Page 56 of The End of Summer

Brady gives me a peck on the cheek. “You look beautiful,” he says.

Myinsides throb. I feel like a teenager with a crush. My mind flashes back to Eddie Marken, my first boyfriend. I’m transported to the boy-girl dance where we shared our first kiss. It was sloppy and rushed, and he broke my young heart just weeks after when he ended our relationship because school was out for the summer and he was leaving for sleepaway camp. I was “geographically inconvenient,” my mother explained when I cried about it later that night. But in the fall, when we returned to school and I started dating Aidan Ralph, I still carried a torch for Eddie, and my heart would race every time I passed him in the hallway.

That racing – the uncontrollable pounding in my chest – it rushes over me like a tidal wave now, here in my apartment well after midnight as Brady stands before me double-fisting frozen treats in an attempt to brighten my day.

“Hi,” I say.

“So? Which one?” He holds up the rocky road, then the cookies and cream. “Pick your poison.”

“Scoop of each?” I ask.

“Ooh, a girl after my own heart. I’ll have the same.”

I grab two bowls from the cabinet, and two spoons from the drawer. I set them on the counter and fill each with a generous serving. I gesture at the table. “Wanna sit?” I ask, turning around. Brady looks up, as if he’s just woken up from a daze.

“Sure.” He pulls out a chair at my modest dining table. “So?” he asks, as I place the bowl in front of him and sit down across from him. “Best and worst part of the day?”

I smile, taking a spoonful of ice cream and savoring it before answering. “You first.”

“That’s tough. I’d say the worst part was leaving you at your tow lot thing earlier than I’d hoped to.” I try to ignore how his voice makes my skin tingle. “And the best part is right now.”

“Really?” I ask. “This?”

“Yeah.” Brady shrugs. “I like having you next door.”

I nod. “I have to agree with that. No offense to Luis, of course.”

“Of course,” Brady echoes. “Now. Your turn.”

“’Kay. I’ll start with the worst part. It wasn’t exactlybad, just weird.”

“I’m ready. Take it from the top.” Brady licks some rocky road off his spoon, and I’m so focused on his tongue that I forget what I’m supposed to say for a sec. “Um. Earth to Gretchen?”

“Sorry. Right.” I feel the blood rush to my cheeks. “After tow lot was over, I ran around and did some stuff, and when I got back to Cosmo, Arrow was gone. She went to Tucson and left me in charge.”

“Tucson?” His nose scrunches up in confusion.

“Yup.”

“As in, Arizona?”

“You guessed it.”

“Well, that’s far.”

“I know.”

“When’s she coming back?”

“Few days, I think. I’m not really sure.”

“Okay. So, that’s bad why, exactly?”

“Not bad, necessarily. Just, there were only three of us to run a whole party. It was busy. And weird. I feel like she disappeared out of nowhere.”

“Been there,” he quips.

I raise an eyebrow.

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