REBEL ALLEY 1768: Historic marker sign posted in the cobblestone alley behind Siren’s Book Nook. The alley was used to transport illegal seditious material from the printer during the Revolutionary War. (Personal photo/Josephine Saint-Martin)
The tingly good feelings we cooked up together in the darkroom linger long after Lucky coolly raises his hand to Evie in greeting and slinks out of the stockroom the same way he came in, like it was no big deal.
Like he’s used to kissing his childhood best friend until her legs are wobbly.
And see, I know that Lucky and I must have done something shocking, because Evie says not one word to me after Lucky leaves—not one word. She just stares, mouth open and shaped like the full moon, as I hurriedly try to hide the evidence of our crime by stuffing the broken curtain inside my darkroom and shutting off my red safelight.
“Do not tell my mom” is the only thing I tell her.
And thankfully, she doesn’t give me away when Mom soon returns from the neighborhood meeting. And Mom, oblivious as ever, doesn’t notice anything amiss.
“Well, ladies, that was a waste of time,” she announces.
“Oh?” I say, pretending like I care as I fiddle with the CLOSED sign on the front door of the Nook, eyes darting across the street toward the boatyard, heart racing.
He kissed me.
Mom throws her keys on the counter and sits on the squeaky stool. “The business owners on our block have decided that there is no possible way Adrian Summers—handsome, talented, Olympic-hopeful, son of a prominent member of our community—could have possibly destroyed the boatyard window in retribution against Lucky. He’s too mature for that. He wouldn’t endanger his career at Harvard. He’s on crutches, poor thing.”
Evie groans and rubs her temples with the tips of her fingers, careful to avoid the whirls of heavy black makeup framing her eyes.
I’m just trying to focus on the words Mom’s saying, because all I heard was “Lucky.”
He kissed me, and I kissed him.
I feel like maybe I need to lie down. Or something.
“I’m sorry,” Evie says.
“Never apologize,” Mom tells her. “Women do that too much for things that aren’t our fault. And this is definitely not your fault.”
Mom tried to argue with the rest of the shop owners. Tried to tell them what Adrian said to me and Lucky. That he was in the blue car with the other boys, drinking and speeding down the street. The car that the old woman from Regal Cosmetics spied from her window.
“Even Kat Karras backed me up,” Mom says, “if you can believe that.”
We had our hands all over each other.
I laugh nervously.
“You okay, shutterbug?”
“I’m so good,” I tell her, and immediately regret saying it that way, ugh.
She makes a weird face at me and then shakes her head, as if to say, Whatever, kid.
“Anyway,” she says, “Kat and I were shot down. Mob rules, and the mob supports the Summers family. No one saw Adrian do it, and everyone loves Adrian. Therefore, it must have been some tourist hooligans that broke the boatyard window. Unrelated to the department store window. One person suggested Lucky might have done it himself—that maybe he’s got a thing about breaking windows now. Some kind of gang initiation.”
“What?” Evie and I both say in unison.
“That’s ridiculous,” I add.
Mom cleans her cat-eye glasses on the front of her shirt, then squints in the light to check the lens. “Yep. That’s when Kat and Nick stormed out of the meeting,” Mom says. “Hard to blame them. This town is what happens when puritans and greedy rich people breed.”
“What happened to all our revolutionary resistance fighters who fought for freedom and justice?” I ask. “Beauty wasn’t always bad … right?”
“Our revolutionary spirit got stamped out of the town when people like the Summers family figured out they could use it to make a profit out of tourism,” Mom says.
“Well, what do we do now?”
Mom shrugs. “I don’t know, babe. I’m hoping Adrian will stay away and let this thing die down now. But Evie, maybe you shouldn’t engage with him anymore if he texts?”
“Trying,” she says.
Seeing as how Lucky and I are pretty much the epicenter of the event that sparked the neighborhood meeting—broken windows, all that—you’d think he’d be interested in discussing what happened at that meeting, kiss or no kiss. I expect he’ll have a sarcastic opinion about it, and it will come via text any second now.
Any second.
I mean, maybe he’s busy.
He’s still trying to balance working at Summers & Co and the boatyard. And I don’t see his Superhawk parked outside, so he could be doing something with his family. I don’t know what he does every single minute of his day.
I’m sure he’ll text when he gets a chance.
But I don’t hear from Lucky that night … or the next day.
Or the next.
