Winter (Four Seasons #1) (7 page)

“
Hello?”

“
Avery
Patterson?” The voice throws me, instantly familiar and not at the
same time.

“
Yeah?”

“
It’s Noah
Richards. I got your number from your friend—what is,
Maria?”

I feel my ears
pull back. I turn and stare at the girl feigning nonchalance to my
right. “No, I think you mean
Morgan
,” I hiss. She smiles
innocently at me, studying her flawless nail polish.

“
Yeah, that’s
it, Morgan. I’ve seen you two hangin’ around. I was wondering if
your services were still on offer?”

I can
literally hear the smirk in his voice, but he doesn’t sound like
he’s being a jerk. I sigh and hit Morgan on the shin. “What’s up?
Have Freddie and Kyle moved out of state?”

He laughs.
“Nah, but they are going back home for the holidays. I’m spending
Thanksgiving with a bunch of friends in the city but everyone’s
leaving at the end of the holiday weekend. That means I’ll be a
poor lonely foreigner in the big city with no one to hang out with.
I heard you were going to be around. Any chance you might like to
catch a movie or something? Purely in the interests of keeping me
out of trouble, you understand.”

I frantically
try to think of something,
anything
that will mean I don’t have to go to a movie with
Columbia’s hottest, most popular exchange student. I come up blank.
Morgan shimmies forward so she’s literally on the edge of her seat
when she sees I’m hesitating, pulling a warning face. She clenches
her fist at me, threatening physical violence if I don’t say yes.
She obviously knows why he is calling. I flip her off and spin
around on my office chair.

“
Sure, Noah.
That sounds great. I’ve got family with me for a couple of days but
I’m totally free after that. You can just shoot me a text and we’ll
work something out.”

“
Grand!”

He hangs up
and I drop my cell onto the coffee table, doing my best not to
launch myself at Morgan.

“
Who was
that?” she asks breezily, and I can’t do it anymore. I pounce onto
the sofa and proceed to thwack her mercilessly with one of the
cushions.

“
You know damn
well who that was, you witch!”

“
Aggghhh!
Stop, stop, okay, okay! I admit it. Stop!” she squeals. I sink back
and let the cushion drop. “I’m sorry, Avery. He just asked so
nicely, and that accent…I couldn’t help it!”

“
Whatever.” I
nail her one last time with the cushion and let out a long sigh.
“And I’m serious—take that sweatshirt off. I don’t want you funking
it up with your out of control pheromones. I don’t intend on having
to wash it before I return it.”

Six

Super
Eight

“
SURPRISE!”

BRANDON shows
up on the doorstep of the ridiculously large apartment I’ve rented
with a huge red ribbon looped around his head, complete with a
messy bow tied on top. He stands there grinning at me with his arms
spread wide, waiting for me to tumble into his embrace. He’s such a
goofball sometimes. I can’t help but laugh and do as expected,
squeezing him until he pretends to wheeze and choke.

“
What’s wrong
with you, kid? You tryin’ to crush an old man to death?”

Where Morgan
and I have an arrangement not to fish for compliments, I’ve never
managed to convince Brandon to do the same. He’s incorrigible. I
wave him into the apartment, helping carry his bags inside. “You’re
forty-six, Brand. You’re hardly old. It’s not like you’re about to
fall down dead.”

He drops his
bag on the kitchen floor and sweeps his hands back through his
thick brown hair. “You see that?” he says, pointing exaggeratedly
to the top of his head. “That’s a receding hairline. I’m losing
more hair in a day that I can possibly hope to re-grow. I’ve
calculated that if it continues to fall out at this rate, I’ll have
a comb-over by this time next year.”

He doesn’t
have a receding hairline at all. He knows it; he’s just being a
fool. I shove the other bag I’ve carried in for him into his chest
and tut. “Come on, then, old man.”

I show him the
three other spare rooms and he throws his stuff into the one
opposite mine before immediately cracking open a beer. “It smells
great in here, Ave. What have you been up to?”

