Perfect Couple Read online

“That’s not the only reason I want something different,” I murmured in the direction of the kitchen door, which swung shut behind him.

  “Very, very bad waiter,” Brody muttered, picking up his fork.

  We ate in silence for a few minutes. The wait staff was cranky, but the Crab Lab’s food was delicious.

  Finally Brody said, “You’ll have a big adventure next year. You’ll major in photojournalism at Harvard or Oxford or somewhere a million miles away.”

  I shook my head. “Try Florida. I’m on my own to pay for college. Mom says she doesn’t have the money. She already borrowed money from Granddad to buy the B & B.”

  “Yeah.” Brody nodded like he understood. I figured he was on his own too.

  “My grades are good,” I said. “I’ll get an academic scholarship. It won’t pay for everything, though, so I’ve been working on getting my photography business off the ground. That’s why I photographed the 5K yesterday. And if I had a killer portfolio to show an art department—or a journalism department—I might get another scholarship from them.”

  Brody nodded. “You’ve got it figured out. I wish I did.”

  “You make good grades too,” I reminded him.

  “I’m in the college-track classes,” he said, “but my grades aren’t great. They’re okay, but not scholarship level.”

  “You’ll get a football scholarship,” I said.

  He shrugged.

  “What would your major be?” I asked. “Or what would you do instead if you didn’t go to college?”

  He swallowed a bite and said, “Coast Guard.”

  Oh. He’d been so positive about my dreams that I didn’t want to be negative about his, but I couldn’t help the wave of nausea that washed over me. I pictured him in rescue gear, headed across the tarmac at Coast Guard Station St. Petersburg to a helicopter that would lower him over a compromised ship in rough seas.

  If that was the life he wanted, I could never be with him.

  10

  BRODY PAUSED WITH HIS FORK hovering over his plate. “What’s the matter?” he asked. “You look sick all of a sudden.”

  “Nothing.” The nausea passed, along with the heat that had rushed to my face. My skin was left cool. A line of sweat had formed at my hairline. I took a deep breath through my nose, exhaled, and forced myself to take another bite of salad. “You know, my dad is in the Coast Guard.”

  Brody frowned at me. “Really?”

  “Yep.”

  “Is he stationed down at St. Petersburg? How does he run the B & B?”

  “It’s just Mom,” I explained. “My parents have been separated for a couple of years.”

  “Oh.” Brody lifted his chin, puzzling out my words. “Are they getting back together?”

  “I hope not. Um . . .” I racked my brain for a way to describe the situation.

  “I’m sorry,” Brody said. “You don’t have to tell me.”

  “No, it’s not a touchy subject, just complicated.” I put down my fork. “See, my dad cheated on Mom. Often. She finally kicked him out and filed for divorce. But ending a marriage in Florida isn’t that simple. One of two things has to happen.” I touched my first finger. “One of you has to be crazy. Actually, both my parents would be good candidates there, but they would have to be proven crazy separately in court.”

  Brody chuckled like he was familiar with this feeling, then took another bite of his sandwich.

  I touched my second finger. “Or, the marriage has to be ‘irretrievably broken.’ That’s the wording. Mom had her day in court. My dad told the judge that the marriage wasn’t irretrievably broken. Instead of giving Mom a divorce, the judge sent my parents to marriage counseling. Mom went to the first appointment. My dad didn’t show. The judge held my dad in contempt of court.”

  “Oh, shit,” Brody said.

  “It gets better,” I said with a lot more bitterness than I’d known I felt. “My dad came crawling back to Mom. She comforted him, if you know what I mean. He moved back in. A few weeks later he cheated on her again. She kicked him out and filed for divorce. This has happened, I don’t know, maybe four times in the past two years. It’s about to happen again, because Mom has another court date next week.”

  Brody wasn’t laughing like he was supposed to. He didn’t make a snarky comment about Mom like Kennedy had when I told him this story. Granted, Kennedy’s words had hurt my feelings, but I was used to his sarcasm. I couldn’t get a handle on Brody’s silence. Maybe my description had been too convoluted—too much like my own family life had felt for the past two years—and I needed to clarify.

  “My dad wants to cheat on her and keep her too,” I explained.