Two days …
Okay. Two days is definitely a long time, and that’s when I’m suddenly filled with a strange kind of panic that feels like thin ice forming over my skin, cracking, and re-forming … over and over again.
I go over everything in my head again—the entire conversation we had in the darkroom before everything happened. I worry I said something wrong, or I didn’t say enough. I worry about his state of mind regarding what he went through in the fire at the lake house, and that maybe we should have talked about that more.
God. I hope I didn’t pressure him into kissing me. I mean, I blocked the door. He asked me to move. Was all of it one-sided? Did I read the signals wrong? I don’t think so.… At least, I didn’t at the time.
Or maybe it was none of that. Maybe he just changed his mind and decided that kissing his best friend was too weird and squicky. Please, please, please don’t let that be it.
I could just ask him. That would clear things up.
Be upfront and honest: Are you awash in strange, new feelings for me? Because I can’t stop thinking about you, and you’re messing up all my plans, and now I need to know if I’m under a dark generational curse, or if you feel the same way, because I’ve never done this before, and I don’t know what I’m doing.
I think about texting him several times. I even compose a practice message, but before I hit Send, Evie walks behind the bookshop counter and catches me in the act.
“Want a little advice from Madame Evie the Great?” she says, dark circles under her eyes. “The spirits would tell you not to send that. Let him come to you. Or even better, just let him go. Chasing Adrian when he ghosted me after our first date got me where I am now, and I regret it completely.”
I’m a little insulted she’d even lump Lucky and Adrian into the same group; then again, she’s got more experience in these matters. Maybe she’s right and I should just wait. The more I hesitate, the more unsure I become … until all I end up doing is watching Lucky come and go, wondering what I did wrong, from the bookshop window.
I try not to think about it. When I’m not working, I load a fresh roll of film into my Nikon F3 and stroll through the historic district, snapping some interesting closeup shots of the horse-drawn carriages and one of the drivers, dressed in colonial costume. I’m concentrating so hard on my work, I’m able to ignore a kissy-face gesture thrown my way by a random Golden across the Harborwalk. Don’t know you, don’t care. But when I spy someone familiar eating at a café—my teacher, Mr. Phillips, his round Harry Potter glasses glinting in the afternoon sun—I get nervous that he’s heard about me trying to hustle my way back into the magazine offices, and that’s just too much; I cap the lens of my camera and head back home before he sees me.
At lunch on the third day of radio silence, I’m still wondering about Lucky while shelving books in the psychology section when I hear a couple of noises that catch my attention. The first is a dog barking outside the shop. Not out of the ordinary. Lots of dog owners on our street.
The second thing is Mom talking at the register. Again, nothing unusual. It’s the tone of her voice that’s alarming. She’s using her Not Friendly tone. And when I peer around the antique printing machine in the middle of the shop to see who she’s talking to—when I see the tiny black dog on the leash that’s tied up outside our steps—I understand why.
I stride around the Nook’s printing machine, heart racing.
“Of course you can. It’s a free country,” Mom is telling Lucky, who is standing in front of the counter with his back to me, black leather jacket stretched across his broad shoulders and jeans hanging low on his hips like he’s a walking, talking advertisement for sexy rebel-without-a-cause teenage dreams. “Not going to kick you out of the store. I’m just asking why it is you’re here, is all. If you’re not buying anything. And why is that dog yapping?”
“He’s Bean the Magic Pup, and he’s trying to tell you that he wants to come inside. He hates being outside when he can see people inside.”
“I hate dogs,” Mom says, making a face. “They pee on things.”
“He’s house-trained. Mostly.”
“Nope. He’s not coming inside. Why are you here?”
“Trying to tell you,” he says, sliding something across the counter.
She frowns. “What is this?”
“Looks like cash,” he says. “A hundred and fifty dollars, to be exact.”
Mother of God.
“Hi, uh. Hi. H-hi,” I say in the most awkward way possible, sliding around the side of the counter. A tiny earthquake shakes me from the inside out at the sight of his long black lashes and the playful swoop of his hair. I’m not prepared for this. I can’t see him here—not in front of my mom. She’s going to know something happened between us. Isn’t it obvious? Every molecule in my body remembers. They’re practically shouting.
LUCKY. LUCKY. LUCKY.
I’ve got a tangle of weird emotions about why he hasn’t texted me, and I’m very panicked right now, but …
But I still want him.
The worst part is that he knows. He sees it all over my face, the wanting, and he lights up like a city skyscraper at midnight.