“
The usual.” I
take his beer can from him and put it back in the fridge. “It’s not
even eleven. You’ll be asleep before the food’s ready and I’m not
listening to you snore while I try and eat my buttered
parsnips.”

Brandon tramps
into the living area of the apartment and sinks down onto the sofa,
sulking. “You’re turning into your mother, you know
that?”

That has to be
the most offensive insult anyone could possibly give me. “Fine!
Screw you, buddy. You can drink all the beer you want and fall
asleep. I don’t care. I’ll watch Charlie St. Cloud and polish off
some wine. I’d much prefer that over being abused by
you!”

Brandon pulls
a face and kicks his feet up onto the glass coffee table. “No way.
No Efron in this apartment. I won’t stand for it.”

Brandon thinks
Zac Efron is genetically modified in some way, and the last time I
tried to watch that movie he chucked a fit. I smile and throw
myself down next to him, knocking his feet off the rented furniture
as I do.

“
What’s new
with you then, old man?” I don’t really want to know the daily
happenings of his life in Breakwater, but since my dad has been
gone he’s really stepped up and taken care of me. I feel bad that
he’s back there on his own most of the time. He’s a little rough
around the edges, and in a town like Breakwater that doesn’t earn
you any friends.

“
I’m gonna
tell you something now,” he says, “and you’re not gonna believe it
for one second.”

I sit
patiently waiting for him to spill his secret, but ten seconds tick
by and he just smirks at me. “Well, come on then! What?”

“
I,” he says,
grinning while he pulls a pack of smokes out of his pocket, “went
on a date.” His eyebrows waggle comically as he flicks a cigarette
into his mouth.

“
What? That’s
amazing! Who with?” Brandon didn’t go on a single date the entire
time I lived with him, and he probably hadn’t been on one before
then, either. Maybe not since my Aunt Mel died. I finally realize
what Brandon is about to do as he leans forward to light his
cigarette, and I snatch it out of his mouth.

“
You didn’t
hire this place. When you’re responsible for the deposit,
then
you can smoke
indoors. There’s a balcony. Now tell me who you went on a date
with!”

He groans and
tips his head back against the sofa. “I took Monica Simpson out to
that fancy Thai place you like, and she was bor-ring.” He stretches
out the word so it sounds like two, and I bite back a bark of
laughter.

“
Monica
Simpon? Candice Simpson’s mom?”

“
The very
same.”

“
The one
with…” I gesture with hands towards my chest. Monica is a petite
woman but she has a huge chest that nearly all the men in
Breakwater have fantasized about getting their hands on. She’d
already suffered through two breast reduction surgeries by the time
I left high school.

“
Exactly.”

I can’t keep
the laughter in this time. “Why on earth did you ask her out? I
mean, she seems like a nice enough woman, but…”

“
I didn’t ask
her out.
She
asked
me
.”

That makes it
even funnier. I guess I am too used to him after all the years I
spent growing up with him, but Brandon would probably still be
considered a good looking guy by some people. Older people. Much,
much older people. I laugh so hard that I snort.

“
Hey! I hope
you’re not finding it funny that a woman asked me out. These are
modern times, y’know. It’s completely normal for the broad to ask
the guy. Maybe you should keep that in mind, huh?”

I give his arm
a light punch and rest my head against his shoulder. “I’ll be sure
to remember.”

“
Don’t get too
comfy, kid. I didn’t get that smoke out the packet to look cool. I
fully intend on lighting it. On the balcony!” he adds before I can
object. “Plus I have something for you.”

“
A gift?” I
sit up straight and grab hold of his arm. “Seriously?”

“
Well, I know
it’s not Christmas yet but I thought it might be nice to give you
something now for having me up here and cooking and
everything.”

I eye him
suspiciously. “Will we be opening presents together on Christmas,
too?”

“
Yes,” he
laughs. “I swear. I’ll come back to the city if that’ll make you
happy. We could even rent this ritzy palace again. Now do you want
your present or not?”

