The Bucket List

18.1 The Will

"Nicholai wants you to wear this?" Gabby demands, a scrap of sheer black fabric dangling from her fingers.

I look up from my spot on the floor, a tube of eyeliner in hand, to find Gabby ogling the overpriced gown—Nicholai's mysterious gift. "Are you really surprised?"

She snorts, discarding the luxurious fabric. "No."

We trade grins, and this moment with her is so natural, so perfect that my eyes burn—but crying right now will kill the tentative peace between us, so I shove the tears down my throat and spring to my feet, tackling her against the bed.

"Off!" She pokes my ribs, my shoulders. "Off, you freak!"

"Where's your brother?" I ask, rolling away before she pokes something more important—like my eye, for starters.

Gabby flops onto her back, blowing a dark curl out of her mouth. "Downstairs, probably."

I look at her. It's been a perfect morning. Coffee and bagels and shit-talking boys and girls with a pile of cosmetics on the floor between us, the majority of it long-expired. The rift that's divided us these long weeks, brought on by my strange deal with an even stranger billionaire and his many eccentricities, lingers on the periphery, threatening to break us down to the bone. 

But Gabby doesn't mention it, and neither do I, and so today—today is perfect.

If this were any other Fourth of July, we'd likely spend the afternoon as we always have—out in the bay, bobbing around on old Petey until we're sick of the sea and the sun and too much cheap beer; whiling away the evening with the Davises, TJ Senior on the grill—hotdogs or hamburgers, girls?—and Mrs. Davis scolding us when we take our game of sparkler tag a little too far, the smell of smoke and our own burnt hair lingering long into the night, a star-speckled sky awash with hundreds of fireworks, painting the ocean in reds and greens and shining white lights.

But this isn't any other Fourth of July, and there's a sense of loss that comes with that realization. Loss and excitement and inevitability.

Because this is what growing up feels like, I realize. It's change. Change and loss and the thrill of something new.

Still. Looking at Gabby, I vow to myself—not all traditions have to be lost.

Nicholai will just have to wait.

So I say, trying for nonchalance, "I bet we've got a couple sparklers in the closet from last year."

Gabby flips onto her stomach with a mischievous grin, immediately following my train of thought. "Sneak attack?"

"If we hurry," I agree, a matching grin on my face.

Together, we sprint downstairs in search of her brother.

# # #

Breathless and smelling faintly of gunpowder—thanks to the all-out sparkler war Gabby and I waged against TJ—I'm running only a little behind schedule by the time Chester slows the sedan to a stop, idling in the parking lot of one of the larger marinas in the area.

Chester meets my questioning glance through the rearview mirror. "Mr. Ivanov—"

I swallow a scream as someone rips open my door. "Mr. Ivanov prefers Nicholai, and you damn well know it," Nicholai grumbles. Speak of the devil, I think, glaring at his proffered hand. "You're late."

I clutch my neck. "You just scared the shit out of me."

"And me," Chester chimes in from the driver's seat.