Chapter Text
Eleven weeks of summer vacation. Seventy-seven days of summer vacation. One thousand-eight hundred and twenty-eight hours of summer vacation.
And on that first day, Natalie Scatorccio had the great pleasure of watching one Melissa Miller faceplant straight into the grass.
Nat blew out smoke, sitting on the front steps of her trailer. She hadn’t really been expecting anything this morning. Her Mom was still passed out on the coach and she was almost certain that Kevyn and his family had left for their road trip late last night. Van’s mom was going through one of her ‘I’m going to get my shit together for one week’ trips so Van would be out of commission for a while too.
So, Nat really hadn’t been expecting anyone to be up and about when she got up.
Least of all Melissa fucking Miller, that one JV girl with the stupid backwards cap and nervous golden retriever energy. Melissa fucking Miller who did not belong in the trailer park whatsoever and who Nat was ninety percent sure actually lived two streets down from Shauna.
Melissa fucking Miller who had completely wiped out on her skateboard and was now lying face down on the floor like the world’s most pathetic run over squirrel.
Nat took another long drag of her cigarette. “And that’s why you don’t try to skateboard on grass, Hat. There’s rocks and shit.”
“I can’t believe I just did that,” Melissa said morosely, still face down in the grass,” I just lost all my dignity.”
“Well, you can’t lose what you never had so…Shit, Hat, are you crying?”
“No…”
“You’re laying on my grass, outside my trailer and now you’re lying to me?”
“Yes…”
“Fucking hell.”
Nat had a routine for summer vacation. She’d had a routine for summer vacation for years. Well…it wasn’t so much of a routine as it was a full proof plan with steps.
Step one, the most important step: Never, ever be in the trailer with Mom when she was awake and sober. Awake and drunk was good. Asleep and sober was good. Asleep and drunk was preferred. But never, ever awake and sober. It wasn’t worth the arguments.
Step two, not as important as step one but still important: The seven eleven on the outskirts of town had that one cashier that started work at six in the evening and would let Nat hang out into the late hours of the night so she didn’t have to go home yet. She could sit on the counter during the slow hours and sip on a drink she definitely didn’t pay for.
Step three: Stay in touch with the others. The ‘others’ of course being Van and Kevyn, and also Lottie. Van was the easiest to stay in contact with. She lived in the trailer park too, barely a five minute walk and when Vicky Palmer wasn’t pretending to have her shit together, there was an open door policy that Nat could walk in whenever and mooch off the Palmer’s food.
She and Van would take trips to the video store in town or the movie theatre or the mall just out of town where they could get those two for one soft pretzels and people watch for the day.
Kevyn was also fairly easy to keep in contact with. Apart from his annual road trip with his family, he was always outside of Nat’s favourite places and their favourite seven eleven was always open to get a slushy in the middle of the night.
And Lottie…Well, Lottie was Lottie. She was rich and fancy and went on stupidly expensive vacations on her father’s dime so she was rarely in town over the summer. But she called. On and off, whenever time zones let her and Nat would wait by her phone each night with a postcard in her hands, Lottie’s familiar looping script inked on the card, each and every word perfectly thought out citing the date and time of her next call. And Nat would wait like a loyal dog. No matter how late it was. No matter how close her phone was to dying.
And finally, step four, the least important and most annoying step: Keep up with her soccer. Jackie Taylor was always on a war path that first session back from vacation. Nat had learnt the hard way what it meant to come back from summer unfit and rusty in her skills.
But that was it. Nat’s four step plan to survive summer.
She blew out more smoke, stubbing the cigarette down on the front steps of the trailer before crushing it under her boot.
Nat’s four step plan had never failed her yet but now there was some complete idiot laying face down on the ground, crying while her skateboard’s wheels still spun after completely flipping in the air, putting it all in jeopardy.
“Hat…” Nat trailed off. She wasn’t exactly sure what she was supposed to be saying. She hadn’t really had experience with crying people before, always dipping out of the locker room whenever someone started bawling. She stood, taking two neat steps towards Melissa, awkwardly crouching and patting her on the back. “There-there,” She deadpanned,” There-there.”
