Click to Subscribe - By L. M. Augustine Page 0,16

sits on the edge of her dad’s old red Mercedes, her long, slender legs hanging over the hood, her sparkling blue eyes trained on me. She’s dressed in ripped-jean short-shorts and an old white T-shirt. Moonlight pours down on her red hair, giving it a silvery glow. I let out a breath. If I weren’t her best friend, I’d think she looks really, well… attractive.

I push the thought away as soon as it pops into my head.

“Hey,” I say slowly, walking up to her.

“Hey.” She cocks her head to the side when she gets a closer look at me. “You okay?” she asks, frowning.

“Wha—” Automatically, I reach for my face, trying to figure out what she’s talking about. Then I remember the pink around my eyes—the dried tears.

“Oh. That,” I say. I shake my head. “That’s… nothing to worry about.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah.”

She doesn’t look convinced, but she doesn’t press it, either.

I take a step forward. “You still fixing that up?” I say to change the subject, nodding toward the car.

She gives a distant little half-smile. “Yep,” she says, patting the hood.

Cat has been working on that car for three weeks now. When her dad owned it, it used to be a great car, sleek and slim and luxurious, but the years of wear her dad gave it left it in its current state: peeling paint, failed engine, damaged interior, and scratches all over.

Cat drives her family’s truck, but her dad always promised her that if she could fix up the old Mercedes, it would be all hers. He loved the car, and so did she—so she took the challenge. Every night since, she’s been working on fixing it.

“It’s looking nice,” I say, which is a total understatement. Apparently, Cat is extremely handy, because the car appears a hell of a lot better than before.

“You think?”

“Yeah. Not long now,” I say and sit up on the hood beside her.

She nods but doesn’t look at me. “Maybe in a few months.”

For a minute, we just stare up at the stars together, with our thighs so close to touching, not meeting each other’s gaze. It’s perfect out, and the combination of the fresh air and Cat’s presence almost makes me forget—about my mom, about my dad, about Harper. I shift over to get more comfortable, and my side presses against hers. A shock of warm electricity flows through me at the contact, and I feel my muscles tense up. But I don’t move away. I just clench my jaw and turn back to the night sky. I get so lost in her warmth and the breathtaking beauty of the stars at night that I almost forget I’m touching her. When I realize what’s happening, though, I mutter an “Oh” and jerk away.

She grimaces. “You’re really smooth, West,” she says and laughs to herself—a distant, sad kind of laugh.

“Correction: I’m wonderful.”

“Correction: you’re an idiot.”

“Correction: you suck at corrections.”

She rolls her eyes. Then, as if she’s remembering something, she reaches into her pocket and pulls out the small photograph of her grandparent’s beach house, a big place in Florida overlooking the ocean, with a beach all to itself. “My grandpa always promised me I could spend a week there whenever I want,” Cat says, tracing her thumb along the picture as she holds it out for me. “You know,” she continues, and brings her gaze back out to the moon above us, “I keep dreaming that when this car is all fixed up, maybe I can take it there and stay for a week with a company of some boy I like, just us and the beach and the wind and the water and our shared warmth.” She says it like she’s telling me about a magical promise land, with that distant sparkle in her eyes, that vague smile flickering across her lips. Even in the darkness, I can see she means it.

Then, without thinking or even realizing what I’m doing, I reach out and push her hair to the side so I can see more of her face. The smell of her coconut shampoo wafts into my nose. I breathe it in slowly, savoring it. She turns to me as I do it, the smile still glittering on her lips.

Both of Cat’s parents are workaholics who never seem to be home, and since she, like me, is an only child, she has practically raised herself. I remember coming here when we were kids, and even back then she could make me breakfast, lunch, and dinner,