I roll my eyes and head toward the bakery three doors down.
Thankfully there’s no line yet. I step inside and the heavy tang of coffee mixed with baked goods brings a smile to my face. But as I weave through the tables toward the counter in the back, I see someone sitting by the window, and my heart has a fit, in a nonmedical way.
Luke Tisdale sits there staring at me like I’m a sea monster crawled onto shore. All that worry over him being home next door or in his parents’ shop, and he’s here. It’s like he knew I was coming. Like he was sitting in wait to ambush me about where I’ve been for the last two years. I start to sweat, and my legs tense, ready to turn and leave. Because it’sLuke. My ex–best friend and the boy who literally has two pieces of my heart.Crap.
Chapter Two
Sera
As I try to get out of there, stat, I end up crashing into a woman and her two kids as they come through the door. I take a few quick steps out of the way, apologizing to her, but that means I’m a few steps closer to Luke. He’s still looking at me, and there’s no running. He stands and greets me with an awkward hug. At first all I can think about is his last message from just over a year ago—please don’t ghost me again, Sera, I just need to talk to my best friend—but then I notice how big he is, and I freeze, arms at my side.
Luke and I have always been about the same size. The proof lines the walls of both our houses in pictures from the days after we were both born, broken and in need. That’s the reason our families are so close. I got a new heart, and Luke had domino surgery, getting the healthy valves from my otherwise useless original heart. The newspapers loved us, sharing photos of us holding hands in the same crib post-surgery and the storyof how our families were brought together by the same near tragedy.
When Luke was discharged and his family returned to the Cape, my mom convinced my dad to rent the place next door to theirs. Our moms became inseparable as we fought our way to being healthy toddlers and then troublemaking terrors. My family loved Northport and the Tisdales so much we would’ve moved here full-time, but Dad couldn’t stop teaching at Emerson, so we became part-timers. My parents bought the house, and we came down as often as we could—weekends, most holiday breaks, and of course, all summer. Northport is where we feel most like ourselves, and the Tisdales were always part of that. It was all family barbecues and group bike rides to the beach. Days spent out on Luke’s dad’s boat and evenings around our firepit. It was perfect—until it wasn’t.
Because suddenly, two summers ago, I found myself looking at Luke differently. I was thinking nonstop about what kissing him would be like. Wondering if he’d be any better at it than my ex-boyfriend, Ethan, who never gave me the intense butterflies I was feeling around Luke. Every time Luke grabbed my hand to get my attention or reached over me to point out something he liked about my painting, my skin would ripple with electricity. I craved these moments of contact. I began to count how often his eyes found mine in a crowd. My stomach flipped every time I made him laugh. It felt like there was anand thenabout to surprise us. Maybe it was nothing. Maybe the way he looked at me when we were alone—like he was thinking that kissing me was worth potentially ruining our friendship—was all in my head. Still, I’d been ready to risk it.
But he didn’t feel the same way,I remind myself. Thankfully I’m over it.I’m over it. I’m over it,I chant to myself to get through the hug.
Luke smells familiar, like sunscreen and salt water but also something new and lightly spicy that I can’t put my finger on. The contact is a little too sudden, so I don’t have time to raise my arms, and he only holds me for a second before stepping away like I might be diseased. And, well, I am, but not in a way that’s catching.
The heat of his body lingers on mine, the echo of the contact teasing me with the startling fact that he hasn’t just gottencuterin the last two years, he’s gottenhot. He’s taller than me now, and that’s a feat, since at five ten I’m not used to looking up at many people. I was just as tall as him the last time we were down here. It made it hard not to stare at his bow-shaped lips, swoopy brown hair, and smooth olive-toned skin. I shake my head a little to rid myself of that thought.
I force myself to meet his gaze and finally find my voice, squeaking out ahey, or ahi, or ahello. I’m not sure. I don’t hear myself over the blood pounding in my ears.
“Hi,” Luke says, dipping his hands back into the front pocket of his dark red hoodie. “It’s been a while…”
“Yeah,” I manage, and try to smile. “It’s nice to see you.”
He raises both eyebrows at me in a challenge, and I shrug, caught. It’s not nice. It’s complicated. Lukedidreach out last year, asking to talk, asking to pick up our friendship. But after what had happened, and with everything going on with my health, I just couldn’t do it.
“I’ll go,” I mutter, turning to leave, feeling my commitmentto living every moment in the fullest slipping away. A good wallow sounds great about now.
“You don’t want a blueberry muffin?” Luke surprises me by moving through my awkward attempt to end the conversation and gesturing to the counter.
Of course I want a muffin. What I don’t want is to linger here with him and the sour feeling of what I thought was my healed-over hurt. I stare at the logo on his sweatshirt for a beat before answering. It’s the Northport High School mascot, an osprey, but with a baseball bat in its claws instead of the usual fish, and I finally put two and two together. I wonder if he’s a jock now, not just sitting on the bench to please his dad. He’s probably popular and well-liked and has no worries beyond which scholarship to accept and which farewell parties to grace with his presence. He looks like the last time he got bad news he was an infant.
“Aren’t they your favorite?” he adds, looking at me with a quick gut-wrenching smile that doesn’t touch his dark green eyes.
“Only pastry worth having on the whole Cape,” I say, trying to regain some sense of normalcy. This is my town too. I can be normal. I get back in line, and for some reason he stays next to me. I order as quick as I can: six muffins, an iced sugary coffee concoction for Abbi, black coffee for my parents and Maddy, per her request, and a chai latte for me.
I force myself to pretend everything is fine. I read the handwritten chalkboard menus over and over as my foot jiggles. I can’t keep still. I play with the band of my smartwatch, grateful the medical ID part is on the underside of it. Then I fiddlewith the beads on myEBEbracelet, the one he made me when we were ten. I’ve only taken it off once since, two years ago for my last volleyball tournament, right before my life imploded. I tug my sleeve down.
When he still doesn’t leave me alone, I step away and turn to face him to give myself some space. “So, how are you?” It feels too rude not to ask the basics.
“Okay.” I’m surprised by the short answer when he so clearly wants to talk. “You?”
“Okay.” Two can play it close to the chest.
“Are you staying all summer?”
“That’s the plan.”
“Will you—”
He’s interrupted when the cashier hands me a pink paper bag.
“I should go.” I pick up one of the drinks, not looking at his face or the confusing expression of hurt there that’s plucking at my heart rate.
