Summer of Supernovas (36 page)

She shakes her head. Her eyes turn glassy, pooling with tears. “I really liked him. I wanted it to be spe—”

“Irina Dmitriyev.” I place my hands on her shoulders. “Douche bags don’t deserve tears. Especially not yours.”

She swallows hard and nods. “I know.
Chert poberi!
It’s just…allergies—damn cottonwood.”

I hug her, murmuring just how unworthy Jordan the Jackhole truly is. Then I spot an exotic-looking plant on the other counter. “But who gave you the Venus flytrap?”

She sniffs into my shoulder before pulling away. “Manny. We’ve been hanging out.” It’s impossible to hide my shock. “Not
that
way. When he came in the other day, he saw the cactus and said it was totally lame. He bought me this instead.” Iri produces a grin. “A carnivorous plant.”

“He’s something, isn’t he?”

She offers a noncommittal shrug and then does a double take. “Are you aware of the red paint in your hair?”

“Long story. Listen, would you do me a favor if you’re up to it?”

“Sure. You know I will.”

“Pierce me?”

Her mouth unhinges. “But…but you hate needles. Why?”

“Because. Then I can remember today as the day I faced all my fears. I battled clowns, tried to profess my love, and now”—I turn my back toward her—“I’m going to get my belly button pierced. Undo that hook, will you?”

Her hand hesitates before she undoes the hook. “
Dorogaya,
you don’t have to do this.”

I unzip the dress to my waist, pulling out my arms and positioning myself on the leather recliner. “Yes, I do. I want to. And then we’re going to get a huge order of fries at Curio’s and eat them until our fingers are so greasy we can’t hold on to any more. Let’s go, comrade, my fries are waiting.” I grip the armrests. “Go.”

She swabs my navel with antiseptic, looking down with concern. “Are you sure this is what you want?”

“Do it,” I say firmly. I close my eyes at the sound of the drawer with the medieval tools opening. I feel the pinch of a metal clamp on my skin and suck in a breath.

“Easy,
dorogaya,
don’t move. And don’t worry—I’ll be quick. I think Grant is gonna
love
this.” She quickly adds, “Not that you’re doing it for him.”

“I’m not.” My vision goes wavy. “Anyway”—the blood flushes beneath my skin, creating a hot-and-cold prickly sensation—“I lost him. Oh God.” I stare, delirious, at the fluorescent lights on the ceiling. “Is it too late to change my mind?”

“Wil! Wil!” Irina’s echoing voice bounces around my brain. “Don’t you pass out on me!”

I lift my woozy head from the table. “Am I done? Am I pierced?”

“Er…” Irina peels off her gloves and elevates the headrest. “No. Why don’t we save piercing for another day, hmm? Now, what’s this about losing Grant?”

The room gradually comes back into focus. I tug on my dress. “He left early for college. He’s gone.”

“Funny”—she lifts a brow—“he called half an hour ago looking for you.”

“He…he did? But how’s that possible?”

“You really think he’d skip town permanently without a word?” Iri rolls her eyes. “You forgot to charge your phone again, didn’t you?”

I hop from the chair. “
Oh my stars!
I—I have to find him! I have to tell him!” But now I’m torn because my friend is in need and I won’t leave her high and dry. Not when she dropped everything to be there when my world collapsed when Gram was hospitalized.

“I’m good, Wil,” she says, reading my mind. Her phone chimes. She holds it up, facing it toward me. “It’s Grant. What should I tell him?”

“Tell him…don’t leave. I really want to talk, but first I have a friend who needs me.”

Iri’s lips curl into a devilish grin as she taps out the message.

“What? Why is your face doing that? Iri!” I wrestle the phone from her grip and read the message that’s just come in. “What? What does he mean by ‘I’ll be there’?”

“Grant needs you. More than I do right now. I’ll come over tomorrow for breakfast and we can have girl time then. You can bake me muffins of gratitude.”

“But…”

“Oscar!” Irina calls.

Footsteps sound in the hallway, and the door cracks open. Oscar’s wary face pops in.

“Do you like French fries?” Iri asks, like it’s the most natural question in the world.

“Sure.” Oscar lifts a shoulder. “Who doesn’t?”

“Want to grab some? Wil doubled-booked herself and I hate eating trans fats alone.”

He lifts his heavy brows.

“Strictly platonic,” Iri clarifies.

“You know”—Oscar folds his arms—“I am capable of friendship. But you wouldn’t know that because you’ve been avoiding me for weeks.”

Iri puts her bangle bracelets back on her wrist and smiles. And it’s dazzling. “So, that’s a yes?”

A quiet laugh rumbles in Oscar’s chest. “Yes, my Lady of Strange. The answer is yes. Let me go clean up my studio, okay?”

“Take your time,” Irina replies.

When Oscar turns around, we spot yet another dog-eared copy of Shakespeare sticking out of his back pocket.

“Sweet boy”—she turns her gray eyes on me—“but I want to go it alone for a while. Figure out what I want.”

“I think you are wise,
dorogaya.
”

“You know, Wil, June’s not over yet. Technically, there’s still a few hours left.”

“So?”

“So the planets are still aligned and blah-blah-blah, and I told Grant you would meet him at the tower.”

“You did?” I squeeze her hand. “Irina Dmitriyev, you really do believe in love, don’t you?”

She holds her index finger to her lips. “Shh, don’t tell.”

T
he stars beckon me to gaze upon them. I can feel them winking. Tugging at my hand like billions of impatient children vying for my attention.

But I don’t. I won’t look up.

