The Summer Before Forever Read online

  I need her as a tutor and friend, not as a girlfriend. We have a plan, and that plan includes her being my paid tutor for the next couple of years, as soon as I can pass the required math. It’s the whole reason I picked North Florida State. Hell, she picked it with me, alongside Mrs. Keeley and Coach Dalton. Honestly, she’s the only one keeping me focused. It’d be so easy to back out of the whole deal and get a job cutting grass or something. The thought has only crossed my mind about nine thousand times.

  My thoughts drift to my time with Chloe last night. She has a sneaky smile. I don’t even know if she knows it. She looks like she’s up to something when she smiles…like her smile is for you, and she’s opening up a private joke between the two of you.

  I can’t think about her that way…like a girl. Oh, damn, is she a girl. All girl, all over.

  The door to their room opens, and the two of them giggle as they bound down the stairs. My insides warm at the thought of her. That’s going to be a problem.

  Chapter Nine

  Chloe

  We stumble down the stairs and find the oatmeal and fruit. Jenna sits at the table and flips through some random mail and flyers in front of her while I heat up our oatmeal and cut up bananas. I find some honey and butter and dish out our bowls.

  Landon comes into the kitchen and pulls a jug of orange juice out of the refrigerator. “You’re popular, Jenna. I’ve already had two texts today from dudes wanting your number.”

  “Did you give it to them?” she asks.

  “Do I have your number?” he asks.

  Jenna has a problem with speaking before she thinks. It’s like she has no filter and says exactly what she’s thinking at any given moment.

  “Well, which two was it?” she asks.

  “Roth and Dane.”

  She purses her lips, probably deciding whether she approves.

  Cynthia flits into the room. “Jenna’s taken.”

  Jenna bats her eyelashes in response.

  “Oh, yeah? Since when?” Landon asks.

  “Since none of your business,” Jenna says, playing her role of pseudo-stepsister in this family far better than I do.

  “You were laying it on pretty thick last night. If you were my girlfriend, that crap wouldn’t be cool by me.” He sits down next to her, straddling his seat. I’m shocked these dainty kitchen chairs hold his bulk so well.

  “Well, I’m not.” She dips her finger in a glob of honey on top of her oatmeal and dabs it on the end of his nose.

  He sticks his tongue out and almost touches the tip of his nose, but comes up short.

  “He never could do that. He’s been trying since he was four,” Cynthia says.

  He wipes the honey off with his finger, and for a minute I think he’s going to put the finger in Jenna’s mouth, but he puts it in his own.

  Landon’s mom grabs the stack of mail and heads toward the patio, lifting an eyebrow at her son in warning.

  “Thanks for letting your mom think I’m a huge slut,” Jenna says.

  “No problem.” He gives her a grin that excuses any and all bad behavior. He’s going to destroy the girls on his college campus. No heart will be safe.

  “Thanks for the breakfast.” He grabs his orange juice along with Jenna’s bowl and heads upstairs.

  “Landon!”

  He ignores her as he takes the stairs two at a time. A door closes in the distance, and Jenna looks at me in disbelief before hauling herself up and fixing herself another bowl.

  As we eat, I notice her glancing up at me a few times. The chatter of the kitchen television keeps our silence comfortable, but I can tell she has something up her sleeve. I take my empty bowl to the sink and fill it with water. “What?”

  “I’m just so sorry that happened to you.”

  I turn off the television and sit in front of her. “Thanks, but I really do feel better just having told you.”

  “Good.” She takes another bite, staring at me the whole time. “Last night,” she says after she swallows, “you were more comfortable up on the dock with Landon than you were with the rest of us, weren’t you?”

  I feel my cheeks heat. “You know I’m not social.”

  “God, don’t remind me. I’ve had to drag you to every party we went to this year. You wouldn’t have gone to homecoming if I wouldn’t have dragged you there.”

  “I didn’t get asked.” I look down at the floor. “I don’t have your options.”

  She drops her spoon and sits back in her seat, studying me. “I know you don’t.”

  I feel that one in my gut.

  “But it doesn’t have anything to do with looks,” she says. “You’re just as cute as I am, and if I’m being honest with myself, you’re cuter.”

  I roll my eyes. “That’s just ridiculous.”

  She walks around the table, grabs my hand, and drags me up the stairs. I expect her to walk us into our room, but instead, she marches straight to Landon’s and barges in without knocking.

  He looks up from a small television that’s playing Sports Center. “If I were you, I’d knock next time unless you want to get more of an eyeful than you bargained for.”

  She waves him off. “Who is cuter, me or Chloe?”

  Landon

  “I’m not touching that with a ten foot pole,” I say.

  “Seriously, we want to know,” Jenna says.

  “I don’t want to know,” Chloe says and turns for the door, but Jenna pulls her back into the room.

  Chloe closes her eyes, shaking her head like she wishes she was anywhere but here. I wonder, not for the first time, how these two hooked up as friends. Chloe couldn’t be more different from Jenna, but I can tell Jenna means a lot to her.

  I put my focus back on the television. “I’m not answering that question.”

