“What’s going on?” Sage asks behind me. I turn around, ready to give her an excuse about seeing an old friend but being mistaken. The lie is on the tip of my tongue, but something tells me she won’t believe me anyway.
My phone buzzes in my hand before I can say anything. Peter has responded already.Looks like a rental car registered to a John Doe. What’s going on?
Without a shadow of a doubt, I know that’s who was searching for me. Now I just have to figure out why.
Chapter Ten
Sage
It’s Sunday morning, which means it’s time for my weekly scheduled check-in with my parents. Regardless of what either of us has going on, they always call me at noon. Other than that, I don’t talk to them that often. I live on my own now, and I don’t need their approval to do what I do.
The commune doesn’t have internet, for the most part. The only place with access is the community office that they order supplies from. I’ve always found it to be majorly hypocritical that they constantly preach environmental activism and socialism while simultaneously handing their money directly to Jeff Bezos when they need a re-up on toilet paper and rolling papers.
Don’t even get me started on the overpriced moon-charged crystal nipple clamps my mom sells online.We don’t talk about the nipple clamps anymore.
I fall back on the couch in the living room and look at my Instagram while I wait for their call. I have a few posts scheduled to go up, but the analytics for my last post are already impressive. At a place like Scoops Ice Cream, Ihadto take some cutesy photos with spots of ice cream on my nose. Travis was glaring at me the entire time, but this is how I make my living.
I wish I was that cone!!!DarkHours99 comments with a string of drooling faces and fire emojis.
This time, he’s not the only one making comments like that. There are about a dozen other guys under that parent comment making various suggestive comments about other things they’d like to see me lick. Normally I would laugh it off, but they rub me the wrong way now. Maybe it’s because I’m in love with someone else that I’m offended by it.
I’m interrupted from my work when the FaceTime from my parents rings through. I sit up on the couch and move my hair out of my face before answering the call. Both of them are smiling in the frame, squeezed in together to wave at me.
“Juniper, hello!” my mom chimes through the video. She has a soft, gentle singsong voice that most people feel calmed by. Maybe it’s the fact that I’m their daughter and have issues with the way they raised me, but it doesn’t do that for me.
“Hey, guys, how are you doing?” I force myself to sound excited, not wanting to make them think something is wrong. I’m going to tell them about Travis, but I don’t know how they’ll react.
“Doing great!” my dad cheers. “Before I tell you the big news, I have to tell you a joke Steve just told me.”
Mom rolls her eyes and slaps my dad playfully on the arm. “He’s been telling everyone who will listen.”
“Here it goes,” my father starts, his voice filled with the excitement of a toddler on Christmas morning. “What do you call an alligator in a vest?” His smile widens, his eyes staring at me expectantly.
“I don’t know, Dad. Tell me.”
“An investigator!” He bursts out laughing, throwing his head back like he just heard this joke for the first time. My mom shakes her head, but her face lights up. She pretends she is annoyed by my dad, but in reality she loves his little quirks and dad jokes.
“Okay, I admit, that one is pretty funny.” I don’t laugh as hard as my dad, but I do find myself grinning widely.
My parents look at each other, smiling from ear to ear as my dad wraps his arm around her shoulders. Despite my own problems with them, they have a relationship that would be nearly impossible to live up to. They’ve known each other since they were in diapers, and ever since they could walk and talk, they knew they were soulmates.
Both of them grew up in military families, which I think is the biggest reason they became the mega-hippie flower children they are now. I never got to have a relationship with my grandparents because of it.
“We’ve been elected as the chairs for the commune’s annual solstice festival,” my dad excitedly says, pushing up his wire-frame glasses as he speaks.
I know it’s impossible, but they both look older than they did last week. My memory of them is as a youthful, sun-kissed couple, though I’m sure nostalgia plays a big role in that. But now they look small—frail, even. My mom’s usual auburn hair is speckled with gray, and the lines on her forehead are deep. Both my parents have smile lines around their mouths and eyes from decades of finding the inner harmony most people can’t even dream of.
“What’s going on with you?” my mom asks after they go into excruciating detail about the solstice festival. “Are you still at the cabin in Lake Lure?”
I sit up straighter as I prepare myself for the life-changing information I’m about to give my parents. I’ve dated people in the past, mostly other young people from the commune I went to school with. My parents believe in free love, and they’ve always been accepting of everyone I’ve introduced them to. Even though they’ve never given me a reason to doubt them, I have a feeling Travis is going to be different.
“I’m still in Lake Lure, and I have some news,” I begin, watching the excitement grow on both of their faces. “I’ve met someone, and I think he’s the one.”
Both of them cheer at this information, excitement radiating through the screen. My mom claps her hands together in joy. “Tell us everything about him!”
Where to begin . . .
I tell them how we met and about our date at the ice cream shop—Travis might not think it was a date, but it had all the characteristics of one, so I’m counting it. For the most part, the story sounds like the plot of some cheesy rom-com movie, where you justknowthe characters will end up together.