Melissa sniffled again and flopped onto her back. The good news, she didn’t look seriously injured. There was only one cut over the bridge of her nose so Nat supposed Melissa wouldn’t have to go into hiding over a black eye this summer. The bad news, she was looking up at Nat with cloudy eyes and a trembling bottom lip.
Even worse news, Melissa’s stupid pink cap had survived.
“Natalie…”
“Hat.”
“I need your help.”
“I’m not getting you drugs, Hat. You’re entirely too cheerful. They’d make someone like you paranoid.”
“What?! No! No. I don’t need drugs.”
“Then I’m failing to see what you need my help for.”
Honestly, Nat should have turned her ass around and gone back to bed. The sun was already high in the sky which meant it was entirely too early for Nat to be awake on the first day of summer break. She also should have probably pointed Melissa’s pathetic ass over to the general direction of Jackie’s place. Captain Jackie was better help than Nat was.
But, despite herself, Nat sighed and flipped Melissa’s skateboard the right way up and sat on it. “What’s so important that you needed to come all the way over to this shithole for my help?”
Melissa perked up a little when it became clear Nat wasn’t going to run for the hills. She wiped her tears, dusted off her grazed hands and adjusted her stupid pink hat. “You’re like lesbian Jesus.”
If Nat had been drinking (and she was really starting to believe this might have been an alcohol induced hallucination), she would have spat everything out. “Excuse me?!”
“Lesbian Jesus,” Melissa repeated.
“I’m not a fucking lesbian!”
“Bisexual Jesus,” Melissa corrected.
“I’m not fucking Jesus! What the fuck, Hat? Where did you get that idea from?!”
“You’re kind of a miracle worker, Nat.” Then, in an act of complete oddity, Melissa gently rested her hand on Nat’s. “I really admire your work.”
“My work…? What…Did the fall make you go fucking insane?!”
But Melissa wasn’t really listening. She was kind of rambling actually and Nat frowned, glancing around like Van would pop out with a camera and proclaim this all to be one very strange prank. Experimentally, Nat pinched herself. Nope. Not a dream either.
This was actually happening.
“I mean, you singlehandedly got Taissa and Van to finally admit their feelings for each other. Obviously, we all knew they were hooking up because, like, have you seen them? Anyone could sense the tension from a mile off. Honestly, I thought we were going to tank the first games of the season because of it. But no. You just swooped in like Bisexual Jesus and-”
“Am I dead? Is this…Is this what hell is like?”
“-And then there was the Akilah and Mari thing. God, I don’t know how I could deal with Akilah’s pining on the phone anymore. Let me tell you, Gen and I used to spend hours on the phone listening to Akilah talk about Mari and all the hints she was trying to give. But you know what Mari’s like. She’s so dumb that she once chipped a tooth on her vibrator. But you did it again. You sat them both down and got them to-”
“There’s no way this isn’t a dream. I…I’m imagining this. This isn’t actually happening to me. No. It’s not.”
“And you helped Laura Lee come out to her parents! Not that she should have been worried. Her parents are, like, a part of the most accepting church I’ve ever seen but, still, you really helped her through it, Nat. And now, I need you to help me too.”
Nope. This was definitely, certainly happening.
Melissa Miller was listing off Natalie’s ‘miracles’ like she was some kind of hero.
The noon sun beat down heavy on Nat’s head and she briefly wondered if Melissa had the right idea wearing a hat everywhere. If she stayed out here much longer, she was going to get sunburn on her scalp.
Maybe Nat needed a hat but, as she looked at Melissa Miller’s delightfully cheerful puppy dog face, she decided it probably wasn’t worth the ridicule. No, Nat didn’t need a hat. What she did need was a fucking drink.
She sighed. “And what do you need help with, Hat?”
“I need you to help me seduce Shauna Shipman.”
Nat knew four things about Melissa Miller that no one else knew.