  As these words were coming out of my mouth, I realized I was describing Brody when he made out with me, then ran back to Grace. I honestly hadn’t made the connection earlier, but now it seemed embarrassingly obvious. And Brody must have been thinking I’d mentioned my dad specifically to make a point.

  Brody watched me silently for a moment. He was quiet long enough that I believed he got my ugly unintentional message.

  I laughed uncomfortably. “So, I’m the only minor in the state of Florida who actually wants her parents to get divorced.”

  If Brody had taken offense, he let it go. He moved on, because that’s what Brody did. “I didn’t want my parents to get divorced,” he said. “I thought it was the end of the world.”

  “Yeah,” I said gently.

  “I don’t miss my parents fighting, that’s for sure,” he said. “I miss my dad, though. I miss him so bad sometimes that it hurts, like, in my chest.” He sat up and put one hand on his striped shirt, somewhere between his heart and his throat. Then he took a bite of vegetables, chewed, swallowed. Without looking up at me, he said, “We used to play a lot of football together.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  He shrugged. “At first I thought it was so awful, but I can see how your parents’ situation is worse because it’s one-sided. At least my parents were both cheating on each other. My mom acts like it’s a huge relief to be available again. Maybe your mom needs to date.”

  “She’s in a serious, committed relationship with a bed and breakfast.”

  “Is that her only job?” Brody asked.

  “Yeah, and it’s full-time, when you count keeping up with the repairs. Actually, I think we’d be doing okay financially if it weren’t for the two-year-long divorce. She might as well be standing on the front porch and tossing cash to the lawyers like Will throws treats to his dog. The dog. Whoever’s dog it is.”

  Brody finished the last of his vegetables. He’d wolfed down his entire sandwich and had even vacuumed up any garnishes that might have been on his plate. I’d hardly touched my salad. I’d gotten lost in my own sad story. Vowing to act more sane and less troubled for the rest of dinner, I took another bite.

  “My dad doesn’t want me to go into any of the armed services because I won’t be able to choose where I live,” Brody said slowly. “But your dad never got moved. You’ve lived here forever.”

  Between bites I said, “We lived in Alaska when I was little.”

  “You did?” Brody sounded impressed. “No, we were in kindergarten together.”

  I was surprised Brody remembered me from kindergarten. I remembered him. He’d fallen from the top of the monkey bars and split open his chin. (Or he’d jumped. Two versions of the event circulated in the class. Now that I knew him better, I was more inclined to believe he’d jumped.) For the week he was out of school recovering, Chelsea and I had kept vigil for him over a big rock with his blood on it, even though the teacher pointed out that the rock was on the opposite end of the playground from the monkey bars. She assured us the blood was red paint from an art project the year before. That story wasn’t as romantic.

  I said, “We were in Alaska for a year right before I started kindergarten.”

  Brody’s face lit up. “Did you love it?”

  I wished I could tell him I had. “It was cold, an
d so big I got scared. I think I clung to Mom’s skirts the whole time we were there.”

  Brody nodded. “I want to see it, but if I had to stay there, I’m sure I’d freeze to death.” He leaned closer and lowered his voice conspiratorially. “I usually don’t admit this, but you’re good at keeping secrets, right?”

  I grinned as he repeated what I’d said in the pavilion yesterday. He might not take a relationship with me seriously, but at least I knew he’d been listening.

  “I’ve always been terrified of being voted Least Likely to Leave the Tampa/St. Petersburg Metropolitan Area,” he said. “The class is passing judgment on the girl and the guy who win that election. But I really like it here.”

  “Me too,” I said.

  Brody took a sip of his iced tea, then said, “My dad is a smoke jumper.”

  “I’d heard that.” And it hadn’t surprised me at all. Brody Larson’s dad went around the country, parachuting out of airplanes to fight forest fires? Knowing Brody, it made sense.

  “He’s not going to be able to do it much longer. He’s pretty old already to make a living that way. His back bothers him. He’ll have to retrain for a different job—a boring job. He says I need to find an exciting profession that I can still do when I’m older. I was thinking about law enforcement of one kind or another.”

  “Perfect!” I exclaimed, and I meant it. “I can see you kicking in doors for fun and profit.”