His scarred eyebrow lifts. And oh, the evil look behind his eyes. In the history of the world, no one has smirked like he’s smirking. This smirk of his is sly. It’s full of knowing. It says, Why yes, I kissed your face off, and we both know it was damn good, but here I am, turning the tables on you. And there’s nothing you can do about it.
Dead. Me. Go ahead and call an ambulance, because I’m going to have a heart attack right now, right here. Goodbye.
“Good afternoon,” he says, like he’s a Jehovah’s Witness, come to save my soul with a pamphlet and a smile. “I was just asking your mother here about hiring out your services.”
“Were you, really?”
“I was, yes. Need a photographer.”
“Is that right?”
“Yep.”
“Quick job. Need some photos of the boatyard.”
“The boatyard.”
“The front window, back bays. The crane. The docks.”
Bean the Magic Pup sees me and scratches at the glass on our door to come inside, pink tongue hanging out of his mouth.
“Why?” Mom asks.
Lucky lifts his face to hers. “We just got the new window put in, and the trim and paint is different. You may have noticed.”
We both stare at him.
“Anyway,” he continues, “My parents want to update our website photo of the front of the business. So might as well update the others while we’re at it. We’ve just got standard phone photos up there now. Would be nice to have more professional shots. If that was something Josie could do?”
“Of course she could,” Mom says, like he just insulted both of us. Like it was a challenge, and she just fell for it.
Wait a minute. She’s actually buying into his scheme? Correction: my scheme. Because I thought of it first. I think I’m actually a little miffed at him now. I don’t care how pretty he is, or how much I want to stick my hands deep inside his leather jacket. Why is he even wearing that thing? It’s hot outside, for the love of Pete.
“She’s really good,” she tells him. “Don’t know if you’ve seen her work online, but she has a website you can browse. One of those subscriber things?”
“Mom,” I say weakly. Ambulance. 911. Emergency. Dying.
“Yes, I have seen it,” he says, suppressing a smile as I discreetly try to step on the toe of his boot. It’s got some kind of reinforced steel thing inside it. Won’t budge. He shifts his boot to the side and says, “All the sign photos. Really cool.”
Mom crosses her arms and nods. “It is really cool. She’s got a good eye. But as for this job … It’s for your parents?”
“It is,” he says.
“They know about it?”
“They do. You want to call my mom?”
She doesn’t answer. Just considers it for a moment while she shifts on the squeaky chair and says, “Suppose it’s up to Josie, not me.”
I blink at her. I blink at him.
“I’ve got work here in the Nook right now,” I tell him.
“That’s okay,” he says. “I’m on a break. Just finished up at the department store, and I’m about to start a shift with my dad. It would probably be better to do the photography after the boatyard’s closed, so you wouldn’t have everyone in the way. And isn’t there something about the light being better right before twilight … ?”
“Golden hour,” I say, smiling tightly. You bastard.
He snaps his fingers. “That’s it.”
“It’s a real thing,” Mom says, completely clueless. “Right, shutterbug?”
Oh my God. Lucky is eating this up. I want to kick him in the shin.
He clears his throat and says in a cheery voice, “So, golden hour? I can meet you in front of the boatyard office. I’ll show you which things to shoot. Shouldn’t take all that long, I wouldn’t think? But if that’s not enough money—?”
Kick him in the shin, strangle him … Maybe he’s the one who needs the ambulance, not me. “Oh, it’ll be enough.”
“Hey,” Mom says. “If you do this, I want to make it clear that I’d be right across the street, and I will not be picking up anyone at the police station again. You have to earn my trust back, Lucky.”
“Understood,” he says. “Zero police stations.”
“You’re not in contact with Adrian Summers, are you?” she asks. “Because I know our neighborhood is filled with buffoons, and I’m not saying I don’t believe that Adrian wasn’t the one who smashed the boatyard window. But whatever’s going on, I have to ask—this hasn’t turned into a turf war or anything, has it?”
“Turf war? Jesus, Mom. There’s no turf in Beauty. This isn’t a football rivalry.”
“I have heard there’s bad blood between the clam shacks,” Lucky says.
Mom has a low tolerance for smartass-ery, so I expect her to give him the ol’ Saint-Martin glare, but she just patiently tells him, “You know what I mean. I don’t want my daughter caught up in the crossfire of anything.”
