Dad raises a brow at me.
I shrug one shoulder. “You can fix it. But you’ll be replacing it next year anyway after a shitty planting season.”
Dad chuckles and rubs a hand over his face. “Alright. Tell Melinda to put the order in.” Then he looks at me, and hisexpression shifts as a smile tugs at the corner of his lips. “Levi just got home.”
My eyes widen as my heart thumps, and I quickly glance between my dad, Peter, and Keith.
They all laugh, and Peter claps a hand on my shoulder. “Go.”
I’m gone before they can say anything else.
I haven’t seen Levi since his break in February. And now he’s home for the entire summer after his first year away at university.
I run as fast as I can down the driveway and out onto the dirt road. His house comes into view, and I see his mom’s car in the driveway with the doors open.
As Levi steps around the car with a massive smile on his face, I push myself harder, and he barely gets his arms up before I barrel into him, my full weight slamming into his body with a thud. We stumble backwards with our arms locked tight around each other as we try to keep our balance. He laughs, and I squeeze him tighter.
“Hey, man,” he says. “You didn’t miss me, did you?”
“Fuck off,” I mutter, not letting him go.
I hear Corinne’s soft laugh behind us, and I finally release Levi as Mark hoists his suitcase from the back of the car.
“Not like you guys talkeveryday or anything,” Jade calls from the porch, her arms crossed as she leans against the railing with a smirk on her lips.
“Not the same,” Levi and I both say at the same time, shooting her a look even though we know she’s joking.
“Come on,” Mark says, passing Levi his other bag. Then he closes the trunk, and we follow him to the house.
Levi smiles as we reach the stairs and looks me over. “You’re dirty.”
I glance down at my T-shirt with holes and a ripped hem, smeared with soil. I wipe a dried-up clump of dirt off my jeansand lift my eyes to look him over. He’s in soft black sweatpants, a crisp, clean grey T-shirt, and his hair is pushed back perfectly, like he didn’t just step off a plane.
“You’re clean,” I say.
He laughs, then bounds up the steps into Jade’s open arms.
“Hey,” she says, wrapping him up in a big hug. “Welcome home.”
“You too,” he says as he pulls her in.
Jade’s been home for a week already, since she finished up school a bit earlier, and she’s only in New Brunswick. And I know she’s been eager for Levi to come home.
Not as much as I was, though.
“Keigan should be home from school soon,” she says, giving Levi and me a serious look as she releases him. “Beware. He says he has plans for you that involve a water gun and a plastic sled.”
“Jesus,” Levi chuckles. “Well, ok then. Noted.”
We head inside and up to Levi’s room, where his suitcase sits on his bed.
I drop onto the mattress and lean against the headboard as I stretch out, and Levi shoots me ahorrified look.
“So dirty,” he mutters, eyeing my jeans.
I wiggle against the pillows. “So clean.”
“Asshole,” he huffs with a smile, and unzips his suitcase.