One: Melissa’s preferred position was actually midfield and not the fullback role she’d been made to play since she joined the team. She’d accidentally said fullback that first day because she’d been distracted staring at Shauna pulling up her shirt to wipe her face and just stuttered out the same position as the girl next to her had said.
Two: Melissa, when she wasn’t laying face down in grass and crashing into rocks, was actually a pretty decent skateboarder. Like, she was regularly at the skate park kind of decent. The kind of decent that could do tricks and flips with minimal bodily harm.
Three: Melissa had a rack in her closet dedicated to her hat collection which was kind of surprising considering Nat had only ever seen her wear the same beaten up pink one since they’d met.
Four: Melissa had the fattest, most pathetic crush on Shauna Shipman possible.
That last bit Nat came to terms with while munching on Mama Miller’s caramel stuffed cookies so it lessened the blow a bit.
The Miller house was kind of what Nat expected. Not as big as the Taylor’s or the Turner’s (places Nat had only been a few times and never of her own will) and certainly not as big as Lottie’s place (somewhere Nat had been too many times to count and always by choice) but it was big enough to house two parents, two kids and a golden retriever that looked like it had even less brain cells than Mari.
“My brother’s at college,” Melissa explained as she led Nat up to her room,” He went on vacation with his friends yesterday so it’s just us until my parents get home.”
“Cool.”
“Is it?”
“Not really, I just didn’t know what else to say.”
Melissa’s room was what Nat expected to. A little cluttered, a little messy but somehow uniquely Melissa in a way that Nat couldn’t help but grin at it.
“Look, Hat,” Nat sighed as she sat on Melissa’s bed with her,” I don’t know why you think I can help-”
“Because you can.”
“-But you need to know what you’re getting into here. Shauna’s…Shauna.”
“I know.”
“And you’re definitely into all of her Shauna-isms?”
Melissa nodded firmly. “Definitely.”
Nat sighed. “Alright, Hat. It’s your funeral but…”
“But?”
“Let’s see if we can get you on a date with Shauna.”
Nat didn’t typically enjoy parent-teacher conferences. They usually were some variation of ‘Natalie needs to come to class more’ or ‘I wasn’t aware Natalie was in my class’. But Nat could remember one parent-teacher conference clearly. She’d been in middle school, slumped in the chair between her parents who both looked like they could think of a million other places they wanted to be and Nat was sure those places started with ‘b’ and rhymed with ‘car’.
But the teacher had yapped on and on and on and Natalie had only tuned in at the very end when she’d gotten the glowing review of ‘Natalie is a very hard worker. She likes to work on little projects. They keep her occupied, helps to stop her picking up bad habits'.
Maybe that teacher had been onto something because Nat’s fool proof four step plan to survive summer now noticeably did not include drinking or drugs. No. Natalie Scatorccio was going to be stone cold sober this entire summer for the express purpose of setting (or trying to set) up Melissa with Shauna. She’d need all her brain power for such a challenging task.
But that was a problem to work on for tomorrow’s Natalie.
“Where did he drag you to this time?”
“Currently, we’re in Switzerland. There’s a party or something we’re attending but I’ve been able to get away for a bit.”
“I got your postcard.”
Nat flipped it over in her hand. It looked a bit like Switzerland now that she knew that was where Lottie was, all picturesque and tranquil. Lottie always chose postcards like that, the ones with sprawling views of nature and animals.
“I can’t believe your dad took you out of school a week before it ended. He couldn’t wait? I thought he was all education and business and shit?”
Lottie’s laugh was like bells and Nat grinned down at her lap. “You know what he’s like, Nat. His business comes before my education. Besides, you know we weren’t actually learning anything last week.”
“Still missed my lab partner.”
“You, Natalie Scatorccio, are a charmer.”
“Still missed you though.”
“Missed? Not miss?”
Nat sighed. She could hear her Mom stumbling around in front of the tv, yelling something unintelligible at it as she struggled to open a bottle of whatever her alcohol of choice was this evening.
“I always miss you, Lot.”
“For what it’s worth, Natalie. I miss you too.”