What about your daughter causing the crossfire? How would you feel about that, huh? My stomach twists around the old lie of the department store window, and I try not to look at Lucky’s face, because it only makes me feel worse.
“No ma’am, there’s no contact between me and Adrian Summers,” he tells her. “However, I did hear through the grapevine today that his father sent him to Providence to stay with his aunt for a while. Mom says his father’s trying to keep him out of town until the dust settles.”
Okay, that’s actual real news. Out of the corner of my eye, I spy Evie’s worried face peering out from behind a rack of local postcards. She’s been listening, and apparently she didn’t know this either, because she speaks up and says, “Adrian went to his aunt Cynthia’s house?”
“Yeah,” he tells her. “My mother found out through someone in our family.”
“Probably for the best,” Mom says. “Well, I guess this photography project at the boatyard is all right, then. If Josie has time …”
I straighten a stack of bookmarks on the counter, keeping my eyes down. “I have time.”
There’s nothing more we can say in front of my mom, so he just thanks us and leaves the store, fetching Bean the Magic Pup on his way.
Mom watches him go, a look of confusion on her face. “I’ll never understand why people choose to own pets. They just die and break your heart.”
“Jesus, Mom. Way to look at the world. Bean is actually kind of cute.”
“You’re scared of dogs.”
“I know,” I grumble.
She sighs. “Wonder if I should walk across the street and talk to Kat about this.”
Um, no. Disaster! Absolutely not. Then she might find out I went to their house for Sunday dinner, or that I hired Lucky to give me seasickness, piloting me around the harbor.
“I don’t think that’s necessary,” I tell her.
Her eyes dart toward mine. “Still not sure about you hanging around that boy.”
Yeah, well.
She’d be even less sure if she knew what we did in the darkroom.
I braid my hair. Unbraid it. Brush it a thousand times. Dark makeup. Light makeup. Wash it all off. Try again. Okay, this is stupid, because the only thing I need is my best jeans—the one pair of jeans that fits so absolutely perfectly, I can completely relax when I’m wearing them. Those jeans. I’m wearing them and my perfect black flats, and the rest doesn’t matter.
It’s just Lucky.
It was just a kiss.
After the Nook closes, I use my digital camera to get some experimental shots of the Karrases’ new window from the across the street between breaks in the traffic. They’re a bit more Art than the Karrases would probably prefer. They just want pictures for a website; any monkey with a DSLR could take them. But I’m a little wired and anxious right now, and everything in my lens is hyper saturated and full of odd angles.
It’s just Lucky.
It was just a kiss.
Lucky and his leather jacket are waiting for me—no Bean this time—when I cross the street and make it over to him, super cool, my camera hanging around my neck, best jeans and perfect flats.… You can do this, everything is fine …
“Hey.”
One word. That’s all he says. And all at once, my body suddenly turns into a dark cave filled with a thousand bats that are all trying to escape in a panic, flapping their batty wings and gnawing at my insides with their tiny vampire teeth.
O-o-o-h, what is happening to me?
Must calm down.
Maybe he doesn’t notice, because his gaze swings from me to the windows above the Nook. “So … is that your mom watching us from your apartment?”
“Yes, indeed-y,” I say, moving around him to get a better angle of the boatyard’s sign.
“Wow. Okay. I didn’t think she meant it that literally. About watching us.”
“She did.”
“What’s wrong?” he asks.
Tiny bat wings. So nervous.
“Nothing. Can you move? You’re blocking …”
“Oh, sorry. Is that better?”
“Yep. Thanks.”
“Josie?”
“Are these real photos that your parents want, or is this just a ruse?”
“No,” he says as early evening traffic speeds past us, bumping along the setts. “I mean, yes. I told my mom about this. She said it would be nice to have better photos on the website. They need to print new catalogs, so she’ll use them there, too. It’s legit.”
“I just didn’t want to waste my time if this is fake.”
“You mean, fake like when you hired me to pilot you around the harbor?”
“That was a completely real scam to pay you back for the department store window. And just when I’d scrimped and saved up enough dough to hire Captain Lucky again—”
“Puke buckets will cost you extra, by the way.”
“—you went and pulled this stunt, and now I’m back where I was before. So thanks?”
“You’re most welcome.”
“Thanking you most unkindly.”
He chuckles and leans against an iron hitching post with a molded horse head—one of a hundred that dot the old streets around town. “So, hey … How have you been?”
