“No, no, no,” I protest, scrambling out of the hatchback myself. God, that would only make it worse, if Gabe got in the middle. Maybe it’s fair and maybe it isn’t, but whatever this is between me and Julia—between me and Patrick, between me and Gabe himself—I’m the one that needs to handle it. “It’s okay,” I lie, wanting it to be for both of our sakes. I reach out and touch his arm below the elbow, warm skin and the rope of muscle underneath. “Seriously, please don’t. I’ll figure it out.”
Gabe rolls his eyes, but he doesn’t argue. I like that—that he seems to trust my judgment. That he doesn’t try to convince me he knows best. For a moment I follow his gaze out to the tree line; he parked with the back of the wagon to the summer woods, this wide expanse of uninterrupted green. I forgot how much I missed this when I was in Tempe. “Okay,” he says, sliding his arm back until our hands catch, squeezing for a moment before he lets go. The gesture sends a clanging all the way up into my elbow, like I banged my funny bone. “But I just—I know your life has basically been one long, uninterrupted shitshow since you got back here. And I know a lot of that is my fault.”
I shake my head, ready to protest. “It’s not—”
Gabe makes a face. “It kind of is,” he says.
For a second I remember the feeling of his warm mouth pressing at mine. I feel safe when I’m with Gabe, I’m realizing slowly, like the station wagon is a getaway car and we’re headed for the border by nightfall. It’s not exactly an unattractive thing to pretend. “Okay,” I admit finally. “It kind of is.”
“Same team, remember?” Gabe shrugs, sun catching the lighter streaks in his hair, brown and amber. He sits back down in the trunk of the Volvo, picks some dog hair off the interior, and drops it on the ground. “I won’t do anything you don’t want me to, it’s your rodeo, but . . . same team.”
“My rodeo, huh?” After a moment I sit down beside him, stretch my palms out behind me, and turn my head to look at him. “Okay.”
“Okay,” Gabe echoes. He leans back so his arms are behind him just like mine are. His pinky brushes mine on the floor of the trunk. I glance over my shoulder, look at our hands side by side, my ragged cuticles and the pale fuzz of blondish hair on his wrists. I imagine him grown up and finished with med school, patients lying on the operating table—reaching inside people’s rib cages, fixing their broken hearts.
Day 18
The Lodge opens in a few days, and Penn’s dialed up to eleven: This morning she had me and Desi dusting the details of the crown molding with Q-tips, then interrupted us halfway through that to taste-test three different ketchup options in the kitchen. I’m exhausted, a wrung-out kind of limpness in my arms and my shoulders—so tired, in fact, that when Mean Michaela waves to me in the hallway on my way to the time clock, I’m stupid enough to wave back in the moment before she turns her hand and flips me off instead. “Night, bitch,” she singsongs cheerfully, the door slamming behind her as she goes.
“Nice,” I mutter, rolling my eyes even as I feel the familiar heat of shame flooding my face. All I want to do is go home and crash without speaking to another human person, but when I grab my bag out of my locker and head for the exit, I find Tess already there punching her card.
“Long day?” she asks, looking pretty wiped herself—I can only imagine what pool duties were today, if she had to scrub tile grout with a toothbrush or something. Tess is wearing shorts and a Star Lake Lodge T-shirt with the old logo on it, one she must have found floating around the hotel somewhere. Her hair’s in a messy knot on top of her head. She doesn’t look like a supermodel or anything, isn’t tall or extraordinarily pretty. It makes her a lot harder to hate.
“Long day,” I echo, punching my card and slipping it into the appropriate slot. The time clock dates way back to the sixties. I start to wave good-bye, feeling awkward just being around her, but Tess holds up a hand so I’ll stay.
“Look, Molly,” she says, shrugging her broad athlete’s shoulders. She’s holding a half-eaten peach in one hand. “I guess I just wanted to say—” She breaks off. “God, this is awkward. This is really awkward, right?”
That makes me smile. “A little,” I admit.
“Okay,” Tess says. “Well, we’re in it now, so I’m gonna push through. I guess I just wanted to say that I know it’s weird between us, but, like—we work together, we’re gonna see each other a lot now that we’re opening, and I just—whatever happened before I moved here, you definitely never did anything to me, you know? And even though—” She stops again, wrinkling her nose up. “I hope you feel the same way about me.”
Right away I feel enormously grateful, and also two inches tall. “I thought you hated me,” I blurt, blinking at her in the bright lights of the staff hallway. “I mean, ’cause of—”
“I read the book,” Tess confesses. “And I mean, Patrick told me—”
I cut her off with a nod. “Yeah—”
“But I definitely don’t hate you. I was kind of scared of you, to be honest.”
“Seriously?” I gape. “Why? I have no friends! Have you noticed I have no friends?”
“You have Gabe,” Tess points out. Then, like she realizes that’s possibly not the best example to be using: “And you’re Penn’s favorite, clearly. I just, I don’t know, you’ve known those guys forever, you’ve known Imogen forever—”
“It’s not like that.” I shake my head. “Whatever it used to be—it’s definitely not like that anymore.”
“Well, whatever.” Tess smiles, then takes the last bite of her peach and tosses the pit into a nearby trash can. “So we’re okay? I just didn’t want to spend the whole freaking summer doing that Mean Girls stuff, that’s not really how I roll. We’re okay?”
“We’re fine,” I tell her, and my smile then is genuine. Even if Patrick’s going to hate me forever, it occurs to me to be glad he’s got someone like Tess. “Yeah, we’re good.”
Day 19