Page 412 of How to Kiss a Hawthorne Brother
“Very little,” Lucy says. She turns to face me, leaning her hip against the counter. “So what are we going to do about this? If you love him, why aren’t you with him right now, hugging and kissing and making beautiful babies?”
I roll my eyes. “It’s not that easy. You know it’s not that easy.”
“I don’t, actually,” Lucy says. “I’ve never been in love.”
This gives me pause. My little sisters have both dated a lot. I lift my eyes to meet hers. “Really? Not even with…what was his name? With the glasses and the curly hair? Tim?”
Lucy frowns. “Ugh. Definitely not Tim.”
“Huh.”
“Focus, Auds. What’s the hold-up with you and Flint?”
I slowly slice my way through a few more strawberries. “I’m just scared, I think. Which, when you make me say it out loud, it feels incredibly lame.”
“It’s not lame. It’s how you feel. But just because it’s scary doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it. People do scary things all the time.”
“No,youdo scary things all the time. Summer does scary things. I don’t.”
Lucy scoffs. “Says the woman who has faced down a black bear? More than once?”
“You’re crazy if you think bears are scarier than people.”
She pulls out my griddle pan from under the counter and turns on the stove. “You’re crazy if you think lifewithFlint is scarier than life without him. You have to listen to your heart, Auds. Don’t let fear ruin something that could be amazing.”
“But what if it isn’t amazing?” I drop the knife and spin to face her. “I mean, of course it’s amazing right now, but what if the magic eventually wears off and then it’s just a lot of time apart, wishing we weren’t on opposite sides of the country?”
She levels me with a long look. “Then you will have been on one wild ride, and you can sell your story toPeoplemagazineand make millions of dollars.”
“Shut up. I would never do that.”
She drops butter onto the pan, watching while it slowly melts and starts to sizzle. “The point still stands. It’s okay for something to be good while it’s good and then end without theexperience being a failure. Besides, what if itdoesstay amazing forever? You’ll never know if you don’t try.”
Tears suddenly prick my eyes, but I’m not about to start crying when it isn’t even nine a.m., so I pick up the knife and dig back into the strawberries, willing the tears away.
Lucy bumps my hip with hers. “Don’t cry into the strawberries, Auds. They aren’t good salty.”
I hiccup a laugh and give up fighting. I drop the knife and lift my hands, using my sleeves to dry my tears. “Seriously, what are you doing to me? And when did you get so wise?”
Lucy smiles and points at me with her spatula. “Pretty sure wisdom is encoded in our DNA. I’m just not as big a chicken as you are, so I’m seeing this particular situation a little more clearly.”
I huff. “I’m not a chicken.”
“Then let go. Let go, and justbewith him.” She pours out the first few pancakes. “Oh! Did you bring your phone out here?” she asks. “There was one more thing I wanted to show you. Mom and Dad’s TikTok has totally exploded.”
“What? Why? Isn’t their account already huge?” I slide the last of the strawberries into a bowl then reach for my phone, navigating through TikTok until I find Mom and Dad’s account.
“I mean, it was kind of huge,” Lucy says. “But someone tagged them as Flint Hawthorne’s future in-laws, and they’ve gotten something like a million new followers in the past twenty-four hours. Watch their latest video. They just posted it yesterday.”
I push play, then listen to a minute or so of Mom and Dad, playing their instruments outside their RV, but I don’t recognize the song. “What is it?”
“It’s the theme song to Flint’sAgent Twelvemovies. Clever, right?”
“I might say a little on the nose, but let’s go with clever.”
“They’re playing it so cool in the comments though,” Lucy says. “Like, they aren’t confirming anything. They just aren’t denying it either.”
“I bet Mom is loving all the attention.”
