Safe Harbor (Scoops Series Book 1), page 11
“You haven’t come to visit,” Melanie admitted, realizing that simple fact did sting a little. She’d worked there for almost a month now. Why hadn’t they tried to visit her while she was working, yet they were so eager to jump in a car mere seconds after finding out Duncan was seeing someone?
“Didn’t want to overwhelm you,” Dad said. “But we’ll come tonight. Any tips from the pros on what to order?”
“Not the Blue Bombshell,” Calvin and Melanie both said in unison. They chuckled, eyeing each other awkwardly.
“Okay, whatever that is, not that,” Mom said.
“The best time to come is the first hour of my shift before it gets busy,” Melanie explained. “So maybe come grab a cone before you head home?”
Dad put his arm around Melanie. “We’ll be there.”
Her heart swelled. She had to admit, having her parents like this all to herself was nice. Really nice. The lack of Duncan-shaped problems in front of them, just the three of them bonding. Meeting her friends. Or…whatever Calvin was.
“Well, we have to finish making our rounds before I take Gram home,” Calvin said. “See you in a few?”
Melanie nodded before being pulled into another tight hug by Gram. “So nice to finally meet you,” Gram said softly in her ear. She noticed Calvin rolling his eyes as she pulled away from Gram’s arms, waving goodbye.
“So you’re not seeing someone right?” Mom teased.
“Maybe Mel does have a few secrets up her sleeves,” Dad taunted.
“Definitely not,” Melanie snipped.
“Sure sure,” Mom said. “Because that’s definitely how friends look at each other.”
The sky was depressingly gray. Thick clouds blocked the sun and a bitter cold wind swept through the beach, causing Melanie to shiver. She reached for her sweatshirt and pulled it over her bathing suit. “When you invited me to go to the beach, I wasn’t exactly picturing this.”
Rory smiled, placing her sunglasses on her face like it was still the brightest day. “This is the best type of day to go—no summer people.”
Melanie looked around Hillside Park, realizing Rory wasn’t wrong. There weren’t many people here, besides a mom with her kids, and two couples perched up on the beach just like Rory in wicker hats and sunglasses, sipping on cold beverages like it was a hot, summer day.
“Did you put sunscreen on?” Rory asked.
“Do I need to? It’s freezing.”
Rory reached into her bag and tossed her a tube. “Rookie mistake, you can still get sunburnt on a cloudy day.”
She rolled her eyes but obliged, applying some to her legs.
“So, do you miss Garrison? I bet your life was a lot more glitzy than living like a Haverport beach bum.”
Melanie sighed. Did she miss Garrison? Truthfully, she hadn’t thought about it much in the past few weeks. She plunged herself into work, willingly letting her mind be occupied by perfecting the size of her scoops and not exploding milkshakes all over the shop.
“Honestly? I don’t know,” she admitted. “There wasn’t much for me in Garrison anyway.”
Rory sat up straight. “Really? No cool rich kid parties in mansions, or as Taylor Swift once said, hot boys with fancy cars?”
“Not at all. But I had a lot of hot dates with my textbooks. Cup of coffee, my desk, lots of long nights.”
Rory groaned. “So you’re a smarty?”
“I guess you could say that.” She curled her lips into a small smile.
“No boys to keep you company?”
Melanie shook her head.
“Wait, so you’ve never had a boyfriend?”
“Nope. Haven’t even been kissed, actually.”
“Oh damn,” Rory said. “Well, that’s depressing.”
“Thanks for the reminder,” Melanie quipped. “How about you, Gilmore, have you been kissed?”
Rory picked up a handful of sand and tossed it at her, making her shriek. “Do not call me that or we can’t be friends!”
Melanie laughed. Friends. She liked the sound of that, and how easy it was to hang out with Rory and talk to her. She didn’t realize until this moment how desperately she needed an actual friend.
“Yes, I have,” Rory said, lying back down on her beach towel. “Wade Harley, sixth grade, school playground. It was terrible. He did not know what to do with his tongue.”