  “Yeah.” He grinned at the thought. “Well, speaking of high drama and nonstop action, why don’t we take this Superlatives photo?”

  I set my camera bag on the table. “I guess . . . should I come over there?” The restaurant was behind me, including the windows onto the street, which would glow in the picture and likely ruin the light. Brody’s back was to the wall hung with tangled lights and a carved wooden mermaid. Everyone seeing this photo in the yearbook would know exactly where Brody and I had taken it.

  “Be my guest,” he said, scooting toward the corner. But the seat had room for only one person.

  Which was okay with me.

  I slid close to him on the bench. My thigh pressed his. “Sorry,” I said.

  “I’ll manage.” He freed his arm from where my body was pinning it to his side. He accidentally, maybe, brushed my breast, then laid his arm along the back of the booth.

  Around me, sort of.

  He smelled like cologne.

  My body vibrated with excitement at having him so near. I couldn’t take a deep breath to calm myself, because he would notice—and I would likely faint in a cologne-induced swoon. I had to concentrate to keep my hands from shaking as I moved aside the plates, then turned the napkin holder on its side as a platform for the camera. “I may have to do several trial runs to get us centered,” I apologized.

  “It’s not torture, Harper.”

  “Ha ha, okay.” I had never felt so nervous. I set the camera to take five frames in rapid succession on a time delay, then placed it on top of the napkin holder. “Smile when you see the red light, and keep smiling,” I told him.

  We watched the camera, but my eyes naturally focused on the bright windows beyond it. I wondered if anybody we knew was eating here and watching us. Maybe they’d tell Kennedy that Brody and I had been up to something suspicious. He would break up with me. It would all be for nothing, because Brody would stay with Grace. But as long as the windows filled my vision, I couldn’t see the other restaurant patrons. If I couldn’t see them, they weren’t there.

  Only Brody was in my world right now.

  The red light blinked on. The camera flashed five times.

  I retrieved the camera and showed Brody the view screen. With our heads close together, we looked down at our heads close together in the photos, too.

  I had a dumb moment when I thought I’d opened the wrong file. I hadn’t recognized myself with my glasses off and my hair down, cuddling with Brody. He looked perfect with a genuine smile, as usual, but half my head was cut off. I put the camera back to try again.

  This time Brody moved his arm down from the back of the booth to my shoulder, with his hand holding my upper arm.

  The camera flashed.

  We peered at the screen. I was grinning at the camera. Brody was looking at me.

  “Oh, God,” he said. “I look so lovelorn.” He sounded amused, not mortified like I would have been if I’d gotten caught gazing moonily at him.

  “Or like you’re in pain from a possibly, probably not, broken finger.”

  He laughed. “Or a concussion. Or indigestion. Sure.”

  Sawyer arrived at our table. He did not have good timing. Brody and I both saw him in the same instant and tried to move away from each other. In such a small booth, there was nowhere to go. Brody removed his hand from my arm.

  Sawyer laid our bill on the table very slowly, as if he was trying not to startle us again. “Whatcha doing?” he asked innocently. Sawyer was anything but.

  I glanced at Brody. His lips were pressed into a thin line. He gave me a small shake of the head: Don’t tell him. But I was the world’s worst at coming up with lies, and I couldn’t think of another way out of this. The truth seemed like the best policy.

  “We’re taking our Superlatives picture for the yearbook,” I admitted. “Want to see?” I slid the camera across the table.

  Sawyer peered at the view screen. “Wow,” he said. “You’re trying to break up with your girlfriend and your boyfriend?”

  I was sure my face flushed beet red. I didn’t dare look at Brody. I only told Sawyer, “The yearbook won’t come out until May.”

  Sawyer put his tray down on the table and his hands on his hips. “Harper Davis, are you telling me that you’re dating a guy you assume you won’t still be with in eight months? Why are you with him at all, then? Girl, life is too short.”

  The truth was, I did assume I wouldn’t still be with Kennedy in eight months. I’d been cured of any expectation for the future yesterday, when I pictured us sitting together on a college quad. No, thanks. I didn’t want to admit this in front of Brody, though, when his long-term relationship with Grace wasn’t at issue.

