Page 5

Gabi coughed out a chuckle. “God no, they need me. I’ll still be working there, but only during the days. I took a second job.”

“You took…a second job?”

Gabi nodded. “Yes, as a bartender over at Wilson’s Pub,” she started. “Remember how I said I was getting my bartending license? Well, I finished, and now I’ll be working there to make extra money.”

Rory shook her head, pacing back and forth for a moment as she let all of this sink in. Second job. Bartending. Working nights. “You’re already not home that much.”

“I know, sweetie. And I’m sorr—”

“Why?” Rory cut her off again. “I don’t get it. We’re doing fine. You said the house is paid off.”

Gabi’s shoulders dropped. “Because you’re a senior bound for college. And I don’t want you to have to take out too many loans.”

She lifted her arms out at her sides. “That is insane! I don’t even know where I want to go to college, let alone if I want to go.”

“Rory, you’re going to college.”

She stopped pacing and stared at Gabi, who now had her arms crossed against her chest. Her face was stern, a look Rory had honestly only seen a handful of times in her life. The time she came home drunk. The time she flunked out of chemistry and had to take it again the following year. The day she told her she took a job at Scoops, even though Gabi told her countless times not to get a job and to focus instead on studying for the SATs.

It made no sense why her mother was so obsessive about her going to college. Was it because Rory Gilmore was desperate to go to college? Was it because Gabi never got the chance to go herself? Whenever she tried to broach the subject, she always got the same answer: Because it’s just what you do. But she knew there was more to the story.

She shook her head and crossed her arms, looking away from Gabi and out the sliding glass door leading to their backyard.

“Sweetie, please try to understand.”

“Whatever,” she said tightly. She charged for the back door, only pausing to deliver what she knew was a harsh and probably unfair blow. “You do what you need to do.”

She didn’t listen for a response as she slid the door closed with rattling force. She kept moving down the back porch steps and onto the lawn, her mind reeling as she charged for the play set. She sank down on a swing and placed her face in her hands.

She knew it was stupid to be so mad about this. She should be happy to have the ultimate freedom to do as she pleased. More movie marathons and cereal for dinner, more chances to avoid her homework and stay up late. But instead, the entire situation made her feel like a giant dark cloud hovered over her, blanketing her with a deep sadness she couldn’t make sense of. She didn’t want to give Gabi the satisfaction of knowing she was lonely, that she missed spending time with her. And yet, a tiny part of her wanted to say screw it to her pride, charge back in that house, and plead for her not to take the job.

The soft ping of a net next door pulled her out of her head. She peeked out from her hands and looked out to the lawn next door as a shirtless Tyler retrieved a football from the ground. He walked a few paces then turned back to face the net, posturing himself again for another perfect throw. He tightened his shoulders and turned to the side, clutching the ball tightly to his chest. He paused, his eyebrows knitted together as he homed in on the tiny red square at the center of the net. Then, in one swift movement, he made the throw, the ball spiraling effortlessly through the air, making the same pinging noise as it hit dead center of the target before bouncing down to the grass.

She watched as Tyler’s shoulders relaxed, his expression one of satisfaction. She couldn’t help but take in the smooth ridges of his bare chest, his sweat making his light brown skin gleam beneath the unseasonably warm sunlight.

When did Tyler get so…ripped? Gone was the boy she used to play with in the backyard, all scrawny bones and lanky limbs as he chased her around the lawn. Now he was all muscle and brawn, his shoulders and pecs chiseled like a Greek god’s, his hair trimmed into a fresh fade. He even had a set of abs that she’d never noticed before, even after spending countless days at the beach together that summer.

Maybe I just wasn’t looking, she thought to herself.

Tyler turned then, his gaze shifting toward the swing where she was perched. She glanced away quickly, feeling her cheeks get warm, and wondered if he could sense her checking him out.

Her…checking Tyler out.

For years, he’d been the brother she never had. Rory vividly remembered the day he and his family moved in next door from New Orleans. She watched from that same swing as Tyler jumped out of the car, immediately running for the backyard, his mother steps behind him with a toddler at her hip—a little girl with two poofy pigtails tied with bright pink bows at the top of her head. Tyler ran up to the swing set and asked if he could join Rory, and she nodded enthusiastically, if not a little surprised. She would never forget how hopeful she felt that day, swinging next to her new friend, realizing she wouldn’t be so alone in the neighborhood anymore. They were seven.

But now here she was, a decade later, no longer looking at the boy next door as her brother, but something more. She physically shook the thought away. What was wrong with her? Was it because of what happened this summer? The party? The vile words she’d said to him? Or, more likely, was it the confession that had brazenly come from Jay’s lips?

Rory felt the phantom crushing in her chest, the same one she felt when Jay had screamed at her that summer at Scoops. He’d wanted her to pretend to flirt with him to get the attention of some girl, and she completely lost it. She screamed back, telling him how absurd he was in his mission to constantly get into someone’s pants. And in their back and forth, he just told her, like it meant nothing. Like having Tyler standing right there wasn’t a big deal as Jay confessed Tyler’s feelings for her after a decade of harboring them in his heart.

She remembered the awkward silence as Melanie watched from the sidelines before Calvin sent him home for the night. She remembered bolting herself moments later, afraid to look Tyler in the eyes, afraid of what she would find there.

She hadn’t spoken to either of them since. But it seemed, as a shadow cast above Rory, blocking out the sunlight above her, that their bout of silence was about to end.

She looked up to find Tyler right in front of her, a bead of sweat trickling down his forehead.

“How’d it go today?” he asked.

She just shrugged, finding a spot above his left ear to focus on. “Fine, I guess. How was practice?”