My mother moves everyone out of the living room and through the big kitchen toward the porch again, and for a minute it’s just me and Nate standing alone in the living room. Unlike the family room, with its cozy throw pillows and paperback-stuffed bookshelves, the living room looks like something out of a magazine. Probably because very little actuallivingtakes place in it. When I was ten, I knocked over one of Mom’s porcelain birds in here and tried to glue it back together before she noticed. That raw panic I felt then is pretty much what’s settling over me now, with Nate.
My brain is still having trouble computing that the cute guy with the insanely beautiful eyes and complete lack of car-fixing skills I met at the farmstand earlier today isCara Lancolm’sbrother.
“Are you… heading out?” He nods his head toward my suitcase, which I’d momentarily forgotten was still beside me.
“I, no—well yes, actually, but that’s not the—Wait. Did you know who I was?” I demand. “Earlier, at the farmstand.”
I can’t shake this feeling that this whole day has been a setup. That there are hidden cameras and a producer somewhere calling the shots.Okay, let’s see if we canreallyget Nikki to spiral with this next reveal…
Nate’s blue eyes widen. “No! I mean, I knew from Cara you were supposed to be gorgeous and blond, but…”
“But you figured Georgia was just teeming with blonds who all look the same,” I fill in.
“Yes?” he says, though he’s clearly not sure if that’s the right answer.
His awkwardness disarms me. I give a little laugh. “We have our fair share, I guess.”
“I swear I didn’t recognize you, Nikki. The truth is…” He rubs the back of his neck. “I never watched your season.”
“Not a fan of reality TV?” I say, already anticipating the smug superiority that usually comes in response to this question.
Nate looks at me strangely, an eyebrow raised. “Oh, I don’t know—does someone having every season ofSurvivoron DVD that they ever made available count as ‘a fan’?”
I blink in surprise. Who even owns DVDs anymore? “Oh, well—”
“Does skipping work to watch aNaked and Afraidmarathon in my underwear while eating frozen burritos make me count as afan?”
An image of Nate in his underwear pops into my mind, and I shake my head to clear it.
“I guess—”
“Soyes,” Nate says haughtily. “I would say I am ‘a fan’ of reality TV. I just never really got intoLovedBy. I prefer the erratic charm ofIs It Cake?”
I laugh. “Wow, okay. Sorry I doubted you.”
“You should be.” He sniffs, pretending to be offended as he tugs at the collar of his linen button-down. He’s rolled the cuffs up, showing off his tanned, strong-looking forearms. He’s still got the same shorts on from before, but the transformation on the top half is enough to make him look a lot less like he just came from a fishing trip. He’s standing close enough to me that I can smell his cologne—not heavy and musky like I’m used to with LA guys who seem determined to smell like the inside of a designer store, but something light, with a hint of sea salt.
I swallow. “Good to know you have discerning taste,” I say. “Except for the glaring oversight of skipping myLovedByseason…”
A shadow passes over Nate’s face. “Yeah, well. Like I said, I missed it when it aired. And then after… watching it would’ve felt… weird.”
“Right.” For a minute, I was so caught up in the amusing strangeness of this man that I forgot who he is. Who his sister is. The twisted web that links us. And now he’s standing here in my family’s living room—the same room where I once posed for the prom photos that still sit on the mantel, next to the photos from my pageants. I clear my throat. “Well, then. We should go outside, I guess.”
“Can I carry this for you?” He grabs my suitcase and lifts it. “My, you’ve packed quite a lot for, um, the porch.”
“Ha,” I reply, but I allow Nate to help carry my bag, then step ahead to show him the way.
WHILE EVERYONE ELSE IStoasting and chitchatting, I’m huffing angrily up the dirt path behind the house with my suitcase in tow. The path runs along the water and leads to Camp Bennet, the old bunkhouse we used to camp out in as kids. It’s a little ways around a bend in the lake, still on our property. For all the cramped quarters of our little house, we have a decent plot of land, inherited from my grandmother. The bunkhouse was once more of a hunting cabin, but it hasn’t been used like that in decades. It’s pretty rustic—and generally full of spiders. But there should still be bunk beds in there, and that’ll have to do until I can figure out how to fix this whole situation.
Or book a flight back to LA.
By the time I get to the cabin, my suitcase wheels have collected a mound of mud and grass.Great.
Camp Bennet really is not an appropriate guest house, which I’m reminded of when I push open the sticky door. It’s one square room, with a mini fridge and hot plate in one corner. It has an incredibly rudimentary bathroom, though usually on the nights we stayed here, we got a “hose shower” from my dad. I remember how much I used to love it in here. We’d shove the two rickety bunk beds together, and I’d cuddle up on the bottom bunk with my lovey, Kiki the Kitty. I felt completely safe. Cooper eventually took it over for his high school band, though, and to this day, it still vaguely reeks of Cooper’s pot, mixed with mildew.
Oh, also there’s no air conditioning. Just a big old dusty box fan.
I deposit my suitcase beside the bottom bunk near the window and take a minute to catch my breath, wiping sweat from my brow. Looking around at the knotty pine walls and cobwebbed corners, I can’t believe that I’ll be spending my summer vacation in this shack whileCaramakes herself at home inmybedroom. My beautiful, girly, non-grasshopper-infested bedroom.