I adjust a setting on my camera. “Fine, fine. Working at the Nook, makin’ that cash,” I say in a ridiculous voice, immediately regretting it. I sound nervous. But Lucky looks completely calm and cool, as usual, so now I’m wondering if this is a one-sided nervousness, and that only makes the bats in my chest flutter faster.
“And you … You’ve been busy, I take it,” I say. It comes out sounding more agitated than I intend, but I’m just so. Unbelievably. Palm-sweatingly. Anxious.
It’s jUsT LuCky.
It wAs jUsT a kIsS.
He frowns and scratches the back of his neck. “Yeah. It’s been weird around here lately.”
“The boatyard window, you mean?”
“That’s definitely been a big point of stress. You heard about what happened at the neighborhood meeting right? Nobody believes Adrian did it.”
“I heard.”
“Wow,” he mumbles, turning his head. “She’s really watching us like a hawk.”
I glance across the street at our apartment window.
“Does she know?”
“What?” My eyes flick to his. “Know what?”
He lightly kicks the iron hitching post with the heel of his boot. “Never mind.”
Wait, wait, wait—we almost made it to The Topic. Then he backed down.
“Of course she doesn’t know,” I say, adjusting my lens. “I haven’t even told her I went to Sunday dinner at your house. You think I’m going to tell her about … ?”
“The darkroom,” he finishes, voice deep and husky.
“The darkroom,” I repeat, feeling a little lightheaded. “She’d only say I’ve activated the curse. Nope. She can never know. Ever. I’ll bury her first. It’s the Saint-Martin way. She keeps her love life secret, so that’s exactly what I’ll be …” I trail off. I realize as soon as it’s out of my mouth that I said “love life.”
It’s only supposed to be Lucky. My friend. Friend life, not love life! Can I get a do-over?
I snap five photos in row. All unnecessary. All poorly framed.
Lucky. Kiss. Uncertainty. Good jeans not helping. Bats! Bat escaping!
I can’t hold it in any longer, so here comes the honesty. I’m lifting the invisible wall.
Hope he’s happy.
“Look,” I say in a low voice, as if my mother can somehow hear us all the way through a closed window and across a street filled with traffic. “I don’t know if you regret what we did, or maybe it was no big deal to you, but it meant something to me, and I’ve been really confused that you’ve just sort of ghosted me over the last few days. I don’t know what we’re doing, but I really hate not talking to you.”
“Wow, okay.”
“Or we can make small talk.”
“No, stop,” he says, holding up a hand. “Don’t do that. Don’t put the wall back up—please. Just … give me a second. I’m trying to sort it all out. Why would you think it didn’t mean something to me?”
I lower my camera and look at him. “Did it?”
“You first.”
“I already went first.”
One corner of his mouth lifts. He shoves his hands into the pockets of his jeans and glances across the street at the half-timbered historical houses that face the harbor. “Okay. Maybe it did. Yes. It did … unless we’re talking about different kinds of ‘something’ that it meant, in which case I’d like to change my answer.”
A swell of emotion catches me off guard, and I’m surprised to feel my eyes welling up. Oh no—Temper Tears. Those stupid, out-of-control, I-want-to-punch-something tears.
“Josie! Hey, I was just joking.”
“These are tears of frustration,” I say, swiping at my eyes and getting myself under control. Ugh. I turn my head away and pray my mother doesn’t see this.
“Are you mad at me?” he asks in a softer voice.
“I’m not—” My voice breaks. I clear my throat and blow out a hard breath. There. Better. “I’m not mad. I’m confused,” I explain. “You kissed me, and then you left me hanging in the breeze, and I didn’t know what was happening. I didn’t know if you’d changed your mind, or if you’d hated it, or felt guilty or if it was terrible—how am I supposed to know? I’ve never kissed anyone before … not really. Not like that.”
“What? Come on.” His face is contorting into strange expressions. He makes a sound that’s almost a laugh, but not quite. Then he blinks at me. “You’re serious.”
I hesitate and glance across the street at our apartment windows. Mom’s silhouette is gone, but then reappears. She’s still checking on us. Lucky sees it too and swears colorfully under his breath.
“This is ridiculous. Listen to me,” he says in a calm voice. “You’re taking photos—that’s all. Now we’re going around back to finish the job. Okay? Come on.”
I follow him through the alley, his heavy boots crunching the occasional piece of loose gravel, until the harbor comes into sight, and we turn the corner into the back of the boatyard.
