“Mom—” she began but was cut off by a banging noise outside, making her jump as she put her first forkful of pancake into her mouth. “What the hell was that?” She swallowed with difficulty and took a gulp of her coffee while her mom sighed.
“I imagine it’s the mailbox. It came loose in a storm last week and I haven’t had the chance to fix it yet, so every time Roger delivers the mail it practically falls apart.” Kathy stood, blue eyes weary. “I’d better go grab the mail before the wind carries it halfway up the street.”
April waved a hand, standing abruptly. “You sit. I’ll get it.” And sure, if it meant avoiding more discussion about her hair, then all the better. Her mom sat back down, biting her lip as April nudged her plate away from the table’s edge. “I’ll be right back.”
It was strange, just the two of them being there. After the funeral, Noah had been around, and before that there had always been Dad. She’d never needed a buffer before, but now … things felt stilted. Like they were talking around an elephant in the room.
The front door snapped shut behind her and April cursed as she took in the way the front of the mailbox by the gate swung drunkenly open. Thankfully, socks were one thing she’d found plenty of in her old room, so she wasn’t too concerned about the morning dewthat soaked through the cotton while she walked. That was, until the wind kicked up.
April lunged forward, missing the edge of the envelope by a fraction as the wind dragged it across the top of the white picket fence and into the road. Then she wished she’d stopped for shoes, because through the wet socks she felt Every. Single. Stone.
Still, she attempted to grab the letter, bending down to the ground to retrieve it and cursing when it danced just out of reach of her fingers. By the third try, she had become more than a little frustrated.
“Oh, holdstill, damn it—”
The tip of a man’s shoe caught the letter before she could, trapping it on the ground by one corner, and she panted out a relieved “Thank you.”
“No problem.” The voice was smooth, deep, and amused. Annoyingly familiar.
She jerked upright and swallowed hard as her gaze went up, up, up. God, she’d forgotten how tall he was. “Luke,” she said stiffly, brushing the dirt from the envelope before daring another look into his shockingly blue eyes.
“April.” The way he said her name, silky and taunting, had never failed to piss her off. “You look well.”
She stuffed down her irritation in favor of civility. It had been a long time since she’d seen Luke Pointer, and an even longer time since they’d been high-school rivals. Neck and neck for valedictorian, opposing captains of the girls’ and boys’ tennis teams respectively, foreverfighting for first place. She’d been competing with Luke her whole life, and sometimes old habits die hard.
“So do you,” she said, the words stilted and odd even though they were true. A cool breeze ran over them and she gripped the letter tightly so it didn’t fly off again. Shivering slightly, she nodded to the house opposite her mom’s. “You visiting your parents?”
“Yeah, we have a standing breakfast date every Saturday.” He smiled in the direction of the house, just across the street from her own, before glancing back at her. His eyes dropped to her chest and his lips twitched before he looked away. What—he had a problem with her shirt? Maybe their rivalry wasn’t as buried as she’d thought. “I like the hair,” he said eventually, when she remained quiet. “It suits you.”
Was he being sarcastic? Her eyes narrowed as she squinted at him suspiciously. “Thank you.”
He nodded, the breeze playing with the dark hair that curled slightly above his ears as a hint of pink touched his cheeks. “I better get inside; coffee’s getting cold.” He lifted the bag she hadn’t even realized he was carrying. “But I’ll see you around?”
“Sure.” The word was clipped, wary, and when he took a step toward her she immediately took one back. It didn’t deter him, though. A large hand cupped her jaw and she froze. The warmth was pleasant, though the touch was wholly unexpected, and a strange fluttering kicked up in her stomach when Luke’s thumb brushed across her bottom lip.
He let her go as quickly as he’d reached for her, smiling crookedly while she blinked at him in shocked silence. Then he lifted the thumb to his mouth and sucked. “Blackberry jam,” he said, grinning. “Say hi to your mom.”
“Yeah,” she said faintly. “Sure.” But Luke was already walking away and toward the house on the opposite side of the street, glancing back just once before he went inside.
It wasn’t until she shivered again that she was able to pull herself out of her trance and walk back toward her parents’ house in her lightly soggy socks. Her outfit wasn’t quite early-March-appropriate and without a bra she was cutting glass in the middle of the street—not that it mattered much; only Luke had seen her and she couldn’t care less about what he thought. Jam incident inclusive, it was the kind of crap he’d been pulling on her since they were teenagers. Anything to get in her head and throw her off her game. Though, what his intentions were that morning was anybody’s guess. Who knew how Luke’s twisted, brilliant mind worked?
The door shut quietly behind her and she wrinkled her nose as she peeled off the damp socks and padded back into the kitchen barefoot. Her mom took the letter from April’s outstretched hand and raised an eyebrow.
“You were gone a while.”
“You were right. It flew up the street,” she said, the words not quite a lie.
“I thought I heard voices.”
“That’s brave of you to admit,” she said, settling back in front of her plate and frowning at the blackberry jam on her plate. Kathy snorted and April bit back her smirk. It was good to see her mom happy, even if it was only for a moment. “So, last night …” She tried again, eager to change the subject away from anything to do with Luke Pointer. “I came down for water and you were asleep on the sofa.”
Kathy sipped from her sage-green mug, fingers tapping the sides gently. “I must have dozed off.”
“Mom—”
“What happened in New York, April?”
Any lingering warmth in her veins turned to ice and April’s mouth snapped shut as they eyed each other across the table, a stalemate. Fine. She didn’t want to talk about the sofa? Well, April didn’t want to talk about New York. Not yet. “The pancakes are good. I missed them.”