“Yeah…” Nat locked her door, wedging her desk chair under the handle. “So, Switzerland. What’s there even to do in Switzerland?”
Melissa had a license but no car. Nat had neither. So, they were stuck on foot. Or, rather, they were stuck on the four wheels of Melissa’s prized skateboard with Nat holding on behind her like some kidnapped, feral raccoon.
“If you fucking crash us, Lottie’s going to be so pissed when she comes back from Switzerland! Hat! Hat! Stop speeding up! Hat, I mean it! Oh god, oh god, I’m going to die!”
“You’re very dramatic, Nat.” The skateboard lurched as it came to a stop and Nat practically fell from it. Maybe it wasn’t a good idea to do this thing sober. Her head was pounding.
“Yeah well…” Nat glanced around. “When you said you knew a super secret place for us to plan, I was kind of expecting somewhere…Not here…” Nat gestured vaguely.
She’d come to the local skate park maybe twice in her life, both times under the cover of darkness to buy some drugs from the plug that ended up in jail over it. She’d never had a reason to come again.
“Well…” Melissa shrugged. “No one else really comes here. At least, no one that knows…” She made an odd move with her eyebrows and Nat gave her a look.
“You can call her Shauna, Hat. She’s not the fucking Anti-Christ.”
“She’s an angel.”
“And that’s enough of that.” Nat shoved Melissa (and her board) straight into the bowl. “Work up a sweat, Hat!” She yelled as Melissa shrieked all the way down. “I need your energy gone and your mind open if we’re going to plot!”
Okay. Nat could maybe admit that Melissa was a little more than decent at skateboarding but she placated herself with the fact that Nat knew shit about skateboarding so maybe Melissa wasn’t actually that good to the wider skate population. That would track with Melissa’s general…Melissa-isms.
She kind of was like a puppy, shrieking and hollering as she did her tricks on her little four wheeled board of death. Nat shook her head (she didn’t dare think the action was a fond one) and let her legs dangle over the edge of the bowl, swinging them absentmindedly as Melissa (once again) completely wiped out on the rails but she was up and laughing a moment later so Nat couldn’t help her grin.
“Step one,” She said hours later when Melissa had tired herself out and they were sharing a pack of skittles at the top of the bowl,” We need to find Shauna.”
“Like…at her house?”
“No, Hat. We need to find Shauna in the wild. We need to find out where she lurks when she’s not holed up in her house like some discount basement goblin.”
“We need to stalk her?”
“Jesus Christ, Hat!” A burst of laughter bubbled out of Nat’s chest. “No! I can see why you need the help if that’s the idea you jump to. We need to find Shauna in her natural habitat. Any ideas?”
“Er…She likes reading!”
“Great,” Nat said sarcastically and she laughed when Melissa batted at her with a soft hand.
“No, I mean…Like we could go to a book store.”
“That’s…That’s not a bad idea, Hat.” Nat offered her the bag of skittles. “Your reward.”
Dramatically, Melissa pressed a hand to her chest. “Why, thank you.”
“So, we’ll check the book store. We’ll have to find Jackie too. Probably Tai, as well. Shauna’s friends with them so if she’s out and about then she’ll be with them.”
“Sounds like a plan.”
“A great plan.”
“The very best!” Melissa was grinning as she nudged Nat with her shoulder. “Natalie?”
“Yeah, Hat?”
“If we’re going to do this, I can’t keep pulling you along on the back of my skateboard and if you walk then you’re going to get left behind.”
“Oh no…”
“Oh, yes.”
“Hat…” Nat shot to her feet, scrambling back quickly. “Let’s be rational here. Let’s not make any snap decisions.”
Melissa looked down in faux sadness. “It’s for the best, Natalie.”
“Please, Hat. You don’t have to do this.”
“We must.”
“There’s no ‘we’ in this situation!”
Nat tried to escape. She really did but Melissa was Melissa and a golden retriever, at the end of the day, was still a dog. And a dog with a bone was exactly what Melissa was as she spent the next two days trying to teach Natalie how to ride a skateboard.