  Jenna flips through her phone. “Oh, here’s a good one.” She shows the phone to Chloe. “Do you like the way you look in this picture?”

  “It’s okay,” Chloe says.

  “Landon, what’s your number?” Jenna asks.

  My face flushes. Rattle off my number and transpose half the numbers? No thanks. I hand her my phone. “Set yourself up, then I’ll send you a text.”

  She does it without argument and then hands me my phone. She’s set herself and Chloe up complete with pictures and their social media handles. The whole process took her about ten seconds. A text from Jenna appears with a picture of her and Chloe. It’s a chest-up selfie of the two of them. Chloe smiles like someone just said something funny. She’s natural and beautiful in that way I can’t put my finger on. Jenna, of course, is Jenna, full of attitude as she puckers her lips at the camera.

  “What did you just do?” Chloe asks.

  Jenna turns to me. “I sent you a picture of Chloe and me. I want you to send that picture to two different guys who we did not meet last night. Ask them who is cuter.”

  “I’m not doing that.”

  “I’ll willingly give you my breakfast every day next week if you do this,” Jenna says.

  “I’ll take it anyway.”

  She glances around my room, and her gaze lands on my laundry basket. “I’ll do the laundry in that basket.”

  I look up at her. “Seriously?” There’s day old workout stuff in there. I’d love for her to get a whiff of that.

  “Yes. Now, send it.”

  I don’t buy it for a second, so I shrug and type a nice random message to my mom and hit send.

  Jenna taps her toes. I eye her and the basket encouragingly.

  “We’ll wait,” Jenna says.

  “I’ll let you know when they—”

  “We’ll wait.”

  I guess Jenna’s smarter than I give her credit for. I type a text to two guys from school who are girl-crazy and I predict will play along, knowing I’m not going to share t
heir answers if they don’t pick Chloe since Jenna’s the one instigating this whole thing. But I know they’ll pick Chloe.

  I turn back to Sports Center and watch for a few minutes while the two of them talk in hushed tones. Jenna seems to be encouraging Chloe in some way, and Chloe’s face is candy apple red. She’s so damn cute when she’s embarrassed.

  My text alert sounds, and they both jerk toward me.

  I read the first one and keep my expression impassive. “Chloe,” I say.

  “I don’t believe you,” Chloe says.

  I hand her my phone, and she takes it. My friend Pete says the one in the red sweater, and she’s the only one with a red sweater on in that picture.

  My phone dings again, and I grab it from her before she can see anything Mike wrote.

  “What does that one say?” she asks.

  I read the text from Mike and laugh. “Says he’d hook up with either one of you. Can I watch Sports Center now?”

  Jenna snatches the phone out of my hand, and I jump up off the bed to grab it back from her. But she’s too fast for me.

  “It’s true,” Jenna says. “He says he’d hook up with us both.”

  Chloe sits back on her heels, her expression incredulous. Why did I have to play along with this crap?

  I grab my phone back from Jenna. “Mike’s all talk. He probably hasn’t hooked up with anything except his right hand.” I meet Chloe’s gaze. “Don’t be offended.”

  Chloe smiles. “I’m not offended.”

  Now I’m offended. I don’t want any other guys thinking about Chloe like that. Why did I send that to Mike? I knew better. Smooth move.

  “Thank you.” Jenna grabs the laundry basket and leaves my room. Chloe hovers in the doorway, looking unsure of herself.

  “Hey,” I say to her. “Not all guys are like that.” I’m not like that, is what I want to say.

  She nods. “Okay.”

  “What’s she up to, anyway?”

  She rolls her eyes. “Don’t ask.”

  She heads out of the room, and I grab my bowl and take it down to the kitchen. My mom sits at the table fiddling with some papers, looking a little stressed.

  I put my dishes in the sink and run water into the bowl. “What’s up?”

  She looks up from a newspaper flyer and cuts her eyes at what has become Derrick’s office over the past five months. “He’s on the phone with Karen.”

  “Chloe’s mom?”

  She nods.

  I sit at the table across from my mom. “What are they talking about?”

  She considers me. “It’s private.”

  “Okay. Is everything all right?” I ask.

  “Yeah,” she says, but I don’t believe her.

  “Mom, what’s going on?”

  She scrunches up her face as if she’s trying to decide what she can share.

  “Mom.”

  She closes the flyer. “Something happened to Chloe before she came down here.”

  I sit up. “What? What happened?”

  She leans in toward me. “They aren’t sure. She called her mother to come pick her up from a boat dock late at night. She and Jenna were supposed to have been at some party, but Chloe was somehow at this boat dock alone. According to the man whose boat she called from, she had been on another boat with a boy, and she screamed for help.”

  I stand up. “What the hell?”

  She shushes me and motions me to sit down. “Please. I’m not supposed to be repeating this.”

  I sit back down, but my adrenaline is so high I think I might lift out of this chair without even standing up again. “What happened?”

  “We don’t know. We’re not sure how far it got before this man got there to help.”

  “Did they arrest the guy?” I ask.

  “That’s the thing. She won’t talk about it. She won’t say who it was, and she won’t say what happened. Her mother is worried about her.”

