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Jamie McGuire - Happenstance 1 - Happenstance
Happenstance (Happenstance 1)
Ja adult/romance/new adult
Chapter One
"Go holowered at me, pure hatred in her beautiful honey brown eyes She was spearheading a group of nine cheerleaders on the other side of a s that separated us
Nine pairs of eyes danced between each other and me in e sauce They were enjoying the show, but not one of them looked directly at me
Erin Masterson, Erin Alderman’s best friend and co-captain of the cheer squad, was holding the banana split Blizzard I’d just eance in her eyes She was as beautifully put together as her best friend, but instead of long, flowing golden hair like her friend, she had long, flowing chestnut hair "I said alnuts on top You have a simple function: put ice crearedients If you can’t perfore job at a Dairy Queen at seventeen years old, how do you expect to operate in your daily adult life? You should give up now, Erin Die with dignity"
Erin Masterson wasn’t speaking to her best friend She was speaking to me, Erin Easter, the third Erin in our senior class They weren’t always rade, we tried to spend every waking ether; our teachers and parents came up with nicknames to eliminate confusion Erin Alderman was known as Alder Erin Masterson was Sonny My name was simple: Easter The three of us didn’t share only names, we also shared a birthday: September first They went home with their parents, ere country club members and would eventually be heads of the Free Masons and the PTA, and I went home with my mother, as barely twenty and had no one to help, not even rade when, for reasons I’et Now in our senior year of high school, I mostly tried to avoid them, but they loved to visit me at the Dairy Queen where I worked on weekends and aland poked h "I’m sorry Hand it to me and I’ll remake it"
Frankie bumped me to the side with her hip, yanked the cup out of Sonny’s hand, scooped out the large chunk of brown ice cream with peanut chunks, and tossed it in the trash She spooned in a half dozen walnuts, and handed it back "I’ an entire cup of ice cream because your mama didn’t teach you how to deal with disappoint her head to the side
"I’ll let , Frances" Sonny spat out the words, iven name, the name she loathed "I’rinned politely "That ters, Masterson No one but your lared at Frankie, and then all ten girls walked away as one unit
"Sorry," I said, watching the cheerleaders happily jog across the street, energized from their confrontation
Frankie frowned and perched her hand on the curve of her hip "Why are you apologizing? I’ve told you a hundred ti crap fro does not ith bullies like that Believe h," I said, washing the sticky hed and looked at the ceiling with a sigh "I rehts ofto be experienced It was all ahead oftwenty-one" The dreamy look in her eyes faded, and she cleaned the counter "One night with Shane was all it took to make it disappear Seven years later, I’h school" She shook her head and laughed once, scrubbing a stubborn piece of dried chocolate off the counter "I wouldn’t trade h"
One corner of my mouth turned up as I watched Frankie mull over the decisions that kept her at the Dairy Queen She counted herself lucky to have a job The oil co jobs left with it, so a paycheck fro town
The phone rang, and Frankie answered it "No, Keaton, you can’t eat the peanut butter out of the jar Because I said If you’re starving, then eat a banana Then you’re not starving! I said no, and that’s that Put Nana on the phone Hi, Mama Okay Same as always How about you? Good No, Kendra has dance at six Kyle has T-ball at seven" She s up and turned to e look on my face
"Did you lose one?" I asked
Frankie chuckled "No The baby’s asleep, thank the lord"
She wiped the counters again, and I cleaned up theSonny’s banana split Blizzard Our Dairy Queen was housed in one of the ss in Blackwell, a tiny speck on the Oklahoma map The owners, Cecil and Patty, were more than happy to let out-of-towners stop to take pictures of their unique fifties-style building Patrons could order fro s in the front, or the drive-thru on the south side There was barely room for Frankie and me to move around, and we often bumped into each other e had a rush of custo fair week A lone shaded bench was placed on the side of the building for customers anted to stick around to eat their dip cones or hot dogs, but it was usually e the various cars and trucks belonging to the baseball tearavel lot across the street Several of them drove into the DQ and parked, a dozen sweaty boys hopped out and walked across the asphalt to myFrankie opened hers, and two lines formed
Weston Gates had to lean down to look at y, brown strands of hair, still ith perspiration His dark gray T-shirt read Blackwell Maroons Thehis now fourth year of high school football, basketball, and baseball His father was a jock at Blackwell high school, too, and his mother and older sister Whitney were both head cheerleaders Whitney was now in her second year of college at Duke University, going for her law degree, and she rarely came home I didn’t know her well, but she had beautiful, kind eyes, just like Weston