She had bruises and grazes but Nat was never a quitter and now she had pride on the line so she took the playful ribbing from Melissa and vowed that by the end of the summer, she would be better than Melissa would ever be.
The helmet would take a little time to get used to but Nat could deal with that as she and Melissa ducked into the only book store in town.
It was quiet, almost library quiet but Nat had been expecting that.
“She’s here! Natalie, she’s here! She’s here! Oh god…Oh god!”
“Hat…Hat…Hat!” Nat hissed, grabbing Melissa by the arm and pulling her into the row not occupied by Shauna. “You need to calm the fuck down!”
“What do I do?!”
“We…” Nat peered around the bookshelf.
Shauna was standing in the aisle, intently looking at the back of two books. Her brow was a little furrowed as she stared, eyes darting between the two blurbs. She looked completely focused in what she was doing.
Nat turned to face Melissa. “We have two options. One, we back out immediately. We take this information and store it for later. Two, you bite the bullet and talk to her.”
“I can’t talk to her now! She’ll think I’m pathetic!”
“Hat, you are pathetic.” Nat shrugged. “But she might be into that. Van’s pretty pathetic too and Tai’s still into her.”
“Van’s cool.”
Nat frowned. “Okay, I was willing to let it slide with Shauna but now I’m really questioning your perception of people.”
“Nat, please help me.”
“Alright. Alright…” Nat shoved Melissa’s hands off her and straightened her back. “You stay here. I’ll talk to Shauna.”
“Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!”
“Yeah, yeah, whatever. You owe me lunch, Hat.”
Nat could think of few things worse than talking to Shauna Shipman on summer break. It wasn’t that they were enemies because they weren’t. Jackie wouldn’t let anyone on her soccer team be true enemies. But they weren’t friends either. They were just civil. Which is why this whole situation made Nat feel like she was trying to grind up nails with her teeth.
But she bit it down because Melissa’s stupid puppy dog eyes would somehow be worse.
“Hey, Shipman,” Nat said, sidling up to her teammate as casually as she could, leaning up against the book shelf with crossed arms.
“Natalie,” Shauna greeted coolly, finally dragging her eyes away from her books,” What are you doing here?”
“A girl can’t want to peruse some literary classics?”
Shauna raised a brow. “You don’t read, Natalie.”
“I’m wounded, Shipman. You know-”
“I don’t have time for this, Natalie. What are you really doing here?”
“Er…” From behind Shauna, Melissa desperately threw up a thumbs up sign, her face panicked as she nodded repeatedly. “Lottie!”
“Lottie?”
“I’m here for Lottie,” Nat lied, clearing her throat as it broke,” Yep. Lottie.”
“You’re here for Lottie.”
“Guilty.” Nat shrugged. “You know me, I hate books but Lottie’s out the country and she asked me to find some good books to send to her.”
“Lottie trusted you to do that?” Shauna didn’t look impressed.
“I’m plenty trustworthy!”
“Huh.”
“I don’t like your tone, Shipman.”
“Hmm.”
“Seriously, knock it off!”
“If you’re here to find books for Lottie, why are you talking to me?”
Here it was. The moment of truth. Nat could do this. “I thought you’d be able to help. You know, literature being your whole thing. I thought you could recommend me some of your favourites.”
“You’re asking me for help?”
“I’m not going to repeat myself here!”
“You’re very dramatic, Natalie.” Shauna rolled her eyes and checked her watch. “But I guess I could spare some time.”
And she did.
Shauna plucked books off the shelves with frightening precision and Natalie tried not to curse the back of Melissa’s head when she noticed the girl hiding out in another aisle.
“So,” Nat said, desperately reminding herself that she was here to gather intel,” You always in here during the summer?”
Shauna gave her a considering look dripping in suspicion. “What’s it to you, Natalie?”
“Just making conversation. You don’t have to tell me.”
Shauna grabbed another book, considering it briefly before placing it back onto the shelf. “Occasionally,” She replied tersely,” When I run out of reading material.” She put back a book from the pile she had given Nat to hold. “Honestly, you know that fancy country club?”