  I nodded to the camera and asked Sawyer, “You’re saying Kennedy would be mad if he saw this photo of Brody and me? We’re not doing anything wrong.”

  “Oh, sure,” Sawyer said. “You can tell the picture is taken here at the Crab Lab. You’ve shot all the others in the courtyard at the school. You’re making me take mine in the courtyard tomorrow. The only reason you’re taking this one here is so you two have an excuse to see each other alone.”

  I opened my mouth to defend us, but nothing came out, because there was no defense. I hoped Brody could think of something.

  He didn’t say anything either. He just slid his hand onto my thigh—not high enough toward my crotch to be dirty, but much more familiar than two people taking an innocent photograph for school. Kind of like patting my hand in reassurance as Sawyer gave me the third degree, except on my thigh.

  Sawyer couldn’t see under the table. “To answer your question, Harper,” he said, “I don’t give fuck one what Kennedy thinks.” He turned to Brody. “I’ve had the pleasure of spending a lot of time with Grace lately during PE. She’s going to shit a brick when she sees this picture.” He picked up his tray. “There’s no charge.” He headed for the kitchen.

  We watched him go, speechless.

  “I think he meant no charge for the advice,” I finally said. “There’s no way he’s eating the cost of the food.” Reluctantly I slid off Brody’s seat and returned to mine, taking the camera with me. I pulled a few bills out of my purse.

  “I’ve got it,” Brody said, opening his wallet.

  “Let’s split it,” I suggested, “since it’s a fake date anyway.” I sounded bitter.

  Closing my purse, I picked up the camera and glanced again at my favorite of the photos on the view screen, the one with Brody looking truly enraptured with me, or in great pain. “I don’t know. Maybe Sawyer’s right. Shoul
d we try taking this photo again somewhere else?”

  “You tell me,” Brody said. “You’re the one who’s so concerned about what Kennedy thinks.”

  I looked Brody in the eye. He held my gaze. A chill washed over me. Electricity zinged between us just as it had in the pavilion, even though now we weren’t touching. It sounded like he was asking me to cheat on Kennedy with him, as if whether he cheated on Grace made no difference to him whatsoever.

  But if that’s all he wanted, I couldn’t play along. I felt such a strong connection with him, way stronger than I’d ever felt with Kennedy. If he didn’t feel the same way about me—and he obviously didn’t, if he wanted to stay with Grace—we needed to take this relationship back to a friendly flirtation, where it belonged.

  “I don’t have an idea for another photo right now.” I scooted out of the booth and stood.

  “If you do,” he said, standing too, “let me know.”

  * * *

  I was left with the feeling that Brody and I were in a fight. But Brody didn’t do the silent treatment. The day after our non-date at the Crab Lab, he chatted with me in all the classes we had together, same as always. In fact, we talked more than I talked with Kennedy. Brody showed me his purple finger without the splint and told me it wasn’t broken. Kennedy only bugged me about my deadline.

  The only way I could tell there was tension between Brody and me was that in study hall, he offered me a fist-bump but didn’t call me his girlfriend, even though Kennedy had stayed behind in journalism class again. Brody said “Hey,” not “Hey, girlfriend,” and that was it.

  I wasn’t in study hall very long. As soon as Ms. Patel came in, I asked her to excuse me so I could mark some Superlative photos off my to-do list. I’d called several people who had stood me up for previous photo sessions and told them to meet me in the courtyard—or else. And then, wonder of wonders . . . they showed up! Being stressed out to the point of rudeness might wreak havoc on my nerves, but it was great for locking down these photos.

  Halfway through my study hall period, I hurried into Principal Chen’s office. After Sawyer’s comment last night about all the Superlatives photos being taken in the courtyard except mine with Brody, I’d decided I’d better switch things up for some of the others. We had Ms. Chen’s permission to use her office while she was at lunch. I could take an adorable picture of Kaye and Aidan, Most Likely to Succeed, behind Ms. Chen’s desk. I’d asked Sawyer to meet me there too. I wasn’t sure what we would do for his Most Likely to Go to Jail photo, but surely there was something in Ms. Chen’s office he could steal or tag with graffiti. Sawyer would think of something.