When a 14-day dating challenge erupts between skeptical Blossom and her secretly smitten best friend Hunter in the waning days of 1999, their easy friendship is plunged into a maelstrom of teenage angst, unrequited affection, and the terrifying poss...
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~ ~ ~ 1999
The afternoon sun cast long, lazy shadows across Blossom's bedroom floor, doing little to ease the unease that had taken root in her chest. A typical Thursday, yet anything but typical for her. School had been a blur of droning teachers and hallway chatter, none of which had penetrated the fog of her thoughts. Her brother, Ethan, remained a silent, unyielding force in the house, a constant reminder of her recent misstep. The 'sorry' she had whispered countless times felt like it had fallen on deaf ears, leaving a painful, prickly sensation in its wake.
Her gaze drifted across the familiar landscape of her room. Dried lavender, a gift from Hunter from a summer trip two years prior, hung in fragrant bunches from the ceiling. A vibrant watercolour painting, a chaotic swirl of blues and greens, captured the feeling of a monsoon day after a rain, a masterpiece she'd created on her birthday last year. Hunter's gifts and her art were like markers scattered throughout her space, each one a silent, comforting reminder of their bond. It was a tangible history of their friendship, a testament to the countless moments they'd shared. And yet, today, these familiar treasures brought her no comfort. Instead, they were a quiet reminder of the peculiar bet that had taken over her life.
So far, the dates had been...interesting. Despite all of this, she hadn't heard from Hunter about their next adventure. Usually, he would have whisked her away after school or called the house phone by now, detailing his latest plan with a mix of excited urgency. Today, nothing.
A surge of restlessness finally pushed her to her feet. She wasn't about to sit around and wait for her life to happen, even if that life now centred around the strange, romantic experiment that was their bet. She informed her parents that she was going to Hunter's, grabbing the keys to her mom's mini-van. The behemoth of a vehicle was not her preferred mode of transport. It was bulky and cumbersome, and she definitely wasn't the best driver. Still, necessity outweighed her driving anxieties, and she backed out of the driveway, the engine whining in protest.
Hunter lived just outside town, a world away from the cookie-cutter houses lining her block. The road narrowed as she approached his place, the trees encroaching on either side, their limbs forming a green tunnel that led towards the large, weather-beaten house at the end. The house almost seemed to disappear into the foliage, with its moss-covered steps and overgrown garden. It was a world away from her own house, a world she had come to know so well in the last 16 years.
As the van jerked to a halt, she immediately noticed the figures perched precariously on the roof. It was Hunter, shirtless and tanned, his muscles flexing with every swing of the hammer and his dad, equally as rugged, working alongside him. Sunlight glinted off the sweat beading on Hunter's skin, highlighting every line of his back and arms. For a moment, a strange heat flickered in Blossom's stomach, a sensation that was both unfamiliar and unnerving. She quickly pushed it aside, attributing it to the warm afternoon and the fact that he was doing manual labour, nothing more.