  I nod. God, what bag of shit I am. Here I’m thinking about wanting to kiss her…and other things…and she’s been attacked by some son-of-a-bitch. That’s what she needs—another sleazy guy pawing at her—her new stepbrother to boot. Jesus.

  “So is her dad going to try to talk to her about it?” I ask.

  She sits back and crosses her arms over her chest. “You know Derrick. He’s just not that kind of man. He’s very uncomfortable talking about sensitive issues like this.”

  My chest heats up. “He’s her father.”

  “I’m trying to convince him to let me say something to her. It might be easier for her to talk to another woman.”

  I consider my mom. She has good intentions, but she also has a tendency of trying too hard sometimes.

  “I could try to talk to her,” I say.

  She eyes me like the wise owl who knows more than the silly little mouse across the table from her. She lifts her chin and looks down her nose at me. “That’s another thing I want to bring up. I saw you looking at her last night at dinner.”

  God, am I that obvious?

  I screw up my expression. “What are you talking about?”

  She gives me a look letting me know she’s cutting through my bullshit. “You know exactly what I’m talking about.”

  I stand up and head toward the stairs. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  “Landon.”

  I stop and turn back toward her. “What?”

  “Chloe is off limits. Jenna, too. I thought we’d been over this.”

  My chest burns with the embarrassment of being busted. “I know. Besides, neither of them is my type.”

  “Yeah, but sometimes…things happen.” She points to their room up the stairs. “I promised her mother those girls would be safe here this summer. That safety doesn’t include advances from the boy down the hall.”

  I swallow hard. “You know I’m not going to do that.”

  “Are you and Ashley still broken up?”

  I let out a deep breath. My mom refuses to let go of Ashley. I get why. Ashley is really cool and ridiculously smart. But I couldn’t take the pity in her eyes once she found out about my dyscalculia, or how she wanted so bad to fix me. “Yeah.”

  “I always really liked her.”

  I hate when she interferes like this. “We’re not getting back together. You know why.”

  My mom gets that look on her face, that same frustrated, heartbroken look she got the day we found out about my diagnosis. “She just wanted to help.”

  I let out a frustrated breath. “Mom.”

  “I know, sweetie. I just…I can’t hate her for that. She just didn’t understand how she was making you feel.”

  The humiliation washes back through my stomach and up my throat like a poisonous gas. “Just stop it with this. It doesn’t matter anyway. We’re not getting back together even if I wanted to. She’s in Michigan for the summer then she’s going to Princeton in the fall. We’re not even on the same plane anymore.”

  Her expression falls. “Well, what about Monica?”

  “I’m not dating Monica.”

  “I talked to her mother the other day. She said Monica talks about you all the time. She’s pretty sure she’s got a thing for you.”

  “I’ve known her my whole life. She’s like my sister.” I inwardly shudder at the idea. Why can’t Monica’s dad be the one marrying my mom? I don’t want to kiss Monica.

  She shrugs. “The two of you make so much sense. And she’s good with you.” She gives me a significant look that reduces me back to my kindergarten kid self.

  “I’m getting ready to leave for college in a couple of months. Why would I want to start a relationship? You know I’ve got enough to deal with like it is.”

  “I just don’t want you to feel tempted while you’re around these girls.” She cuts her eyes at Chloe’s roo
m.

  I turn to walk away.

  “Landon.”

  I clench my eyes shut, and then open them. I turn around. “Yes?”

  “I loved getting your sweet text earlier.”

  I nod and turn around.

  I head up the stairs and get dressed for work. This news about Chloe is a game changer. Not that I was seriously thinking about going for her. But I do need to back off…like, yesterday. This girl’s got stuff going on I can’t even comprehend. And here I’ve got Mike saying he wants to screw her. Real damn smooth.

  I don’t know. Maybe my mom’s right. Maybe dating Monica wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world. She’s a great girl, and there’s no doubt she cares about me. And things are getting weirder the longer I try to ignore her flirting.

  Dating Monica would be wrong on so many levels. I need her as my paid tutor, not my girlfriend. But I could consider it. I’ve got to do something to get the girl that sleeps on the other side of my wall out of my head.

  Chapter Eleven

  Chloe

  I sit across from Jenna on the bed. I’m still in shock that someone actually thought I was cuter than Jenna. But how? I’ve got three dateless years of high school to prove them wrong.

  It’s not all my fault though. I have this cousin who is a decade older than me, and she and my mother are friends or something. She convinced my mother I shouldn’t be allowed to date until I was sixteen. My mother actually heeded her advice and bestowed that humiliating rule onto me. I did get asked out once when I was fifteen, but I had to act like I wasn’t interested in the guy rather than admit I had this ridiculous rule to adhere to. And the sad thing was the guy was totally date-worthy. Thank God he didn’t go to our school.

  “Do you believe me now?” Jenna asks.

  “No. I mean, that makes no sense. You are the one who gets all the guys. I never get guys. I haven’t dated…at all. Nobody has asked me out on a date all of high school. I mean, just that once when I was fifteen, but that’s it.”