Nat frowned. “The one just outside of town?”
“Yeah, that one. Jackie’s family are members. I hang out there using their guest pass. Jackie and I go most days.”
“Huh. Sounds like Taylor, alright. All fancy and rich.”
Shauna bit back her laughter. “You can say that again. What about you?”
“What about me?”
“You still hanging out at that seven eleven at all hours of the day or what?”
“Actually…” Nat seized the opportunity when she could. “I’m hanging out at the skatepark now.”
Shauna’s eyebrows shot into her hairline. “Wait, what?”
“Yeah, I’m hanging out with that JV girl, Melissa Miller. She’s teaching me to skate.”
“Melissa…Miller? Who…?”
Nat frowned at that. There was no way Shauna didn't know who Melissa was. They'd played on the same soccer team the whole season. “Melissa? You know Melissa, Shauna.” Nat gestured to her head. “You know, with the hat?”
“Her last name is Miller?”
“What did you think it was?”
Shauna remained silent, the lightest dusting of pink on her cheeks.
“Shauna?”
“Hat?”
“What?”
“I thought her last name was Hat. Melissa Hat.”
“You thought her last name was Hat?!”
Shauna’s light dusting of pink became full on red as she shoved a book into Natalie’s arms and hurried out the door. Melissa poked her head around the bookshelf the moment the door slammed shut.
“So, good news, bad news, worse news and even worse news. Take your pick, Hat.”
“Er…The good news?”
“The good news,” Nat said,” Is that we have located Shauna Shipman. This place will be a bust. She only comes here when she needs a new book and because I vetoed the whole stalking her idea, we won’t know how long that will take.”
“How is that good news?”
“The good news is that Shauna hangs out at the fancy country club just outside of town on Jackie’s guest pass.”
Melissa’s face lit up. “That’s great news!” Then, her face dropped. “Wait, what’s the bad news?”
“Bad news is that she thought your last name was Hat.” Nat looked at the book in her hand and pulled another copy of it off the shelf. “So…deal with that in your own time.”
“She thought my last name was Hat?”
Nat shrugged. “To be fair, I didn’t know your last name until, like, the last week of school. You’re always called Hat in the locker room.”
Melissa nodded. “I can live with that. What’s the worse news?”
“That’s in two parts. One for me. One for you,” Nat threw the books onto the counter and the man behind it scanned them through. “You’ve got homework to do. I had Shauna choose a book that’s her favourite so that’s your homework. Read the book. It’ll give you something to talk about to her. As for me-” She handed one copy to Melissa and tucked the other under her arm. “-I now need to send this to Lottie in Switzerland.”
They headed outside, grabbing their boards from where they’d been piled up just outside.
“And the even worse news?”
Nat lit a cigarette. “The country club Shauna was talking about is exclusive. Like, overwhelmingly exclusive. Like a one year waitlist to get a membership and you can’t get a guest pass if you’re not attached to someone else's membership. Not even a day pass. We need to find a way to get in there.”
Despite herself, Nat had to admit that Melissa ‘Hat’ Miller was kind of fun to be around. Kevyn was still on his road trip and Van’s mom was still pretending to have her shit together so if it wasn’t Melissa with her stupid dorky smile and her even stupider hat and her kind of fun skateboarding tricks, Nat would have been flying solo.
But she wasn’t. Because Melissa, while pathetic and a little whiny with terrible taste in women, was also kind of cool.
The kind of cool that Nat dragged to seven eleven and got slushies with. The kind of cool that had Nat making sure Melissa got home safe before getting home herself. The kind of cool that had Nat rolling her eyes at the fond memories of the day she thought of as she headed back to the trailer, stopping by the steps to grab Lottie’s latest postcard.
She snapped a picture of it, sending it over to Lottie as she bumped open the door with her shoulder. The tv was on low and a bottle of vodka was dangling from her Mom’s hand. Nat rolled her eyes, grabbing a blanket from the dryer and throwing it over her Mom’s sleeping body.