Because I can’t tear my eyes off the image of Grant sitting on the bumper of his pickle-green station wagon. His lean body is hunched, his eyes staring at the ground. When I slam my door, he looks up.

And that lift of his chin fills me with all the courage I need.

I take off in a sprint, my dress rustling and puffing out with the rapid strikes of my knees. But these shoes don’t let me move with the speed I desire. I kick them off and surge ahead.

He stands motionless. And he feels as hopelessly far as the celestial bodies shining above.

But finally,
finally,
I reach him and skitter to a halt. Totally out of breath.
“I…love…you,”
I wheeze.

Grant tilts his head up to the sky. I see the overlap of his teeth when he brings his handsome face down again. He’s smiling,
beaming.
It’s the warmest, happiest, loveliest smile I have ever seen in all of my life.

I spring into his arms and he laughs while I cry.

“About time you figured that out, Songbird.” He’s still chuckling when he puts me down. “Aw, and you brought me really sad-looking Brussels sprouts.” The poor sprouts have been to hell and back, but that’s a story for another day. “I keep wondering if there’s ever gonna be a time you don’t surprise me. Seriously, you’re the most unusual girl I’ve ever known.” He works his fingers through the dried bit of paint in my hair.

“But you like unusual, right?”

“No”—Grant shakes his head—“
I love it.
What’s that?” He nods at the white rectangle sticking out of my dress pocket.

I let go of his hand. “It’s…it’s for you.” I pass it over.

He unfolds the envelope, peering at me, then back at the paper in his hands. “You didn’t open it. But…I thought this was important. I thought you needed to know.”

“It was, but then”—I drop my shoulders—“I went and fell in love with you anyway. So I guess it’s pointle—”

Grant kisses me. His mouth is fierce. And even though his letter expressed how terribly he’s missed me, his kiss tells me more. He lifts me up, setting me on the hood of the station wagon, never once allowing his lips to leave mine.

I’m breathing like I’ve run another sprint when he does break away. He rests his forehead against mine, letting out a breathless laugh. “You know, you’re going to find out my sign soon enough. My birthday’s—”

“No!” This time I cut him off with my own kiss, and he gives up talking for a while.

A long while.

Grant lies on his back on the wool blanket covering the crabgrass and dandelions at the base of the tower. I am nestled on my side in the crook of his arm. The warm summer night surrounds us.

“Are you going to keep staring at me all night like that?”

“No.” I smile. “I have to be home in an hour. Anyway, I have to get my staring in because you’ll be leaving for school in August.”

He rolls his head back and forth. “Yeah, and where did you get the idea I’d leave for school two months early?”

I lift a shoulder. “I was in a panic. Your mom said you headed north; I just assumed it was to Michigan.” I assumed wrong, of course—a skill I’ve been mastering at an alarming rate.

While Seth might’ve preferred to disappear into the bright lights and big city of Chicago, it turns out Grant sought peace and solitude. So he packed up his guitar with every intention of leaving town for the family’s lake house—five hours north. Fortunately for me, Grant didn’t make it beyond the city limits, because his mom called. And I would buy a star and name it Charlotte, because whatever she said had him careering across traffic and straight back to the heart of Carlisle.

Back to me.

Of course, things were still rocky between the brothers when Seth left town. Especially when Grant found out how Seth had manipulated me. I can only hope, with a little time and distance, the fractured relationship will heal. I believe it will—one day.

Grant turns his head so he can look at me, and pushes a wavy lock back from my cheek with his free hand. “You know I’ll come home every weekend I can, and all the holidays. And you can come see me whenever you can get away.”

“You might get sick of me with an open invitation like that.”

“Get sick of my muse? Are you kidding?” He smiles. “I’m going to create beautiful music because of you.”

That is another huge change. Grant is going to major in music.
Not
business.

Once Grant leveled with his parents that he was pursuing business out of a sense of duty, and not any real desire, bye-bye business degree. Because no way would they continue to allow their son to feel beholden to them for simply doing what any good parent would. They had preserved his future by saving him from his past. As to the shape that future would take, well, that would be entirely up to him.

Grant continues stroking my cheek. I love that he can’t keep his hands off me. “So, you really aren’t the least bit curious about my sign?”

I roll my eyes. “Course I am. Just because I see the error of my ways doesn’t mean I’ve forsaken astrology completely. But”—I frown—“there is something that still confuses me. Your key chain has the date February twenty-third. I assumed that was your birthday because—”

Grant laughs.

“What’s so funny?”

“That’s my
car’s
birthday. Anna made me that key chain to commemorate the day I bought the green beast.”

My mouth forms an O of understanding.

“Well? Any educated guesses? I think we can safely eliminate Pisces.” His fingers tease like his words, gliding down my throat and across my chest, where they follow the swell of my breasts.

My heart rate accelerates enough to break the sound barrier. “Uh-uh.
No way,
no more guessing.”

“What if I whispered it in your ear?”

I grin and tilt my head. “Go ahead, tell me.”

He whispers the word and I shiver with the hush of his warm breath.

“Stars in heaven, that’s almost as bad,” I reply, straight-faced. Then burst into giggles when he nips at my ear.

Grant rolls back again and we lie in silence as he stares at the sky. “Hey, isn’t that the Milky Way?”

“Probably,” I answer, without an upward glance. Because I’m too busy admiring what’s amazing here on Earth. The crinkle of his eyes as he grins, the fan of his lashes as he blinks, the way his lips move to form the words “I love you.” Again and again and again. The joy, the beauty of it is too much to hold.