Page 57 of Notice Me, Jameson Hart
“Ethan’s lactose intolerant,” Jameson mentions, but his brother is already shaking his head.
“I’ll suffer for soft serve,” Ethan declares. “It’s worth it.”
And that’s how we end up in a convoy heading toward the boardwalk, windows down, the night air finally cooled to something bearable. We’re quiet at first, the way people get at the end of a good movie or a long day.
Rita scrolls through her phone, her hair pooled over one shoulder, occasionally snorting at some meme and shoving it into my face. Robbie and Adam are bickering about the merits of post-movie frozen custard versus soft serve. But even their voices are lower than usual, the way you talk late at night to avoid waking ghosts.
As for me, I’m not even here. I’m back in Jameson’s car, replaying the entire night. Not only the laughs—though there were a bunch—but the exact moment his arm came to rest between our seats. I keep thinking about the way his face would do this little thing where he’d pretend to be stone-cold serious, then flinch into a smile like he couldn’t help himself.
I want to see that again, and I want to be the one to make it happen.
I notice Rita watching me from the corner of my eye. She holds my gaze for a second, eyebrow raised, then sends a barrage of heart emojis to my phone. I roll my eyes at her, but I’m smiling.
Soon, the boardwalk comes into view, the sound of distant carnival games mixing with the hum of cars and human noise. The air smells of salt and fried dough and the promise of an everlasting summer. For a split second, it’s like we’re kids again, about to win plastic prizes and stay up way too late because we’re hopped up on sugar.
The boardwalk is still busy despite the late hour. Families with sticky-faced kids, couples holding hands, groups of teenagers trying to act cooler than they are.
We park in the lot and pile out. Adam immediately heads for the walk-up window of the ice cream shop, the one with the weird sculpture of a melting sundae on top. Robbie jogs ahead, Rita races after him, and I’m suddenly alone with my thoughts, trailing behind the people who make up my whole universe.
The rest of the gang joins us seconds later. We gather in line, and it suddenly hits me that this is the biggest group I’ve been a part of all summer.
It’s loud, chaotic, and perfect.
I catch Adam standing with his legs slightly apart, checking his phone with that furrow between his eyebrows that means he’s thinking too hard. The Stanford secret sits heavy in my chest. It’s been weeks since our conversation. Weeks since he promised to tell Robbie “when the time is right.”
I drift over to him and lower my voice so we won’t be overheard. “Hey. Have you talked to Robbie yet?”
Adam’s jaw tightens. “Not now, Kevin.”
“It’s been weeks. You said after practice started back up?—”
“I said not now.” His voice has that edge that used to scare me when we were kids.
“Adam, you promised. He deserves to know before?—”
“Kevin, I swear to God, if you don’t drop this…” He doesn’t finish the threat. He storms toward the counter even though we’re nowhere near the front of the line.
My stomach clenches. Everyone’s talking and laughing, while I’m standing under a spotlight of awkwardness.
“Everything okay?” Jameson walks up to me, concern written across his features. He must have caught the tense exchange.
“Yeah.” I force a smile. “Brother stuff.”
He nods slowly, understanding flickering in his eyes. “Ethan and I got into it last week because he borrowed my good headphones and left them at a friend’s house.” He shakes his head. “I may have overreacted. Slightly.”
I narrow my eyes playfully. “How slightly?”
“I hid all his phone chargers.” He grins sheepishly. “He had to borrow them from friends for three days before I caved and gave them back.”
Despite everything, I laugh. “That’s evil.”
“Brothers bring out the worst in us sometimes.” His voice goes softer. “But also the best. Ethan biked forty minutes to return those headphones when he realized how much they meant to me.”
I glance at Adam, who’s now pretending to study the flavor list with intense concentration. “Yeah. I guess they do.”
“Whatever it is,” Jameson says, “it’ll work out. Brothers can’t stay mad at each other forever. Trust me, I’ve tried. There was this one time, when Ethan was twelve, he told our mom I was the one who broke her favorite vase. I was grounded for two weeks.” He shudders at the memory. “I retaliated by putting blue food coloring in his body wash.”
“Did he turn blue?”