She didn’t bother cleaning up the spill. There was no point. She wouldn’t be able to pry the bottle from Mom’s grip so a new spill would appear anyway.
Nat switched off the tv and slipped back into her room, locking it behind her and securing it with her chair again.
She flipped over the postcard to read Lottie’s familiar looping script.
My Dearest, Natalie,
I wanted to send this with the gifts I got you but I want to be there when you see what I found. I have a feeling that you’re going to like what I’ve got for you. Each piece made me think of you so I really hope you can see the effort I put into collecting them. I don’t think my Dad was happy with how long I was taking but it’s not like he understands the actual act of finding the perfect gift for someone.
(The last time he went away, he came back with an ornament for a fish bowl we don’t have so I can’t trust him with anything.)
I really, really miss you, Nat. I went on a day trip yesterday to this sleepy little mountain town. You would have just hated it. There was nothing to do there but walk around and get coffee. You would have really hated it but I know you would have gone with me if I asked and taken all of the stupid pictures you always tease me about.
One of these days, we’ll go on one of these trips together and I’ll take you to all the boring places you’ll tease me about and let you take me to all those theme parks you know make me dizzy.
I really miss you, Nat. I can’t wait to come home.
Yours always,
Lottie
Nat ignored the warming of her cheeks as she read and reread the postcard. A faint smile appeared on her face as she rummaged around in the lowest drawer of her desk, pulling up the false bottom to find the little lock box buried all the way at the bottom.
She slipped this postcard in with all the ones Lottie had given her, stowing it right back in that hidden compartment.
“Speak of the devil,” Nat said as she placed her phone against her ear,” I was just thinking about you.”
“I could tell,” Lottie laughed on the other line,” My nose was itching. That only happens when I’m running circles in your head, Nat.”
“I should start charging you rent.”
“I can afford it.”
Nat rolled her eyes, flopping back against her bed, the springs in her shitty old mattress creaking from the force. “You can afford everything, Lottie. Maybe that means you’ll stop stealing from the shitty TJ Maxx.”
“Never.”
There was silence for a beat, a comfortable silence between them where Nat could hear every soft inhale and exhale from Lottie.
“You sent me a book.”
“Yeah…You want that explanation I promised you?”
“Of course.”
When people talked about Nat’s bonds on the team, people always pointed to the clearest. Van. She and Nat had joined the team together, already thick as thieves from the years growing up on the trailer park together. People always pointed out Van and her friendship being the strongest relationship Nat had on that team.
Maybe that was right back when they first joined.
But now Nat would say it was her and Lottie. She could never keep anything from Lottie. Nothing at all.
-Got to find a way into that country club now,” Nat said with a huff,” Because I think Melissa genuinely has a fear of talking to Shauna which, like, fucking sucks considering she wants to date her. Like, a bit of exposure therapy, maybe? I don’t know, Lot. I have no idea how this even happened.”
“You’ve got such a big heart, Nat,” Lottie said softly. Nat could imagine Lottie perfectly in her mind. It was very early in the morning for her. Nat hadn’t even slept yet so Lottie had probably only recently woken up. She was probably stretched out on the balcony in the early morning sun, soaking in the rays while room service set up her breakfast spread.
“I think it’s so nice of you to help Melissa out like this.”
“Yeah, well you can bring a gift horse to water but you can’t shoot it, you know?”
“That’s not the saying.”
“It’s not…?”
“Nope.”
“Oh, shit. I think I told Van to write that in an essay last month.”
Lottie giggled again, her voice soft and low. “I can help you out, you know? With the country club thing?”
“Lot, I don’t want to bother you. I can’t just-”
“You’re not bothering me, Natalie. Look, I’d offer you my guest pass but I already know you’ll reject it. So, I offer a compromise.”
Nat could imagine Lottie clearly now this time too. She was probably sitting up properly instead of lounging, her chin in her hand and elbow on the table with that damn twinkle in her eyes that made it clear she thought she'd already won. And, usually, she already had.
“I’m listening, Lot.”