The-Lucky-List-Rachael-Lippincott

We’re planning on camping out in the back of Blake’s pickup truck in an eort to get “6. Sleep
under the stars” checked off the list too.
“Oh, come on, Aunt Lisa. You’re telling me you didn’t do worse when you were our age?” Blake says,
the two sharing an identical mischievous look, eyebrows raised, smirks plastered on their faces.
“You got me there, Blake,” she says as we head up the back steps and through a screen door to a
covered back porch, decorated with blue-and-white-striped outdoor furniture, a white ceiling fan
chuing away above us. I pull out my phone and shoot my dad a quick text to let him know we’re
here.
“So, how’s Huckabee treating you?” Aunt Lisa says as we plunk down in the chairs. She swings her
feet up to rest on the small wooden coee table. “I’m honestly surprised you didn’t bail to come see me
sooner.”
“Not too bad. Definitely still getting used to…” Her voice trails o as she searches for the right
word. “Well, everything, I guess.”
“Yeah.” Aunt Lisa nods. “I don’t think I ever got used to it. And I was born there!”
She asks us about what we’ve been up to this summer, and while we leave out the list, we fill her in
on our cli-jumping adventure, and skinny-dipping at the Huckabee Pool, and stealing an apple from
Snyder’s Orchard.
She laughs at the last one. “Oh, you bet your ass I tried that once. Got tackled about halfway
through the Gala section. Had a mean black eye for a week.”
Soon we all start yawning, and Aunt Lisa takes us inside to get some pillows.
e bungalow is just as cute inside as it is outside. Wooden floors, with white walls and lightcolored
furniture, high ceilings with exposed beams.
“Bathroom is through there,” Aunt Lisa says, leading us down a small hallway. She points to a door.
“Spare bedroom is here,” she adds, pushing another open with her foot. She starts handing us pillows
off the two twin beds just inside. “If it gets too cold out there and you guys weenie out, you’re welcome
to just pop right in here. I’ll leave the back door unlocked.”
She throws a buffalo-check blanket onto Blake’s pile, completely covering her like a ghost.
“Looks like you’re all set,” she says, chuckling to herself as we head back down the hallway to the
screen door. She holds it open for us as we stumble outside. “Let me know if y’all need anything else.
Otherwise, I’ll see you for breakfast tomorrow morning.”
“Thank you!” we chorus, the screen door closing behind her.
Blake takes the suroards out of the back and lays the blanket out in the truck bed for us to sit on.
Both of us hop up to sit against the cab, the mound of pillows just behind us, what’s le of our
oversize lemonades clutched in our hands. I can still hear the whisper of the ocean, the tide coming and
going.
When Blake’s arm brushes up against mine, like it did so many times on the boardwalk, I don’t pull
away. I don’t know if it’s purposeful, or purely an accident, but for just a moment, for just tonight, I let
myself be right where I am. Right here with her.
It fills my chest up with a feeling that makes the lemonade sweeter, the night alive, the wind tuing
at my wet hair as we sit here together, the soft hum of a radio somewhere in the distance.
I look over at Blake as she reaches out to grab a pillow, catching sight of a tattoo just under her