Page 6 of Secret Triplets, Second Chances

JAKE

“ W ell, you were right,” Lara says from her spot on the other end of the boat. “It’s way better in the summer.”

She’s a picture of beauty, wearing a striped navy swimsuit and a large sun hat, a little smear of white over her cheeks. When she jumped into my truck, it was with a tote bag of sunscreen and a warning from her mother to reapply regularly.

“According to her,” Lara had said, “freckles mean skin cancer.”

Now, we’re on a little rowboat I rented from the shack near the dock, and she’s relaxing as I row us around. The waterfall on the other end of the lake is louder now than it was in the winter, and I swear I can feel the rumble of it under the water.

“Everything is better in the summer,” I say, eyes traveling up her long legs, tracing the shape of her hip, climbing up to her shoulders.

I know I’m obsessed with her. Maybe it’s a problem, how much I like her. If anyone knew about us, if I could talk to someone else about this feeling, maybe they would tell me that you’re not supposed to like every single thing about your girlfriend.

That you’re not supposed to obsess over her elbows and tug on the ends of her hair.

That you’re not supposed to run to the next town in the middle of the night just because she wants a Snickers.

That guys shouldn’t join shared Pinterest boards and add apartment decorations to a curation she’s making for our space in Michigan.

But I don’t care.

If any of my buddies did know, and they told me I was whipped, I’d tell them any man would be.

Maybe if I had parents I could talk to about this whole thing, they’d tell me that Lara and I are too young.

But I’d tell them that love doesn’t wait, that when you feel this comfortable in silence with another person, and you can easily see your forever stretching out before you, it doesn’t make any sense to wait.

“Everything?” she asks, dropping her sunglasses and looking at me over the top of them. If we weren’t in public right now, weren’t in the very middle of this lake, I’d crawl over her, tickle her, get my hands in her hair.

“Yeah,” I say, reaching out and jostling her sandaled foot with mine, “everything.”

She laughs and drops her head back, rearranging her body in a way I swear is meant to torture me. A moment passes, and I ask, as casually as I can, “Did you get a chance to talk to your parents?”

Lara doesn’t open her eyes, just reaches out and rests her arm on the side of the boat so her fingertips trail through the water. I rest the paddles and let us drift, staring at the ripples that follow in her wake.

“Not yet,” she says, mouth barely moving, looking almost like she’s falling asleep. “They’re still mad at me for the whole not applying to college thing.”

I bite my tongue. Lara isn’t used to her parents being upset with her. The night they argued, I’d held her in my arms while she cried, not understanding the close relationship she had with them.

My dad and I are so hardened against each other at this point that we don’t even talk to each other. I followed through on my promise to block him, and I go out of my way to make sure I don’t see him at the house. When there’s a job to work, Lawrence reaches out, and he’s the one to pay me, too.

Every lock on my door is engaged when I’m sleeping, and I lock the door behind me when I leave. I treat my own home like a campsite, leaving no trace that I ever existed there.

“I’m sorry,” I finally say, hating the fact that I’ve affected her relationship with her parents, who seem like good people. There’s the strangest urge in me to get to know them. To get their approval, see if they like me.

“It’s not your fault. I know why they’re mad.” She sits up, rubs her eyes and drops her hat into her lap. “We’ve always been honest with each other. I think, more than being angry, they’re upset that I felt I couldn’t be honest with them.”

“That’s…” I trail off, not even sure what to say about that. What would it be like to have people who cared about you like that?

Lara pinches the bridge of her nose, and I feel sorry for bringing it up.

I didn’t want to disturb her peace like this.

“They think I’m going backpacking with Zachery, even though I never said that.

I guess it was just an assumption. And they’re really excited for me to do that.

My dad even bought me this huge, hideous backpack he said was just like the one he took. ”

I go still for a moment, wondering if I should tell her to go with Zachery. Maybe coming with me to Michigan isn’t what’s best for her.

She’s special. And maybe backpacking through Europe would open her world a lot more than Ann Arbor could.

“Stop whatever you’re thinking,” she says, pressing on the center of my forehead with her pointer finger.

“I want to come to Michigan, Jake. I love Zachery, but backpacking through Europe with him…” she lets out a breath of air that ruffles her bangs.

