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It was November first, the day after Scoops By The Sea’s annual closing…and the day Rory dreaded the most.
She faced the front of Scoops, watching as Calvin rounded the corner after locking up the back door leading to The War Room. It’s what they called the small room in the back of the shop that customers couldn’t see, the place that belonged to the Scoopers and the Scoopers only.
Calvin slid up next to Melanie, curling an arm around her neck and kissing her forehead. But Melanie kept her hand firmly in Rory’s, holding on tightly.
“I can’t believe it’s over,” Melanie whispered.
“Just for now,” Calvin said. “We’ll be back before you know it.”
“Not soon enough,” Rory huffed.
“You guys are bananas,” Blake said. “I, for one, will not be sad about having a few months off.”
“Says the boy who doesn’t have to work a second job,” Jess said tightly.
“School is basically a job,” he complained. “The worst kind, actually.”
“Not as bad as having to refill the wet nuts container,” Rory quipped.
“Or pressure cleaning the sticky ice cream from the sidewalk,” Melanie added.
“Or dropping an entire ice cream cake and trying to clean it out of the rug,” Jess said.
Rory winced. “Okay, that was one time, Jess.”
“One is still too many,” Jess mumbled back, shaking her head.
Rory sighed. “It’s weird,” she confessed. “Not having them here.”
No one had an answer for her…and she understood why. It was her fault everything was so weird between the seven of them. Without Tyler and Jay, it felt like a massive hole in their family. And now, after another wild summer season at Scoops, they were all going their separate ways.
Rory truly hated this day.
“I’ve gotta go to work,” Jess said curtly, and it was enough to break the awkward silence. She turned on her heel and went for her car, not stopping to look back.
“There’s our Jess,” Blake said as they watched her pull out of the Scoops parking lot. “Always the most sentimental one.”
Rory heard sniffling and turned toward Melanie, who was now crying. Calvin tightened his arm around Melanie’s shoulders. “Ready to go?”
She nodded. Rory squeezed her hand one last time before letting go, watching the two of them walk over to Calvin’s truck.
She sighed, turning toward Blake. “Need a ride?”
“Nah, Zach’s picking me up,” he said, his face flushing slightly at the mention of his boyfriend. He stepped closer to her. “Hey, is Melanie, um, doing okay?”
She felt her heart twist in her chest. “I-I don’t know.”
Blake’s brows furrowed. “But aren’t you guys, like, best friends? Shouldn’t you know this stuff?”
She tried to steal a glance through the window of the truck as it pulled away, catching Melanie as she nuzzled her head against Calvin’s shoulder. “I’m not really good at the whole ‘best friends’ thing.”
“But—”
“Blake,” she snipped. “Drop it, ’kay?”
Blake nodded, his face bright pink from embarrassment.
Rory knew it was probably the polite thing to wait for him to get picked up, but she wasn’t feeling particularly polite at the moment. So, she mumbled goodbye and walked toward her car.