“Do you want a picture of the bays open or closed?” I ask, trying in vain to put the invisible wall back up now that we’re alone, because I’m suddenly very scared of what we’re going to say to each other.
“That was just to get away from Winona. Forget the damn pictures,” he says in exasperation, standing in front of me on the stained concrete as gulls squawk in the distance. “Just talk to me, okay? Were you serious?”
“About what?”
“What you just said.”
Oh. That. I lean back against a short brick wall that sticks out between the mechanic bays and the alley, tapping my camera against the leg of my jeans. “Why do you want to know? Because it’s weird that I’m seventeen and you’re the first person I’ve made out with?”
He pushes hair out of his eyes and says, “It’s not weird.”
“Then why? Because it was bad.”
“It wasn’t.”
“I was bad.”
“No.” Dark eyes meet mine. “Definitely no. All the noes in the world baked into a giant cake and covered in no frosting.”
I smile and scrunch up my face. “Okay.”
“It was amazing,” he says.
I exhale. “Okay, good, because I thought so too. I mean, I have nothing to compare it to, but I’ve had some really tempting offers—like, Big Dave on a daily basis.”
“Don’t make me serve time for murder, because I would chop him up into pieces.”
“That sounds super protective.”
“Too protective?”
“No.” I shake my head. Then I whisper, “What are we doing, Lucky? If it was so good, then why didn’t you text me? Is it because we’ve made a terrible mistake?”
“Because—” He scrubs the back of his neck furiously. Turns around, paces a couple of steps, and then returns. “Because of Los Angeles. You aren’t staying here in Beauty, Josie. I’ve known that since I saw you looking at flight schedules in the Nook when you first came back into town. I can’t go through it again. I can’t … I can’t lose you all over again.”
“I don’t want to lose you, either.”
“And what we’re doing now? Josie … this is adding a whole other level to things. It’s going to hurt.”
“I know that,” I say, my voice getting smaller.
“But … ?”
I frown. “Why did you say it that way?”
“Because I know there’s a ‘but’ coming. You’re about to tell me about that ticking time bomb, and your grandmother coming back, and how your mom can’t live in the same house with her.”
I wilt against the wall. Well? Those things are true. “I can’t make my mom and my grandmother magically get along. I’m seventeen, broke, and the only resource I have is Henry Zabka. That’s it. That’s my only card to play.”
“That can’t be the only solution.”
“Name a better one,” I challenge. “Go on. Name one. Stick around with my mom? Because I love her to pieces, but you have no idea what it’s like to be dragged around from town to town—no idea, Lucky. I can’t keep living like that. There’s no future in that for me. I feel lost all the time, and scared. And completely unstable. I wake up in the middle of the night and can’t find my way to the bathroom because I can’t remember which apartment I’m in—I can’t remember which town I’m in!”
“Let me help you.”
“How?”
“I don’t know.”
I huff out a hard breath.
“I really don’t,” he admits, gesturing openly with both hands. “I’m sorry. I haven’t figured that part out. But there’s got to be another viable solution.”
If there was, he’d be offering it up. Mister genius. Perfect SAT score.
“I came up with this plan before I knew you were here,” I say. “It wasn’t perfect, but it was a way out. Now it’s all completely messed up, and that’s before I even consider any of … whatever this is,” I say, gesturing between us. “So you don’t have to tell me that it’s flawed, because I already know that, okay? If it wasn’t flawed, I’d be knocking down the door of Coast Life magazine, begging them to reconsider me for the internship.”
“Hey. If you still want to go for that magazine internship, fine. Go for it—I mean, yes, you’d be working for a magazine that’s owned by a man who spawned Adrian Summers, but that’s your business.”
“Not fair,” I say, pouting.
“But seriously,” he says, holding up a hand, “if you want it, go for it. And if you want to be with your dad, if that is your one true dream, I would never stand in your way. But if it’s not? If it’s just a means to an end? If it’s just a place to run to? Then let me help you figure out an alternate route.”
“Why would my dad be a place to run to? He’s rich and famous, and he’s one of the most talented photographers working right now.”
Lucky sighs heavily. “Come on, Josie. It’s me.”
“I need to think about all this.”
He nods several times. “That’s fair.”
A terrible sadness falls upon me, draining all my energy. He’s right about a lot of things. I know better than anyone: Making attachments with people that you’re going to have to leave hurts. It’s why I never do. Ever. But here I am, breaking my own rules. Rushing back into old habits with him—and worse. Trying to make new habits with him.