“I’d basically be like his mom, and I think he knows that.

That’s why he wants me to come — to take care of him when he’s hungover and figure out the public transportation. Zachery is terrible at navigation.”

I’m great at navigation. For a fleeting moment, I almost wish I was the kind of kid who could do something like take a gap year and backpack across Europe. But I need this scholarship to propel my future, my career.

“Hey.” Lara’s voice is serious, and when I refocus on her, she brings her hands to the side of my face, her thumbs swiping over the stubble I’ve let grow there. Her hands are cool, and they instantly calm me. “I’ll talk to them, okay?”

I pause, just to keep her hands on my face, and let this moment stretch out between us. Then, I let out a breath, smile, and say, “Okay.”

When I slip into the house hours later, I’m pleasantly pink and still buzzing from kissing Lara in my truck. Hidden behind the landscaping at the edge of the property, I’d slipped my fingers under the still-damp hem of her jean shorts, but she pulled back, breathless and smiling.

“I’ll talk to them,” she’d said before she pulled away and hopped out. I’d crept the truck forward, watching her walk the length of the driveway and slipping inside the house.

I’d hidden how much I wanted to meet her parents. When I brought it up, she always made it seem like it would be a hassle for her. I had to fight the feeling in my gut that told me she was ashamed of me, that she knew her parents wouldn’t approve of her being with a dumb jock.

They definitely wouldn’t approve of her throwing away her future and moving to Michigan with said dumb jock, where she wouldn’t even be going to school.

“Jake?”

I jump, dropping my keys on the floor. The noise isn’t that loud in reality, but as I bend down to pick them up, I feel like a gun has just gone off.

“Dad,” I say, straightening up and meeting his eyes. Like usual, he’s drunk, sitting at the table, one hand gripping the edge like he might fall over without the support, and the other loosely around a bottle of whiskey.

He’s not even bothering with the shot glass beside the bottle. I can always tell the kind of night when he’s been drinking straight from the source, putting aside pretense completely.

His five o’clock shadow is all salt-and-pepper, and for the first time in my life, I realize he’s getting old.

Not only that, but I can see how the drinking is aging him too fast, the lines around his eyes and on his forehead that wouldn’t be there without it.

The acceleration of his life, each drink pushing him closer to some sort of collapse.

I glance down the hallway, see Shelby’s door shut and no light under it, and I hope she’s over at a friend’s house. It’s not often Dad is home on a night like this, and it’s not usually a good thing when he’s here.

“Where have you been?” he asks, and I laugh, which wasn’t the right way to keep him calm. He bristles, “What the hell you laughin’ about?”

“You lost the right to ask me that a long time ago,” I say, moving to walk past him. “You check out of my life, then have the nerve to ask me where I’ve been.”

He stands, blocking my path, and I swallow down the nervousness that rises at the bottom of my throat. I don’t want to fight him, for multiple reasons.

First, because I could get hurt, and hockey is everything to me right now. And second, because if the cops are called, the Michigan coach still has time to withdraw his offer to me. I don’t have any wiggle room, and I won’t jeopardize my spot.

“You’re living under my roof,” he growls.

“I’m eighteen,” I fire back.

“That’s right,” he says, satisfaction oozing over his features. “So you should be paying me some rent, right?”

I bite my tongue and force back the urge to hit him. I’ve never hated him more than I do at this moment. What kind of man extorts his own kids for money and waits for them to come home so he can pick on them?

My eyes dart to Shelby’s room, and not for the first time, I think about taking her with me, convincing her to live with me in Michigan.

Could the three of us make it work? Maybe Shelby could enroll in high school there. Maybe she and Lara would become friends.

My sister and I aren’t that close, but I get the feeling that even if I asked her to leave, Shelby would say no. She still has a soft spot for Dad that hardened over in me a long time ago.

“Here,” I snap, digging into my pocket and slapping a few twenties into his limp palm. It’s not much, but the violence of the movement soothes the urge to push him out of my way. “Here’s your fucking rent. And don’t worry about next month. I won’t be here.”

He opens his mouth to say something else, but I’m already down the hallway, heart pounding in my throat. I unlock my door smoothly, close and lock it behind me, and get to work on packing up my things so I’ll be ready to get out of this town the second I can.