“
Of
course!”

Brandon
hurries to his room and comes back thirty seconds later with a
reasonably big box in his hands. It’s wrapped in Transformers gift
paper.

“
Aw,
Transformers. You shouldn’t have!” He hands it over and I do the
whole
shake-it-to-see-if-you-can-tell-what-it-is
bit. “You didn’t steal this from under some poor
kid’s Christmas tree did you?”

“
Scout’s
honor.”

I tear off the
paper and stare down at the box in my lap. It’s a video camera, the
kind I’d always wanted when I was a kid. A Super Eight. I’d
forgotten about my dream of someday becoming a movie director, but
Brandon clearly hadn’t. He collects up the shredded Transformers
paper and scrunches it in his hands.

“
I figured you
could, y’know, practice filming yourself for when you’re a TV
reporter or something.”

I look up at
him, stunned. “This probably cost a fortune! A working Super Eight?
They’re almost impossible to get ahold of now!”

“
Yeah, well,
I’d love to pretend I spent big but I’d be lying. It’s been sitting
in the attic for years. I used to screw around with this old thing
before you were even born. Your dad, too. He used to borrow it when
he had enough beer to bribe me with.”

My dad used to
film with the camera sitting in the box before me? For some reason
my eyes are welling. I reach inside and lift it out, surprised by
how heavy it is. It kind of looks like a speed gun traffics cops
use—a small lens, a boxy square, black metal housing and a grip
handle. I point it at Brandon and he smiles a sad smile.

“
Your aunt
used to film our games with that bad boy. I’ll show you how to use
it later. But first…” Brandon holds up his cigarette and grins, a
little of his melancholia drifting away. “I must smoke.”

Seven

It’s A
Date

THANKSGIVING
DAY is over in the blink of an eye, and Brandon has to leave pretty
much immediately. The joys of being a business owner. I spend most
of the next day tinkering with my new Super Eight in the living
room of the apartment, the ceiling to floor windows displaying New
York City’s dramatic skyline—a jigsaw puzzle of concrete teeth
bared against a winter sky. Brandon showed me how to use the
camera, or at least the bare bones of how it would point and
shoot
if
I didn’t
mess with any of the buttons. As soon as he leaves I do just that,
trying to figure out all the settings. There are still two days
before I have to return to college and I fully intend on keeping
busy during that time, getting to grips with my new favorite toy.
It isn’t like I’d forgotten Noah’s request to go see a movie, but I
still get a nervous rush when I see his name flashing up on my cell
on Friday night.

“
Hey, Avery
Patterson. How was your thanksgiving? You been living off turkey
sandwiches or what?”

I laugh and
nod even though he can’t see me—I have, indeed, been living off
turkey sandwiches. “If I never see another slice of turkey, I will
be one happy girl. What about you, Noah Richards? Have you
over-eaten and drunk too much in keeping with our most cherished
American holiday?”

“
Absolutely.
And did you just give me the full name treatment? I guess I deserve
that after using yours, but
I
look like a Noah Richards. You don’t look like an
Avery Patterson. I’m having to do one of those positive affirmation
things by saying your name every time I speak to you. Maybe that
way it’ll stick.”

My cheeks
instantly flush. Does he know something? How could he, though? I
mean, the only four people in the whole world who know about my
name change are Morgan, Brandon, Luke and my mother. No way any of
them are spilling the beans. “What…what do you mean?” I
stammer.

There’s a
short silence on the other end of the phone before Noah chuckles
quietly. “Sorry. I should have thought about that before I opened
my mouth. I’m not too smart sometimes. I didn’t mean that you
weren’t…
memorable.
You’re exactly the opposite. It’s just that I think people
suit different names occasionally. Like you, for instance. To me,
you look like an Evie or a Charlotte. It’s all that blonde hair and
your button nose. I dunno. You just don’t look like an Avery.
Should I stop talking now?”