Page 40 of One Last Time

When I put the milk back in the refrigerator, I noticed a mostly empty bottle of rosé wine chilling in there and my nose wrinkled. Since when did Dad drink rosé? And in themiddle of the week? Dad’s idea of a drink was two light beers on a Saturday night or maybe, if he was feeling fancy, a glass of red wine.

And then it hit me.

“Was Linda here this week?” I asked Brad.

“Yeah,” he said, apparently not in the least bit bothered. “Hey, can you add some honey to my oatmeal? She did that the other morning and it wasgreat.”

“Wait, she was herein the morning? Like, shespent the night?”

Brad pulled a face at me, like he didn’t get why it was such a big deal, like I was acting crazy. “Uh,yeah.She, like, passed out on the couch watching a movie.”

Lee hastily turned a chuckle into a cough and waggled his eyebrows at me. I glared back at him. Her wine was in the refrigerator, she was messing with the way we made oatmeal for Brad, she was staying overnight….Wasn’t this all moving way too fast for someone Dad had just been on a date with, like, a week ago?

(Except it wasn’t just a week, was it? It had been going on since, like, spring break, by the sound of it.)

“Sure,” I mumbled, slamming the refrigerator door closed. “I can put some honey in your oatmeal.”

Brad ignored me completely after that, in favor of chatting with Lee (well, at him, really). He kept talking to Lee, barely stopping to say thanks, when I put his breakfast down in front of him.

I left them to it, finishing off the cupcakes and carefully packing them back into the Tupperware—setting a couple containers aside to take back to the beach house, obviously.

“Okay! Donotforget to bring the containers back, okay? They’re Levi’s. If you lose them, they’re coming out of your allowance. Dad said so.”

Brad pulled a box toward him to scrutinize the cupcakes. “You don’t get the frosting as good as Levi,” he grumbled.

“What’s your problem?” I snapped. “Are you still jealous because Dad won’t let you come to the beach house? I told you, maybe you can stay one night. If you’re good.”

Lee clapped Brad on the shoulder. “Psst. Hey, don’t worry, little guy. I got this. We’ll talk them around.”

“Thanks, Lee.”

A little while later, we took Brad to the baseball camp he was spending a few weeks at during the day, and it was still early enough that we decided to pull into the 7-Eleven for Slurpees.

“Howdy there, folks, what can I get you this fine morning?”

I spun around with a grin. “Levi!”

He was stacking boxes of tampons on a shelf and grinned back. Levi was tall and lean, with kind of gangly limbs and curly brown hair, a pointed chin, and warm eyes. He had a wide, friendly smile—the kind that made you feel like you’d just made his day.

Sometimes, though, I got the feeling that he didn’t smile ateverybodylike that.

(It was still awkward to remember Thanksgiving, when I’d kissed him. But we’d both forgotten all about that by now—or at least put itwaybehind us.)

“Levi, my friend,” Lee announced, clasping his hands behind his back and rocking on his heels, “put down the tampons! We require ten of your coldest Slurpees.”

“T-ten? You bring the rest of the gang, too, or something?”

“It’s from our bucket list,” I explained as he put the last boxes on the shelf and walked us over to the cash register and the Slurpee machine. “And I want the blue one.”

“Guess that means I’m red.” Lee sighed.

Levi knew all about the bucket list. I’d obviously told him everything, but we’d also been posting a bunch of our escapades so far online so our friends could keep up with all the madness.

“Aah,” he said, starting to pour the first one. “Is this for the great brain-freeze contest?”

“That it is,” I told him with a grin.

“You don’t think three each is enough?”