Summer and May

Chapter Thirty-One: May

Brooks pulled up in my driveway exactly at seven p.m., like he said he would. He opened my door, he slowed at all yellow lights, and used his turn signal at every opportunity. He even shook my dad's hand before we left. I had never seem him act like such a gentleman. But then again, this was something I had never looked for in him before. Brooks was always kind to me, but this kind of treatment was different.

We left town for our date, although he wouldn't tell me where he was taking me. Once we passed three highway exits, I couldn't take it anymore.

"I can't even get a hint?"

His eyes toyed around with the idea, his lips smirking at me. "Dinner and dessert."

"Out of town? It must be someplace special. Am I underdressed?" I smoothed out my skirt, one that had gone untouched in my closet for over a year.

He shook his head. "You look fine, just trust me."

We finally pulled up to a restaurant that I didn't recognize, but it was Italian. Brooks knew Italian food was my guilty pleasure, but we only had one Italian restaurant in Shimmer Lake, and it had closed last year. He urged me to get whatever I wanted, which was Chicken Alfredo with extra parmesan cheese.

Conversation over dinner was easy, perhaps because we'd done this hundreds of times. Brooks was the person I spent so many hours with, behind my dad and Summer. We'd had dozens of meals together, but never one at a fancy place like this. We chatted the entire time like two old friends rather than a couple on a first date.

Dessert wasn't at the restaurant like I originally predicted. I knew Brooks better than most, but everything about tonight was unpredictable. I got a knot in my stomach thinking about that awkward kiss after a first date, wondering if that was even the direction this night was heading in. It felt nothing like a date, but I took that as a sign that our friendship was strong enough to sustain anything that may try to interfere.

The car slowed to a stop in a gravel lot, filling me with a keen sense of deja vu. Brooks waited for me to catch on, but I was failing miserably.

"We've been here before, but... when? And what even is it? It's tiny. And kind of dark." I squinted in the direction of the tiny home-turned-business, searching my memories as he opened my car door.

His smile was unmissable, like a kid opening gifts on Christmas. He threw an arm around my shoulder like he had so many times before, his face lingering so close to mine, even with our drastic height difference.

"We're almost halfway to the lake house. When we were kids, my parents would always stop here to get us..."

"Smiley Pastries?" I finally guess, and he nods slowly. I double over in laughter. "No way! We loved this place! It's been... God, how long has it been?"

We traipse in together, reliving old memories. "Do you remember when we were six, and you managed to get icing in your nose somehow?" He asked. We traded stories back and forth for another hour, laughing over ice cream. The small parlor had made some improvements over the years, but the red stools at the counter were still squeaky. The place smelled the exact same. We occupied the same booth, colored in bright pink and yellow, that we always had.

Predictably, I was in the middle of a brain freeze while laughing over our last trip to the lake house, before Brooks and I kissed, and before both Summer and I fought with Jeremy. A twinge of guilt tugged at me, knowing that Summer had no idea how involved I really was. It had been eating at me for over a week, but this was my first time tonight thinking about it. Brooks seemed to notice, and he reached his hand over the booth to grab mine.

He squeezed my fingers delicately, his eyes roaming from my knuckles to my eyes. It was a moment that, in a fairytale, should have lasted forever. It should have sent an electric shock up my arm. And when he leaned over the booth to kiss me, it should have given me butterflies. But when our lips locked, like they have a handful of times now, it felt like kissing a friend.