Summer Forever (3 page)

Bayleigh’s car is in the driveway when I get home after class. She had texted me asking for a last-minute babysitter and I told her I’d be available at five. I glance at the clock on my dashboard—it is exactly four fifty-two.

Jett’s laughter bursts through the front door as I make my way inside. Mom is on the floor in our living room, making gooey baby faces at him while he stands on shaky little chubby legs, playing with her.

“You’re early,” I say, dropping my books and purse on the coffee table. Mom excuses herself saying she has a hair appointment and threatens to steal Jett so she can show him off to her friends at the salon.

As soon as she’s out of the house, the door closing securely behind her, Bayleigh’s eyes bug out of her head. “I’m early because I need time to chat with you before going to the movie with Jace.”

“What’s up?” I ask, kicking off my shoes and settling down with Jett on the floor. He hands me a stuffed bunny that he carries with him everywhere and I make the bunny hop around until Jett laughs.

“You tell me what’s up,” she says, giving me those eyes that says she’s up to something mischievous.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

She folds her arms over her chest and looks at me with her creepy mother-knows-all look. “Well then tell me why Jace was on the phone with Park last night, telling him not to worry and that it’ll be fine?”

“He said what?” My outburst ruins the calm composure I had tried so hard to develop. “Jace and Park talk about stuff like that? But they’re men.”

“Men can call up a friend to complain about relationship problems you know. So tell me what happened. Why was Jace telling him it would be fine? Did you two get into a fight?”

I shake my head. “No I’m just being impossible as always.”

“He didn’t say that,” Bayleigh says, although I’m certain she’s lying. Jace tells her everything but he’s also a guy and guys don’t share details because they’re typically too bored to recall them.

I try to busy myself with Jett but Bayleigh is insistent. Finally, after glancing in the driveway to make sure Dad’s not home and Mom’s car is officially gone, I tell her. I tell her about my worries and my fears and the sex thing.

It’s the sex thing that makes her mouth fall open.

“You haven’t had sex yet? Like, seriously?”

Blood rushes to my face and I shake my head. “Nope.”

“Have you gotten close?”

“I mean…not really.”

“Wow!” Bayleigh laughs and then immediately claps her hand over her mouth. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to laugh. Look at you, you’re so well adjusted and proper. That’s impressive.”

“It isn’t funny, Bay. It’s actually annoying. See, I can’t stop worrying that not only is he leaving his entire life behind to come here and be with me, and that’s got its own problems, but what if he does all of that and then finds out that I’m terrible in bed?”

“Everyone’s terrible in bed at first,” Bayleigh says. “If Jace wasn’t super helpful with me then I’m not even sure I’d have known what to do,” she admits. Her cheeks blush a moment later. “Besides,” she says, shrugging off the memories that had so obviously formed in her mind, “Park will do the same with you. You won’t totally suck at sex, I promise.”

“How can you promise me that? You haven’t had sex with me.”

Bayleigh rolls her eyes. “I promise you that Park will like having sex with you. If he doesn’t, I’ll give you a money back guarantee.”

We laugh and then I lie on my stomach to play with Jett as he baby crawls across the living room rug. The sex thing is still on my mind but I’m trying very hard not to let it get to me. To pretend that everything is cool and peachy and fine.

“I gotta go,” Bayleigh says a few minutes later. “I didn’t realize date nights were so great until I didn’t have them for a few months.”

“They say it keeps a relationship together,” I say, dolling out advice I’ve only heard second-hand.

I walk Bayleigh to the door and she shakes her head. “No, honey. Date nights don’t keep us together…” Her eyes narrow and she gives me this creepy look. “The sex does!” She cracks up into laugher and I shove her toward the door. “You can go away now,” I say, glancing back at Jett who is starting to fall asleep with his bunny in his arms.

“Seriously though,” she says, stopping in the doorway and putting her tiny hand with its massive diamond ring on my shoulder. “Don’t let sex stress you out. It’s supposed to be fun.”

I sigh. “It’s like, every day it doesn’t happen is another reason for me to worry. Sex wasn’t that big of a deal at first and now it’s a huge deal, at least in my mind.”

Her lips squish to the side of her mouth. “Park hasn’t been asking you to do it?”

