastian. He was a senior at a high school in Denver and quite possibly the most gorgeous man to ever walk the halls of any high school in the state, maybe even the whole Intermountain West. He and his five brothers used to come to Longdale to live with their aunt every summer while their parents were off, jet-setting around the world, donating to charities and fancy stuff like that.
Instead, it was Oliver who showed up to work, and I’ll admit, I was disappointed at first. Sebastian was mysterious and broody. Oliver’s the goofy one. Still attractive in his own right, he had a reputation of being a comedic, non-committal flirt.
I didn’t need that in my life. I needed a Gilbert Blythe. A Mr. Darcy. AJane Eyre-esque Mr. Rochester.
But it didn’t take long for me to forget all about the illusion of Sebastian and fall—hard—for Oliver.
We’ve only ever been friends, though. Solidly, resolutelyfriends.
The idea for our annual not-a-date thing came during our last shift here, right before we parted ways to go to separate colleges. I was feeling nostalgic, and as usual, Oliver picked up on it.
“Promise you’ll meet me here every year until the day we die?” He’d asked, and his grin made my stomach flutter.
I tried not to pretend he was saying “thedaywe die” as inwe’re going to go allThe Notebookhere and die on the same day because we’re soul mates and can’t live without each other.
I thought for a moment before replying, “Only if you’re buying. As a librarian, I won’t exactly be rolling in the dough.”
“Okay, I’ll buy. You just have to show up.”
“Fine,” I said. “Sounds good. But what’s going to happen when you’re climbing an Icelandic mountain, or swimming with dolphins in the Caribbean? You’re going to forget.”
“Forget? Never.” He glanced at my mouth, and my mind started playing games with me. I imagined that he wanted to kiss me. But it was an impossibility. We were friends and only friends.
The wind picks up again. I finish the chapter, search the street and parking lot, and twiddle again.
