Cruel Summer | ✓

chapter twenty-six

I have officially exceeded my original stay. If the storm hadn't brought down that tree, if I had spent the last two weeks in that dingy room in the Lake View Hotel with its soulless art and staff, I would have checked out yesterday. I'd be back on the road by now, halfway to South Dakota. But I'm still here, and my bank balance just got a boost when the refund finally found its way back to me. I feel spoiled with riches with that extra five hundred dollars in my account — never mind the fact that I could barely buy half a pair of Lou's glasses with that. I pray my vision stays twenty twenty for as long as possible because I'm royally fucked if I ever need prescription lenses.

For now, though, I am rich. I have five hundred bucks I'd already said goodbye to weeks ago, which means, if my girl math is right, I just made a huge profit out of that storm. I dance from the kitchen to the living room, where Lou has just finished up a lesson. School may be back in session today but that doesn't mean the private lessons end — she has a whole bunch of recent graduates on her roster, a handful of adults who have decided to pick up an extra skill a little later on. The girl driving away now graduated high school earlier this year but she didn't get into college; I think she might be trying to pad her application before she retakes the SATs. She was good, actually; I could hear that Lou enjoyed teaching her, that she was soaking everything up like a sponge.

"Get your butt in the car, we're going for lunch." I swing around the doorframe, my sock-covered feet skidding on the smooth wooden floor.

"We are?" Lou's sorting sheet music into folders. She pushes her glasses up her nose to look at me — yellow today, matching the sunshine shade of her short-sleeved dress. It isn't a maxi this time, stopping just below her knees to show off her incredible calves. Her toenails are painted the same shade of pink as her belt. She's a vision of candy colors and I could lick them all right off her.

"I just got my refund. I am positively rolling in it right now so I am buying you lunch." I take her hand and spin her around and pull her in for a kiss. She grins, her teeth against mine.

"Someone's in a good mood."

I am in a good mood. I've been reinvigorated since seeing Ashley and Connor, and Tay had this morning off work so we spent the last couple hours on a video call catching each other up on every aspect of the last two weeks. And I mean every aspect: the whole truth. It spilled out of me like word vomit the moment Tay asked how I'm doing and if I'm back in Austin yet. She said all the right things. I don't know why I kept it from her in the first place. I can't help but wonder if I was keeping it from Gaby. Keeping it from her judgment. But now everything's out in the open and I felt like my old self again, hanging out with my best friend even though we're hundreds of miles apart now. My batteries are recharged after our call and I feel alive with energy and hope. Tay is a firm believer in everything happens for a reason, and I am buoyed up by her enthusiasm.

Lou slips her hand into the back pocket of my shorts, cupping my ass cheek. I tingle at her touch, heat flooding my body and pooling between my legs.

"Or we could just stay here," I say, my head all of a sudden filled with another way we could fill our afternoon.

"Oh, no, lunch on you sounds like perfection," Lou says, pulling me closer by my pocket. "Come on, get this butt in the car." She squeezes. I melt. Her hand stays there as we walk to her car and I miss it when we part, but the moment we're in our seats, Lou rests her hand on my thigh. It doesn't move the whole way into Fisher, her thumb tracing idle patterns over the bare skin where my playsuit has ridden up. When we get to town, she shifts into reverse and parallel parks like a boss. I want her to put her arm behind my headrest to look over her shoulder, but it's equally hot that she does it so smoothly by glancing in her mirrors.