I shake my head. “He’s too….gentlemanly.”

This gets a laugh out of her and if I were in her position, I might laugh too. After all, Park had the reputation of being a ladies man before I met him. “The fact that he used to be some kind of player and now he’s in a relationship with me and hasn’t—you know—I just, I wonder if there’s something wrong with
me
.”

Bayleigh’s eyes go serious and she squeezes my shoulder. “Don’t you dare say that, Becca Sosa! You are so good enough for that boy. You’re better than good enough.”

“Thanks,” I say with a smile that’s so forced it probably looks like a frown.

“I love you,” she says. “This will be okay. You’ll see.”

“I love you, too,” I mumble back as I watch my best friend skip down my driveway without a care in the world.

The next morning, my phone’s vibrating wakes me up at an hour that should be off limits unless there’s some kind of emergency. Wait. Maybe it is an emergency. I flop over in bed in a panic, thinking the worst. Maybe Bayleigh is calling form the emergency room of Lawson General.

But the moment my sleepy eyes focus on the cell phone screen, I frown. It wasn’t a call or a text that had sent my phone into hyperactive buzzing mode—it was alerts from my email. Apparently I sold a few paintings.

Wait… no.

All of them.

I sit up in bed, tossing off the comforter because suddenly everything’s gone all hot on me. This must be some kind of glitch in the system—there’s no way I’ve sold all seventeen paintings I had listed on Etsy overnight.

Grabbing my laptop from underneath my bed where I had shoved it before falling asleep, I power it up and wait for the page to load. Sure enough, all seventeen of my listings have been purchased over the last few hours. Most of them from separate buyers, although a few people bought more than one.

I do the math in my head. At thirty five dollars each, I now have six hundred dollars in my bank account. I can’t believe that so many people actually care about the art that I’ve created. It’s one thing to see my canvases and think they’re cool, but the fact that people actually spent their money on my creations brings a tear to my eye. Maybe a career in art really is viable. Maybe I really can succeed.

Even though my computer tells me it’s four fifteen in the morning, I’m too hyped up with excitement to go back to sleep. Luckily, I don’t have work in the morning, so who cares. I climb out of bed and drag out all of the canvases I’ve made in the past two weeks but have been too lazy to list online.

With my cell phone, I take pictures of them and upload them online, along with descriptions. I keep them at the same price, a modest and respectful thirty-five dollars each. Park and my mother have argued that they should be priced higher, but I just can’t justify charging more for something I enjoy making.

Another thing that Mom had been talking about occurs to me as I finish the new listings. I’ll need to pay taxes and stuff on my income. I’ll need a separate bank account to keep businesses expenses and income organized. Maybe I’ll go down to the bank in the morning and open one up, under my business name: Becca’s Inspirations.

I know, I know. It’s a super original and unique name. My talent lies in painting artwork, not naming it.

I sell another painting just a few minutes after I’ve listed fifteen more. The rush of getting another sale sends chills down my spine and has me reeling with the desire to make more paintings as soon as possible. I glance around my room and take inventory—only three blank canvases left. I should probably start finding a way to buy them cheaper than at retail.

Now it’s nearly five in the morning and I’m no longer sleepy. With the adrenaline rush of thinking that my love of art could maybe, possibly, if I get lucky enough, become a career, I set up my easel and get to work on another inspirational saying.

My quote board is filled with ideas, but I don’t bother consulting it because I know exactly the quote for the deep blue paint I’m smoothing over the fresh canvas.

Every day is a second chance

I make the letters tall and narrow, with little curls at the end of each one. The canvas is deep blue with swirls of lighter blue fading into the background. The words are black, but after painting them, I go over them with a watered down silvery paint to let them shine. It’s gorgeous and I can’t stop smiling when I sign my name to the bottom corner.

My phone buzzes again and I grab it, feeling the pitter patter of my heart getting excited about another sale. Only it isn’t a sale, it’s a text from Park. At six in the morning.

Luckily, I don’t have time to panic and think something terrible has happened this time because his words scroll across the screen the moment I look at the phone.

Park:
I love you. Even though you’re blah about me.