“Yikes, gross.”
“Tell me about it. Then there was Nick Vasquez, freshman year. We went out for a bit. But then he decided he preferred guys and broke up with me.”
“Oh,” Melanie said, not sure how to respond to that.
“Oh, it’s all fine, we’re actually good friends now,” Rory said. “I’m proud of him.”
Melanie smiled, leaving room for silence, waiting for her to continue. But the silence grew longer and more awkward, so she decided to just ask what she was thinking all along. “And Jay? Have you kissed him?”
“That brat, no,” Rory said. “Complete and utter dirt. Totally a disgusting man-whore.”
Melanie lay back as well, glancing over at her. “A man-whore that you, um, like?”
Rory grabbed fistfuls of sand, holding on tensely before letting go. Melanie watched as she took a beat to respond, the silence confirming what she’d already figured out her first week at Scoops. “Does he know?” she asked softly.
“God, no,” Rory said. “It would just make things awkward. And he’s so infuriating.”
“Then why do you like him?”
Rory sighed. “Because…because, I don’t know, he’s just fun, I guess. Makes my life feel a little less boring. He makes me laugh a lot and I enjoy being around him. When he’s not drooling all over some female, of course.”
Rory took off her sunglasses, looking over at Melanie with her wide, sea foam-green eyes. “Plus, his taste in women is so specific. They’re all tall and skinny without an ounce of fat or muscle on them, each of them with long blonde manes. And I’m just”—she looked down at her body, pointing to it—“not that.”
Melanie frowned. “Well, at least with you there’s actually something to look at. Those other chicks are all skin and bones and nothing else.”
“But somehow with great tits.”
“Probably fake,” Melanie deadpanned.
Rory chuckled. “Yeah, you’re probably right.”
Melanie wasn’t sure why she felt so bold to do it, but she reached for Rory’s hand, squeezing her palm. “You are so beautiful.”
She saw tears well up in Rory’s eyes as she squeezed her hand tight, not taking her gaze off the gray cloudy sky above her.
“Really…never been kissed?” joked Rory.
She jabbed Rory’s ribs, making her laugh out loud.
“But seriously, we need to find you a boy to kiss this summer,” she said. “Unless, of course, we’ve already found one.”
Melanie felt her face flush. “Who?”
Rory rolled her eyes, shoving her sunglasses back on her face. “Don’t give me that look, Mel. You know who I’m talking about.”
Melanie scowled. “No, I really don’t.”
She tipped her sunglasses down to her nose. “Super short hair, tall, acts like he’s in the army.”
Melanie shook her head, lifting the hood of her sweatshirt over her face so Rory couldn’t see her blushing.
“Sure, sure, deny it all you want. But I know it when I see it.”
“Are you the relationship whisperer or something?”
“Relationship?!” Rory scoffed. “Girl, we aren’t looking for a relationship. We’re just looking for a steamy first kiss. And from what I see, there’s a whole lot of chemistry there that needs to be dealt with.”
Melanie exhaled. “Or he just hates me.”
“Oh, come on, Mel,” she mused. “Haven’t you heard of a good ol’ enemies to lovers trope?”
Melanie rolled her eyes. “I thought you just said a kiss. Now we’re lovers?”
Rory winked. “We’ll see how the kiss goes first.”
Chapter Ten
June came and went, and somehow, things felt eerily normal. Melanie kept up with her usual schedule at Scoops, five or six days of the week, finishing almost all of them with a clean shirt by the end. On the foggier days when she and Rory weren’t working, they spent time at the beach—Rory giving Melanie all the details about Haverport High and what she should expect come September. She even begrudgingly followed Rory to Lacey’s after admitting she had no idea what to wear to school and was able to pick out a few things she liked at the boutique, replacing her polos with breezy tops and loose cotton tees.
