17. Andrea

CHAPTER 17

Andrea

S andy's cats come flying at us the second we step in the door, nearly sending one of the sculptures in the entryway toppling off its stand. Naomi stoops down to oblige them with scratches while I pull my heels off.

"These things are killer," I say in a hushed voice as I wriggle my cramped toes against the cool stone of the entryway floor.

"I don't know how you managed to dance in those," Naomi says, keeping her voice quiet too.

We're the only ones here, but something about coming home at night all dressed up to a mostly dark house still has that illicit, sneaking-home-after-a-party feel to it. Once Naomi gets her sandals off, we pad through the house on our tiptoes like we're scared to make the floor creak.

"So…" I say, daring to be a bit louder once I've led us into the living room—or at least, one of the several living rooms—and flopped down on the couch. "What do you want to do now?"

It's just past ten. We ended up dancing in the market for three whole songs before I persuaded Naomi to let me buy her a replacement ice cream cone for the one she dropped when I kissed her.

The whole crowd smiled and clapped for us when we stopped twirling around. In fact, one guy smiled a little too much and then stepped over to tell me I have a very pretty girlfriend as we were heading back to the ice cream stand.

Girlfriend.

The word is still bouncing around in my head, despite the fact that it was some random creepy dude who said it.

Girlfriend.

I played it on repeat the whole ride home, like that single word made up an entire song I could strum on my guitar, only I'm not sure I know the right chords.

I can play the Summer Fling song. I even managed the Boyfriend of Convenience tune for a while, but Naomi—

Naomi deserves a whole symphony, and I don't know if I could give her that.

"Well…" she says as she sits down next to me. "We could…kiss again?"

She looks down at where the hem of that gorgeous blue dress is brushing her knees. I watch her curl her fingers around the edge of the fabric, and I decide all my thoughts can wait.

I shift closer to her. "I'd say that sounds like a pretty solid option."

She huffs a laugh, still toying with the edge of her dress. "Okay, but first I have to tell you something."

There's a nervousness in her voice that tells me to lay off on the flirting for a moment. Instead, I shift so I'm facing her with my legs crossed in front of me.

"Of course. I'm all ears."

She turns to mirror my pose so we're face to face. "I don't think I'm ready to have sex."

I blink.

Whatever I was expecting her to say, it wasn't that.

Before I can come up with a response, she squeezes her eyes shut and starts speaking so fast I can barely keep up.

"I know not being ready for sex at eighteen is kind of weird, and I mean, who knows? Maybe I'll feel different soon, but the truth is…well, the truth is that before yesterday, I hadn't even kissed anybody since the sixth grade, and that only happened because of a game of truth or dare. I don't know how this whole summer fling thing works, or what you want, or what you expect. I'm not very good at knowing what people expect in general, and I just…I wanted to tell you I'm not ready yet. Just so you know."

She takes a big gulp of air and then sits perfectly still with her eyes still scrunched shut.

The last thing I want to do is laugh, but she just looks so freaking cute I have to let a couple seconds tick by in silence while I fight the chuckle trying to climb up my throat.

"Naomi," I say once I've got myself under control, "thank you for telling me. That means a lot. I really don't have any expectations at all when it comes to sex. I guess you don't know this, but I've never had sex with a girl. I'm not sure if I'm ready for that either."

She opens one eye just enough to peek at me. "You…oh."

Now I do let myself laugh. "Yeah. Oh."

She opens both her eyes and tucks her hair behind her ears.

"And just so you know," I tell her, "I don't think there's any official rule about needing to have sex with someone for them to be your summer fling, so we're still meeting the bucket list requirements."

An expression I can't read flits across her face for a second before it disappears.

"Right," she says. "The list."

The list.

The whole reason we're doing this. The whole reason I even bothered to stay more than a few days at this house.

At least, that's what I've been telling myself.

"Come here."

I crook my finger to beckon her closer. I need the distraction. I need the excuse to shut my thoughts off and forget everything except how good it feels to wrap my arms around her and press my lips to hers.

I've watched the video of me and Naomi dancing in the ByWard Market so many times over the past week I've probably sat through the equivalent of an entire movie's worth of footage. That doesn't stop me from pressing play again as I sit out on the deck with my guitar resting by my side while I give my fingers a break.

On the screen, I watch as Naomi places her hand in mine. I pull her to me fast enough to make the skirt of her dress flare before we spend a couple awkward seconds figuring out what to do with our arms.

A bird nestled in the bushes across the backyard tweets loud enough to make me lift my head and realize I've been smiling at my phone like an idiot. A couple more birds start trilling high-pitched notes to signal the start of the sunset.

The mosquitoes will be descending any second now, but I can probably get a little more practice in before I'm forced back inside.

Naomi is at her parents' place for dinner, and I've been out on the deck since she left a couple hours ago. Something about being alone in the giant house was making my skin crawl. I hadn't realized how much I'd stopped noticing all the photos of Sandy's sons on the walls.