I smile and look at the time again. Why is he up so freaking early? There’s no way he’s expecting a reply this soon because he knows I sleep as late as possible on my days off. So I figure he’ll be excited to see my reply.

Me:
I love you

I look at the screen and then quickly type a second text.

Me:
And I’m not blah about you.

Park:
Shit did I wake you?

Me:
Nope.

Park:
Ok. I love you.

Me:
You already said that.

Park:
Just saying it agai
n


Exhausted from waking up so early and from my spur of the moment painting, I lie back on my bed and hold the phone out so that I can see Park’s picture as my wallpaper. Sometimes, during moments like this, I realize just how much I love that boy. Freaking out about our future and sex and all kinds of other things doesn’t really do anything but stress me out. For now though, I am happy. I love Park and he loves me.

Without thinking, I call him. He answers on the second ring.

“Hey baby.” His voice is all throaty and sleepy and it makes me miss him a thousand times more than I already did.

“Hi,” I say back, sighing into the phone. “I just wanted to call and say I love you.”

“I’m glad you did. What’s up over there?”

“Not much,” I say, staring at the ceiling with my legs hanging off the edge of the bed. “I couldn’t sleep so I painted another canvas.”

“I can’t sleep either. I hate when things are weird between us.”

I sigh. “Things aren’t weird. I’m the weird one. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry. Hey, are you doing anything this morning?”

“No…why?” I ask.

I can hear Park shuffle around on the other end of the phone. It sounds like he’s getting out of bed and walking somewhere. A door opens. “How about I come pick you up and we get some breakfast?”

“At six in the morning?”

“We could come back to my place and fall asleep after.” Even through the phone I know he’s giving me his alluring, ultra-hot gaze. My stomach knots up and my mouth goes dry.

“Yeah,” I say, sitting up in bed and thinking of something to wear. “That sounds good. I’ll see you in a few minutes.”

Park brings me home around noon and we practice our fabricated story about where we’ve been all morning in the truck. “You’ll say you wanted to get to the donut place first thing in the morning so all the good donuts wouldn’t be gone and I’ll say after we ate, we decided to check out the farmer’s market.” I nod to myself as I come up with this plan while Park drives toward my house. “Mom knows the farmer’s market is open early in the morning and that’s where all the good produce is sold. The place is crap in the afternoon.”

“Okay but there’s two problems with that story,” he says, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel.

“What’s that?”

“One, you don’t have any fruit purchases. Do you really think she’d believe that you went to the place with the best blueberries and didn’t buy any?”

“True,” I say as my shoulders fall. “Maybe I ate them all on the drive back?”

He shrugs. “Maybe.”

“What was the second problem?” I ask. The radio starts playing some awful song that sounds like animals trying to kill each other inside of a metal barn. I reach up and turn down the radio. Park glances at me and smiles. “I don’t think your parents will care that we went out early in the morning. I mean, it’s better than going out late at night, right?”

I consider this a moment. “You might be right. I don’t know. This is my first time doing boyfriendly things at random hours. I’m not really sure what my rules are.”

“You’re nineteen. The rules can’t possibly be that restricting.”

“True. Maybe we won’t tell them anything.”

Park sits straighter and smiles. “If we have kids one day, I hope they’re as sweet as you. Then I wouldn’t have to sit up all night with a shotgun when she goes on dates.”

“That was…out of left field,” I say, feeling my throat dry up. Doesn’t he realize that to have kids with me means we’d have to have sex first? Maybe he wants to adopt kids. Whatever the case, he just mentioned having kids with me and now I am freaking out.

My parents don’t say a thing when we get home. Score one for Park. Mom is eating a sandwich in the living room and Dad is passed out next to her on the couch. It’s weird realizing that one day you’re a legal adult and your parents just don’t care what you do anymore.

I still haven’t said anything about Park’s mention of our future children, instead choosing to do the easy thing and change the subject. We head into my bedroom and I plop backwards on my bed. “I’m still tired,” I say with a yawn. Although Park and I had snuck in a few hours of sleep this morning, it hadn’t helped much.

“What happened to the rest of your boxes?” Park asks. He’s on the other side of my room, eyeing the corner that used to be stacked with unfolded triangle mailing boxes. What started out as a stack that came up to my hip, is now a stack only knee-high.