But it was her home life that left her feeling off-balance. Things were consistently calm among the four of them, even sometimes pleasant. Duncan would actually join them for dinner with a smile on his face, joking with Melanie and his parents, bits of food flying from his mouth as he laughed. It was almost a month since Calvin brought her home to that fight at the cottage, probably the longest lamb season that Melanie could even remember. It felt almost impossible to admit that maybe things really were changing for the better, that the Grand Plan of moving to Haverport was actually working.
But something deep down made her feel wary, the feeling like a heavy rock at the pit of her stomach. It all felt too good to be true. It was hard for her to even imagine this could be their new normal when a small sliver of her was waiting for the shoe to finally drop.
Melanie pulled on a clean Scoops shirt and her new khaki shorts. She had to get a few new pairs after growing out of the first set she bought. She didn’t realize how thin she’d been, how the worry and stress just ate at the weight on her body like a disease. But slowly, over the past month, her body grew stronger. She had some weight again in her hips and thighs, enough that she needed to upgrade to a bigger size to fit her new body. She looked in the mirror and couldn’t help but smile, her cheeks a rosy pink, the dark circles under her eyes all but faded away. The tan line from her halter bathing suit top peeped out from under her shirt, which made her chuckle. Rory was right, you really could get tan on a cloudy day.
She opened up her bedroom door and jumped backward in surprise. Duncan towered over her door frame, a grin on his face.
“Jesus, Dee, you scared me,” she said. Ever since their taco night, when she howled with laughter as Duncan ate the six tacos she dared him to finish, she started calling him Dee again. Things between them felt really natural, and yet, completely different. Melanie had a hard time avoiding the distance that time had created between the two of them. But Duncan was acting like no time had passed at all. She decided to not bother psychoanalyzing the weirdness she felt between them, especially if Duncan showed no signs of feeling the same way. So she pushed them aside, as well as that sinking feeling in her stomach that kept coming back to her. Like this momentary happiness was just that—momentary.
“Mel Mel, what are you doing tonight?”
“Um, working, obviously,” she said, pointing at her shirt. “Why?”
“Dumb,” Duncan said, retreating to his room. Melanie followed him, noticing Leila was perched on his bed, scrolling on her phone.
“Can she come?” Leila asked.
“No, has to work,” Duncan reported, plopping down on his bed. Leila sat up and rubbed his back, then twirled one of his curls loosely with her finger.
“Come where?” Melanie asked, curiosity getting the best of her.
“Party,” Leila said. “My folks are out of town, so I’m having some peeps over for the Fourth.”
“Should be super chill,” Duncan said.
Party, Melanie thought. She should have known. Even if things at home felt really good, even if Duncan was actually participating as a member of the family again, Melanie knew he was still going out and drinking. He didn’t hide it from her anymore. It’s like having a single drink with him was the magical key to his secret life. He shared everything with her now, and he kept inviting her places. All the time.
Melanie quickly glanced around Duncan’s new room. She had yet to step foot in it, but this particular moment felt like an invitation. She peered around the room, noticing a few open boxes half unpacked. His lacrosse sticks and all of his gear were tucked haphazardly into the closet next to a heaping pile of clothes. A couple mugs sat on his nightstand, next to a few old prescription bottles, likely from when he had strep throat earlier that year.
Melanie pointed to the bottles. “Why do you still have those?”
Duncan looked over at his nightstand, then shrugged. “Never know if I’ll need them again.”
“Planning on getting strep again?”
Duncan just chuckled, changing the subject. “So, think you can come? After work?”
Melanie looked at her brother, his gaze full of hope. She didn’t want to squash it. Didn’t want to ruin whatever was happening between the two of them, this sweet kinship that made them so close again. That had him talking to her, inviting her, hoping for her to be with him.
She sighed. “I’ll try.”
Duncan beamed, bolting from his bed and giving her a big hug, squeezing her so tight she could hardly breathe. She punched him playfully on his back so he would let her go.
“Just so you know, though, I have no idea when I’m getting out tonight,” she said. “It’s the Fourth, and according to Scoops, it’s going to get bloody tonight. Whatever that means.”
