Golden Boys (Golden Boys, #1)(22)

I sigh. “Did you get used to it?”

“Sure. I think decorating helped. You took some stuff from your room, right? I feel like you need to get that up right away, so it feels a little more like home. It’s looking dreary right now. Put the sheets on your bed. Unpack. You’ll feel better, I promise.”

I sit on the bed with my back to the wall, to stop her from giving me even more chores to do. “I will, I will,” I say. “Also, there’s … a thing tonight that I really don’t want to go to.”

“A thing? Like, a social thing?” I hear the eagerness in her voice.

“Yeah. In the lobby. It’s going to be so cringey.”

She gasps. “This is the exact kind of thing you have to go to. I swear, events like this got me out of that dark place I was in first semester. Please, promise me you’ll go.”

“I’m really tired,” I say.

“Did you call me for a pep talk, or did you just call to whine?”

I hesitate. “Both?”

“I’m not interested in whiners.” she says, and I roll my eyes. “Go to that party.”

“It’s not a party; it’s an awkward welcome event put on by the internship and the school.”

“We’ll call it party-adjacent, then,” she says with a laugh. “Seriously, don’t get overwhelmed. It’s not a big thing, and you are right that it could be awkward and annoying. But you won’t know until you get there. I say you set up some rules: stick it out for at least ten minutes, and make sure you talk to at least one person who isn’t, like, your boss. You can set a timer, then when it rings, pretend you’re getting a call and bail if you’re not having fun.”

I nod, but I’m not sure what to say. So much of me is resisting this, but I don’t think I have a good reason. Getting through a whole party sounds awful.

But I could do ten minutes.

“That makes sense. Anyway, tell Mom and Dad I’m okay. I’m going to unpack,” I say. “Thanks for the pep talk, and sorry for whining.”

“You can make it up to me by—”

“Going to the party,” I say, finishing her sentence. “Yeah, I got it.”

“You’re going to do great,” she says. “I’m actually jealous—Mom and Dad are really making me remember why I moved away for college right about now.”

I offer my condolences, and we end the call. The schedule the college gave me at check-in sits on the corner of my desk, mocking me. Eight p.m., social hour, optional.

Optional.

I mean, I’ll see them all tomorrow.

As I unpack my clothes, I look to the bracelet on my wrist, and my sapling stares back at me. The realization hits me so hard I nearly groan:

I think it’s time to put that nagging feeling that I don’t belong here behind me, and learn how to grow.





CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

HEATH

I don’t belong here. Not like Diana does. She’s got this sun-kissed skin and wavy blond hair, a simple tank top and cut-off jean shorts. Her hair’s barely long enough to put up in a ponytail, but she must do something with it, because she’s got a hair tie or something around her wrist.

The sound of the ocean lapping onto the beach reaches my ears, though I still haven’t set foot on sand yet. We’re at the median on the boardwalk, sitting on a fence, catching up and waiting for Cole to get off his shift so he can join us.

“You sure Aunt Jeanie won’t mind that I didn’t go right to your place?” I ask.

“Nah, she was napping when I left.” She shrugs. “Her nights go pretty late, so she always tries to catch a quick nap before heading to the arcade.”

It’s a relatively quiet evening, at least from what I was expecting. There are plenty of people drinking and eating on the patio on the boardwalk, but it doesn’t sound like the same thing as Jeanie’s arcade.

Diana finishes her slice of pizza and tosses the crust to a flock of seagulls that have started to gather around us.

“This might sound weird,” she says, “but it’s kind of cool to have a cousin my own age. Some of my friends always bring their siblings or cousins around, and it’s wild to think about having family that’s in the same stage of life as me.”

“Shitty we’re only just meeting, though.”

She laughs, then reaches for the thin bracelet on her wrist and spins it around a few times. “True. We’ll just have to make up for that this summer.”

To be fair, we “met” on social media years ago. She found my Instagram and sent me a follow request, and we’ve had a surface-level liking-each-other’s-selfies friendship ever since.

“You don’t have any other family here?” I ask. “I feel like everyone I know has these huge families with, like, truckloads of cousins, and I have …”

I almost say “my parents,” but I don’t know if I even really have them. I’ll have my dad. And I guess I’ll visit my mom from time to time. So that’s cool.

“I don’t have anyone else, really,” she says. “Just friends, though nothing like your crew. Oh, hey, Cole’s parents just went through a divorce. You might want to talk to him about it. He was really fucked up for a while, but I think he’s gotten used to it.”