With Naomi and her friends filling the rooms and hallways, I felt like I could get swept up in the house sitting fantasy too. Using some huge estate as a summer playground with nobody to keep tabs on us and nothing but some hairless cats to worry about has some serious escapist appeal.

Only it's not a random rich couple's house. It's my father's house, and everything in it is a reminder of the life he's built without me and my mom. Everything is a reminder of the code I just can't crack, the one that keeps him behind glass and out of reach, always distant, always leaving me with a ‘just ask your mother instead' no matter how hard I try to get a different answer.

The thought of my mom has me swiping through my phone to get to our text conversation before I can stop myself. As usual, she's been trying to get me to phone her for days, but I don't know what new information she could so desperately need to give me after the last time I worked up the nerve to call her back.

That was just before we went on the road trip to the water park. I got the usual speech about how ‘baffled' and ‘exasperated' she is by my life choices, as well as a reminder that my ‘real life' is waiting for me in Toronto.

I know the texts will just keep coming if I don't do something, so I groan loud enough to make the birds go silent and then lift the phone to my ear. She picks up midway through the second ring.

"Andrea, it's been days," she says, skipping right past the part where a normal person would say hello. "I cannot keep chasing after you like this. You are going to be part of a professional team soon. People are going to depend on you, and you need to learn how to handle that. It might be my company, but not everyone there will be as forgiving as me."

If I'd been in the middle of drinking something, that comment would have had me doing a full-on spit take.

"Forgiving. Right."

"You can drop the sarcasm right now," she shoots back. "Now, onto the reason I've been trying to get you on the phone all week. I want to make sure this gets through to you loud and clear. I have a meeting in Ottawa next Friday, and I'll be picking you up from your father's house that Saturday so we can fly back to Toronto together. I've already bought you a ticket."

My spine stiffens like someone has crept up behind me and poured a bucket of ice water down the back of my shirt.

"But the internship doesn't start for another two weeks. Why do I need to—"

She cuts me off with a sigh. "Andrea, it's time to stop playing games. We agreed on a gap year, and that year is up. You need to come home and get prepared to start this position, if it's still something you want."

Most people would miss it, but I hear the slight falter in her voice before she tacks that last part on. There's an echoing tremor somewhere deep in my chest as I listen to her breathing fill the silence.

If I give up on this internship, I'll be giving up on her. I'll be giving up on everything she's built for us, just like my dad did when he refused to fight for our family.

"Mom…"

My voice cracks, and I have to stop and clear my throat. The birds are singing again, and as I listen to the music filling the air, I consider telling her everything: how this city makes me feel like I can breathe after years of suffocating in Toronto, how sick to my stomach I feel when I imagine walking through the doors at the company headquarters, how I still have no idea what I want my life to look like but can't shake the feeling that it involves Naomi Waters twirling around in a blue summer dress.

I grip the phone extra tight as the lump in my throat threatens to choke me.

I can't tell her any of that, even though the words are swarming inside me like a flock of birds desperate to escape my body and sing their song for the sun. I can't tell her because I know it wouldn't be good enough. I wouldn't be good enough.

I don't have some wildly ambitious dream or shiny business plan to present her with. I don't have the goals and checklists she already had on lock at my age. I just have this split-second flash in the corner of my vision every once in a while, like a frantic wave from the universe as it begs me to turn my head and look at the mysterious something it's holding out to me.

Even I know how crazy that sounds. She doesn't need to tell me that's not a good enough reason to turn down the career she's offering on a silver platter.

"Look, Andrea, I know it's scary."

The sudden tenderness in her voice almost makes me drop my phone.

"You're probably feeling exactly how I felt when I opened my first studio. I was so afraid I almost wanted to shut the whole thing down before the first class."

Something cracks deep in my chest as I mumble, "You were scared?"

"Terrified," she answers, "but deep down, I knew what I wanted, and no amount of fear could take that away. I know you're scared now, but ever since you were a little girl, you've been telling me taking this business on someday has been your dream too. You have no idea how proud that makes me, and I know if you just come back home to Toronto, you're going to remember who you are and what you want."

My knees knock together where I've pulled them up to my chest, and I realize I'm trembling.

She's never told me she was scared. Some na?ve part of me really believed she'd never been scared in her entire life.

I shut my eyes and picture it again, the same scene I've been playing in my head like a movie for years: me in a pantsuit just like the ones she wears, the two of us walking side by side up the steps to Valerie Madden Studios HQ while clutching matching water bottles.

I wait for that moment she described to hit me, the one where the fear melts away and the sense of being exactly where you're supposed to be takes over.

I'm still waiting when she says, "Just be ready for the flight, okay?"

The vulnerability in her voice is gone, and she's back to sounding like the no-nonsense business woman who raised me. She says goodbye and hangs up a moment later, but I'm still waiting for that moment when everything will make sense.

I stay out on the deck for so long the birds stop singing and my arms and legs get puckered with mosquito bites, but I just sit there waiting.

And waiting.

And waiting.

Just when I'm about to give up, the kitchen door slides open, and Naomi steps out onto the deck.