“Feeding a caffeine addiction when you’re already a hyperactive lunatic seems like a really bad idea, Liv. Maybe you should see if they sell chamomile tea. Or better still, horse tranquilizers. A mochaccino might send you flying over the edge into Loopy-Town.”
“Pfft! Loopy-Town is underrated. Come on,” she said, grabbing my sleeve and pulling like a puppy desperate to play. “Let’s head out. It’s a perfect day.”
I followed her outside, locking the door behind me before tucking my key into my bag and jogging toward the sidewalk to keep up with her quick pace.
The street was lined with mature trees whose limbs drooped over the road, forming a large archway that Will and I had always described as our own private tunnel when we were kids. In our imaginations we’d turned Fairhaven into a veritable amusement park filled with interesting nooks and crannies. We knew which trees were best for climbing, which parts of the woods were best for finding berries, and which back yards had the best treehouses.
I wasn’t a rambunctious child anymore, but much as I was looking forward to one day leaving this town, I did love the comfort of its familiar streets and neighborhoods. The old houses with stories to tell, the wrap-around porches where people sat quietly in the summer months, watching the world pass them by. I loved that I knew the name of every dog on our block, and that they often came out to greet me as I passed by.
I’d lost so much in this town when my parents had died that part of me wanted to leave and never look back. But Fairhaven held so many warm memories that it was hard to imagine ever fully letting it go. Still, with Will leaving for college, there was little to keep me here.
“So,” I said, hoping to take my mind off the pending assault of loneliness, “I feel like I should ask you what terrible birthday surprise you’re about to throw my way, Liv.”
She shot me a shifty sideways glance before she began to skip along the sidewalk like an excited five-year-old who really needs to pee. “Okay, I’ll tell you,” she said. “Two words: Callum. Drake. You’re going to love him so much. He’s tall and handsome, and he has the nicest—”
“Wait. Whoa. Stop for a sec! What are you even talking about?”
“Callum Drake!” Liv repeated, like that should have cleared everything up. “He’s just started working at the Novel Hovel.”
The Hovel had been my favorite place in the world since the moment I’d learned to read. I’d stopped in at least once a month for the last ten years, whether I intended to buy anything or not. I don’t know if it was the smell of the place, the reverential silence, or the opportunity it gave me to take a break from the world, but I considered the Hovel my safe haven and my home away from home.
It was not, however, a place I associated with checking out boys.
“Are you serious?” I asked, my brows meeting in something approaching anger.
“Just wait until you see him…” Liv’s voice trailed off like she was about to swoon into a Victorian, mid-sentence faint. “He’s easily the hottest guy Fairhaven has ever seen. He’s tall—did I already say that? So tall.”
“Uh-huh.”
“He’s also sooo smart. He knows everything about everything. Not to mention he has the most incredible cheekbones and the best accent. Oh man, his accent…”
“What accent?” I asked.
“He’s English. A Brit.”
“So what? My grandmother is English.”
“Yeah, well, Callum isn’t your grandmother, believe me. His voice is like velvet and silk got together and took a bath in melted chocolate.”
“Sounds delicious. And completely undigestible. How do you even know about this guy, anyhow? You’ve been gone for ages.”
“My parents had him over for dinner after we got home yesterday. I mean, they had him and his parents over. His father just started working in my dad’s law office. So basically, I got to stare across our dining room table at Callum for two whole hours last night, which was amazing.” In typical fashion, she was rambling a mile a minute, the words coming faster than an auctioneer’s. “He even eats chicken parmigiana like a Roman god. The point is, you’re going to lose your mind over him.”
“Uh-huh. Tell me, when have I ever lost my mind over a guy?”
“Never. Because you’re infuriatingly chaste, not to mention downright hostile toward every guy you meet,” Liv laughed. “You have to promise me you’ll be nice to him, though. He’s so…dreamy.”
“Dreamy? Really? Did we just time-warp back to the 1950s? Does he have his hair slicked back and a pack of cigarettes rolled up in the sleeve of his white t-shirt?”
Liv gave me a dismissive wave of her hand. “I promise, you’ll die twice before you hit the ground when you lay eyes on him.”
“In that case, I hope I never lay my eyes on him. I know it’s weird, but I generally prefer being alive.”
“Well, the point is, you have to meet him, if for no other reason than that he was asking about you.”
“Oh? Why’s that?” I asked, doing my best to pretend I didn’t much care about the answer.
Liv shrugged. “Dunno. He just said he’d heard there was a girl called Vega who liked to come into the shop. It seems your book-wormishness has made you famous. Anyhow, it sounds like you’re not interested in him, so we’ll just have to see how you feel when you actually meet him.”
“Works for me.”
Liv let the subject drop, and we walked in silence for a time, enjoying the fresh air and cool breeze.
“Oh, hey,” she finally blurted out, “are you going to Midsummer Fest tonight?”
I’d all but forgotten about the candlelit procession and rowdy parade that took place downtown each year on the last Friday of July. Nearly everyone in town showed up at sundown, dressed in masks of all kinds, from cutesy animal heads to terrifying monsters. The strange, noisy gathering made its way down a series of residential streets, candles and noise-makers in hand, before finishing at the entrance to Norfolk Commons, the town’s one and only large park. No one seemed to know how the tradition had started, but the whole thing amounted to a creepy, feral parade I sort of enjoyed. Much as I usually abhorred socializing, the anonymity provided by a mask made this particular public outing almost tolerable.
“I’m not sure I’m going,” I replied. “I mean, maybe I will, I don’t know. It depends.”
“What the hell kind of wishy-washy answer is that?” Liv laughed, shouldering me so hard I went stumbling off the sidewalk onto someone’s front lawn.
“You know me,” I said, skipping back onto the concrete walkway. “Non-committal is my middle name. Anyhow, Will’s getting home today, so I’ll go if he—”
“What?” Liv squealed, her eyes going wide as she stopped in her tracks and turned my way. “Will’s going to be in town? When can I see him? How long will he be here? You have to tell him to come out tonight. I need to see my future husband just once before he goes off to college.”
I barely suppressed the desire to fake-gag. Liv’s unabashed, ongoing crush on my older brother had begun when she was about seven years old, and she’d never made any effort whatsoever to hide it, despite the fact that Will had consistently treated her like nothing more than his little sister’s best friend.