“Maybe we should stay away from each other until this gets sorted out,” I say, a little dazed. “I guess that’s what you were trying to do over the last few days.” Detachment.
“No.”
“No?”
He shakes his head, pries my fingers away from my camera, and sets it atop the brick wall. Then he wraps his arms around me and pulls me against him.
“Dammit,” I whisper into his shirt.
“I know,” he says against my head. “I know.”
“If this is a pity hug …”
“Shut up. It’s not a pity hug. Let me hold you, okay? You could try holding me back. If it won’t kill me, then it won’t kill you.”
My arms are folded up between us. My last line of defense. “You don’t know that. It might. I’m cursed, remember?”
“Told you already, I don’t believe in curses.”
“Doubt they care if you believe or not,” I tell him, allowing myself to loll against his shoulder and chest—just a little. But I keep my arms folded up like a bird’s wings. I can hear his heart thumping, steady and strong, faster than I’d expect. I try to concentrate on it until my muscles relax a little more. He smells really good. I’d forgotten already.
“We’re going to figure this out, okay?” His deep voice reverberates through his chest and into my bones. “Your grandmother doesn’t come back for a year. A year is a long time.”
“A year is a long time,” I repeat.
His hand strokes a path up my back. He shifts my hair out of the way and holds me tighter, tucking his chin better into my neck, where he speaks in a soft voice against my skin. “I knew when you walked into the bookshop that day that my life was about to change.”
“You did?”
“I did. Maybe it was the curse,” he says, lightness in his voice, “Or … I don’t know.”
“What?”
“Because I saw you, and it just felt like everything that had gone wrong in my life just magically healed … like I’d been walking around all broken, and all my broken pieces suddenly reconnected.”
“Oh,” I whisper on a soft exhale.
He groans. “That sounds stupid.”
“Not at all. I’m magic,” I tease. “That’s what you’re saying.”
“Maybe we’re magic together.”
“It does feel that way, doesn’t it?”
“It really does.”
“Oh, Lucky,” I whisper against him. “What are we going to do?”
“I don’t know, but we have to try.”
I unfold my wings to be able to get my hands around his back. He sighs against me when I do, and we melt into each other for a long moment. Then he kisses me softly on the neck.
“Sorry,” he whispers, smiling against my skin. “I couldn’t help it.”
“You couldn’t?”
“Nope.” He kisses my neck again, tickling me. “Oops. Sorry again.”
I laugh, shoulder reflexively jerking upward to push his face away from the crook of neck. Or trap him there. I’m not sure which. “Lucky Karras. I don’t believe you’re sorry at all.”
“Well … not about that.”
“Me neither.”
I pull back and smile up at him. Was he always this beautiful, when we were kids? The way he looks now, with the light gilding his skin, and his dark hair all mussed up and windblown. And the way he’s looking at me now, like I’m the only thing standing for miles that matters … I don’t know.
Maybe it’s just the magic of golden hour.
“Hey, Josie?”
“What?”
“Can we agree to not talk about the ticking time bomb that is your grandmother returning from Nepal for the moment, until we figure some things out?”
“Most definitely,” I agree. “Let’s not.”
“And in the meantime, there’s one thing I want to do together.”
My pulse races. “What’s that?”
He shakes his head. “Nope. You’re just going to have to trust me. And meet me Saturday night. Same time, same place—after we both get off work. Deal?”
“I guess you’ve got yourself a deal.”
“Oh, almost forgot.” I dig in my pants pocket until my fingers find the folded-up hundred and fifty dollars he left on the counter in the Nook. My hundred and fifty dollars … along with another hundred and fifty that I added for our payment plan arrangement. I quickly stuff it all inside the front pocket of his jeans before he can stop me.
“Hey now—”
“This photography session is free.”
“Josie, Josie, Josie,” he says, sucking in a quick breath. “You can’t just go around sticking your hand down guys’ pockets like that without a warning.”
“Consider this a warning then. I might even do it again one day when my mom’s not watching us.”
“Saturday night.”
“Saturday night,” I repeat, grabbing my camera off the brick wall as I smile back at him. I feel warm and hopeful for the first time since he left me that afternoon in the darkroom. And I want to keep feeling that way. I want to believe that if we try hard enough, we can figure out a way to diffuse the ticking time bomb … or keep what we have if I go to California.
A year is a long time.
Is it long enough?