“Right, right, of course,” he said excitedly. “You could even bring them, your co-workers. Maybe that dude that looks like he has a stick up his ass. He needs to loosen up a bit, he could use a party.”
Melanie chuckled. “I—I don’t know, we’ll see.”
“I’ll text you the deets,” Duncan said, flopping back down on his bed, hugging Leila fiercely. Melanie liked seeing him this happy, it was contagious. It frustrated her sometimes, knowing all it took was for her to say yes to him once. Maybe if she had done it sooner…
She arrived at Scoops with a smile on her face. She knew she looked dumb, but she didn’t care. It was just nice to have Duncan back in her life.
But that smile quickly faded when she took a look at Calvin as he stood near the board, scowling at the schedule, his arms crossed.
“What’s going on?” Melanie asked.
“Don’t freak out.”
“Well, that’s always how I love a conversation to start,” she bantered. “Tell me why I shouldn’t be freaking out.”
Calvin let out a long, frustrated sigh. “Tyler’s sick.”
“Oh,” she said. “So?”
“And I really don’t want to call someone on the Fourth of July and ask them to cancel plans and work.”
“Oh.”
Calvin finally looked in her direction, his glance partly an apology, the other part a challenge. “I think it’s just you and me tonight.”
Melanie slumped down into the desk chair. “That sounds…”
“Like a nightmare, I know,” he said. “But we’ll make great tips.”
“We’ll probably get out late,” she mumbled, thinking of Duncan, the look of hope dazzling in his eyes. The thought of disappointing him left an acid taste in her mouth.
“We can keep closing to a bare minimum,” he said, assessing the shop like he was planning an attack. “Make the people opening up do a majority of the work.”
Melanie squeezed her eyes shut and let out a long breath, resting her head against the back of the chair. “Fine.”
When she finally opened her eyes she saw that Calvin was staring at her, the bright blues of his eyes looking dim, like he had failed her. She smiled shyly. “Dude, it’s all right.”
“Dude,” he chuckled. “Since when do you use the word dude?”
“Dude, do you have a brother?” Melanie quipped. “Dude is, like, the most important word ever, dude.”
Calvin smiled gingerly. “No, no brother. No siblings.”
Melanie paused for a moment, realizing she really knew nothing about Calvin. He clearly spent time with his grandmother, he was close with Ron, and he had a thing for pocket-sized paperback novels, but the rest was a complete mystery. She wondered if that was the point. If he meant to keep it a mystery on purpose. Strictly professional.
Melanie sat up, heading to the sink to wash her hands. “Well, we better get to it then.”
“How about a challenge?”
Melanie wiped her hands dry and looked back at him. “Um, okay?”
Calvin leaned against the board, crossing his arms. “Instead of splitting the tips at the end of the night, what if we made it a competition?”
“What do you mean?”
“You keep what’s in your jar, and I keep what’s in mine,” Calvin said. “We see who makes more.”
Melanie thought about it for a moment, tightening her ponytail. “What if we up the stakes?”
Calvin smirked. “Oh yeah? Go on.”
She hesitated, looking at the way his lips curled up into his cheek. She felt heat rush through her body at the way he looked at her, the challenge in his voice. She thought about Rory and their first conversation on the beach weeks before, about her getting kissed this summer. She wondered what it would feel like to kiss those lips that smirked at her, tucked underneath a dimple on his cheek.
She put her hands on her hips to try and steady herself, steady her thoughts, bringing them back to the present. “Whoever makes the most keeps it all.”
Calvin lifted an eyebrow. “You do realize that I know practically everyone in this town.”
“You do realize you don’t know how to flirt, right?”
Calvin looked at her playfully. “Have you seen me with the grannies? They love me.”
“Until they meet me, of course.”
Calvin’s smirk slowly turned into a grin, his teeth showing again. The last time she saw him smile like this was the day she met his Gram, the smile for his grandmother utterly adorable. Melanie stood firm, hoping the melting feeling in her knees wouldn’t actually make them give out.
“Fine, headband,” he said, turning to sign himself in for their shift. “You’re on.”