“They got shipped out all over the country,” I reply, feeling warmth rush to my cheeks. I don’t know why it’s embarrassing admitting that a lot of paintings have sold. I guess I still feel weird about the idea that people want to buy my stuff.

“Damn, girl.” Park joins me on the bed, lying on his stomach next to me on my back. “I told you people would love your work.”

“I’ve almost made a thousand dollars so far,” I say. As if it heard me bragging, my phone vibrates and I check it then turn the screen around for Park to see. “Look, I’ve sold another one.”

“Thirty-five bucks? Babe you should charge a lot more. Like twice as much.”

I shake my head. “I can’t do that…it’s weird.”

He takes my hand in his and brings it to his lips. “Why is it weird?”

I shrug. “It’s just weird that people are spending money on my art.”

Park chuckles and kisses the top of my hand again. “Honey, your work is amazing and it’s original and I hate to say I told you so, but…”

“But what?” I say, rolling my eyes.

“But I told you so,” he says with a laugh. “You’re going to be a famous artist one day. And I’ll be that artist’s boyfriend.”

“I’m hardly famous. You’re the famous one.”

“I tell you what,” Park says, leaning over and kissing my cheek. “We’ll both be hardly famous together.”

Later, after Park left, claiming he had something to do with Jace, the smell of Mom cooking dinner brings me out of my painting trance and into the kitchen. I had been painting a series of canvasses with romantic quotes on them, no doubt because of the massive amount of love Park had left me with, flowing through my veins and all over my heart.

I know I don’t know much about love, but when your heart aches for them while they’re still in the same room with you, that has to mean something. And now that he’s been gone a few hours, my heart aches more than ever before. I think I’m finally ready to take our love to the next level—the sex level—but I need to make sure all of my bodily issues are gone before letting Park know this.

Mom notices my good mood the second I walk into the room. “What’s up with you?” she asks, pointing a spatula at me. “Sell more paintings?”

“Yeah, actually. But that’s not why I’m smiling.”

I take a seat on the barstool at the kitchen island and watch as she quickly chops up hamburger meat and then moves to grating a block of cheddar cheese. Immediately, I regret the last words out of my mouth because they make my mother give me one of her Mom Looks.

“Really? Well then why are you smiling?”

I shrug. Stare at the counter. “No big reason or anything.”

“Park left kind of early, didn’t he? I take it you’re not fighting or anything?”

I shake my head. “He had some appointment with Jace or something. Said it was boring motocross stuff. He’ll be back later.”

“Ah ha,” Mom says, nodding to herself as if she’s suddenly got everything in the whole universe figured out. “So it’s something to do with Park.”

“No,” I say with a groan. “Can’t a girl just smile for no reason?”

“Teenage girls never smile for no reason. I think someone’s in love.”

When Mom says it all plainly like that, my heart speeds up as if she’s just confessed my biggest, deepest secret. My love for Park isn’t a secret and I’d never be ashamed of it, but this is my mother who’s talking about it. Awkward.

What’s even worse is the next few words out of my mouth. “I guess I’m just smiling because I realized he’s the one.”

“The
one
?” Mom says, placing a terrifying amount of meaning on that one individual word. “What makes you think Park is the one? You’re only nineteen.”

I shrug. “You knew Dad was the one when you were sixteen.”

“No I didn’t.”

My mouth falls open and I stare at her waiting to see her laugh and tell me she’s joking. When she doesn’t, I say, “But you and Dad have been together since you were sixteen. At least that’s the story I’ve been told my whole life…”

“We were, honey. We were high school sweethearts. But that doesn’t mean I knew he was the one back then. I didn’t know until I was much older.”

“Well you stayed with him the whole time, so it’s kind of the same thing.”

Mom dries her hands on a dishtowel and pats my arm. “If Park is the real deal for you then I’m excited for you. But don’t worry too much about putting labels on him. If it doesn’t work out the way it did for your father and me, that doesn’t mean anything. I want you to be happy.”

“Thanks, Mom,” I say. Now that a sufficient amount of awkward chit-chat has filled the room, I am dying for a subject change. “So when will dinner be ready?”