Page 122 of Bring You Back

“I’m getting a picture,” Reyna says as she whips out her phone from her dress pocket.

“Oh, no, you’re not,” I say as I push up, the effort slow with my legs having gone stiff, and Reyna snaps the picture.

“Got it,” she announces with her own satisfied grin, slipping her phone back, and I shoot her an unamused stare as I step out of the box.

“Delete it,” I order, then address Tommy with a face, gesturing to the boxes. “Where did you get these?”

“Storage,” he says. “Mom asked me to grab a few.”

“Why does your mom need boxes?”

He thinks a moment, then shrugs. “Probably senses I’m messing up my future and wants to give me a push,” he jokes before turning serious. “But they’d stay in a pile in a corner in my bedroom, unpacked, while I spend the summer questioning my whole existence.”

I chuckle at his dramatics. “Ball still getting away from you?”

He snorts at my wording, shakes his head. “I still don’t wanna talk about it.”

Reyna drapes her arms around Tommy’s shoulders from the side and gives them an encouraging shake. “It’ll work out, Tommy.” He shifts his head toward her, but he doesn’t meet her eyes. “You’ll love it again, and then you’ll leave us, become famous, find a better group of friends, and forget all about the little people.”

I chuckle again. These two are made for each other.

Reyna started off teasing, but is now somber at the possibility of her prediction coming true. Her arms slide from his shoulders and he catches her hand in his.

“There’s no one better than you,” he tells her, holding her stare. Specific, but not specific enough.

“Good answer,” she says with a beam, still too daft to catch the deeper meaning behind Tommy’s statement.

“I’m full of them,” he teases back, and she laughs. She slides her hand from his, he lets her go, and that’s that.

I roll my eyes at them both as I round the island back to my place. “We love you, too, Tommy.”

The front door flies open and Banks walks in with a familiar redheaded girl at his heels. He’s waving what appears to be a notebook as he stalks toward me, on a mission, as my mind places the girl. She’s the one I saw running on the boardwalk the other day.Gretasomething or other. “Hey! Editor! My play.”Blah, blah, blah.He drops the notebook. Which reveals itself to be a script bounded in cardstock, on the island, then spins back toward the girl, on another mission.

“Yeah, I’ll get right on that,” I deadpan.

“You’re the one who left town, then came back,” the girl says, accusing eyes and tone directed at me. “My ex did that, too.”

I cock a brow, then deadpan again, “She speaks,” before shooting a glare at Banks. “Andyou’respeaking about me, why?”

“Forgetabout him,” he says to the girl, tugging on her jacket. “And her,” he adds with a returned glare to me. He tugs the girl to his guest room and closes themselves inside. I roll my eyes, finishing my coffee as Tommy yanks up the script and tosses it into the trash can. It lands with a nicethudat the bottom.

“Nothing but trash,” I say, smiling my approval.

Tommy laughs, then makes a face down at his hands before wiping them on his shirt, prompting my own laugh.

“You guys,” Reyna scolds, releasing a small chuckle despite herself, and plucks the script from the can. “That’s someone’s hard work.”

“He wrote it on a computer,” I point out. “I’m sure he has copies.”

“Yeah, and it’sBanks,” Tommy adds. “The only hard work he puts in is in there.” He nods toward the guest room, and I scoff.

“I highly doubt that.”

“Well, I mean, he has to behard,” Tommy says with a playful stare that causes a laugh to burst out of me.

“T.M.I.”

“F.U.” He laughs back.

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