Page 94 of Nothing Like the Movies

“Okay, uh, it’s maybe not about Dean,” I said, stepping a little closer to her and lowering my voice.

“You don’t say,” she murmured, giving me aduhlook.

“I just want to apologize for last night. I drank too much and was a mess,” I said quietly, rubbing the spot over my right eye where a headache was raging. “You were really cool when you didn’t have to be.”

“It’s fine.” Her eyes traveled all over my face. She swallowed. Bit down on her bottom lip before saying, “I’m glad you weren’t alone.”

My eyes got stuck on her mouth as my brain delivered instant replay, bringing back the hot slide of that full lip between my teeth for review.

So close.

That was apparently my dismissal, and she turned her attention to her camera.

God, she’s so pretty.

I knew she had to be exhausted after taking care of me in the middle of the night, but those green eyes were clear, her cheeks pink under a few escaped tendrils from her ponytail as she started breaking down her equipment. She was wearing a fisherman’s sweater with a brown skirt, and the thick socks she wore with her Docs did amazing things for her legs.

Holycrapthose legs.

“Dude.”

“Huh?” I looked at Clark, and he was watching me watch Liz.Shit.

I could tell by the expression on his face that he’d seen it. That he knew I was leering at his girlfriend. He didn’t look mad, though. His eyes were a little narrowed, like he was processing, but he seemed relaxed when he said, “Thanks again for being cool about us being here.”

I am such an asshole.

“Yeah,” I said, focusing on not following Liz with my eyes. “Of course.”

“So we’re going to let you go to the closing, and you’re still cool with meeting at Emerson Field in a couple hours?”

“For sure,” I said, feeling guilty for thinking about his girlfriend 24.95 hours a day.

“Great,” he said, his face being swallowed by his huge grin. “Thanks, man.”

Everyone left then—my mom and Sarah were meeting me at the bank—and the second I shut the door behind them, the finality of everything reared its ugly head. I wandered through the rooms of the house, my footsteps loud on hollow laminate flooring as a million memories from my childhood flooded my brain.

It was a strange mash-up, the combination of childhood nostalgia and traumatic grief.

I could close my eyes and smell my mom’s spaghetti sauce, the one that used to cook for six hours on the Sunday stove, but I could also still look at that same stove and remember the night I set off the smoke alarms attempting to make pork chops for Sarah a few days after coming home for the funeral.

I straightened and grabbed my backpack from the counter. There was no reason for me to stay any longer. Sarah was right. The bad memories were too bad and only managed to stain what remained of the good. I needed to drive away from Teal Street and never look back.

But as I unlocked the rental car, I did.

I looked back at the house one final time, only this time, I remembered the note Liz left on the porch for me, after prom. I could still picture it, after all these days, and I could still feel the hope that had settled into my body when I realized she’d been waiting formein the Secret Area.

That she’d made that CD forme.

Thank God that memory isn’t stained, I thought, and then I got in the car and drove away from my childhood.

But not before taking a moment to pull into The Spot one final time.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

“I would have stayed for two thousand.”

“I would have paid four.”

---