"Love like that doesn’t go away. It’s here with us forever."

- The Best of Me, coming to theaters October 17

Chapter 2

The interior of Matt Everest’s orange Volkswagen bus smelled like pine needles, energy drinks, and campfire smoke. I sucked in a lungful of the hot, heavy air inside the vehicle as I took my seat on the middle of the bench, the leather upholstery burning the backs of my thighs.

“Hey, Camille,” Matt greeted lazily. He was in the driver’s seat, one hand on the steering wheel and the other feathering over his cropped hair. His dark eyes winked at me from the rearview mirror.

“Hi Matt,” I replied, beaming.

Before I’d successfully maneuvered my arms out from the straps of my overstuffed backpack, Tucker O’Hara slid into the back of the van beside me, squashing me up against the boxes of camping supplies that were wedged behind Matt’s seat. Tucker pulled the door shut after himself, sealing us in like a pair of sardines.

“You’re kidding me,” I grunted.

“All right,” Tucker said, oblivious to my discomfort, as he reached for his seatbelt. “We’re ready to go, Matty.”

I glanced up into the rearview mirror again, but before I could make eye contact with Matt, the girl sitting shotgun spun around to face me. Her mass of wild brown curls—less the color of dirt, like Tucker’s, and more caramel—blocked Matt from my view.

“Hi!” she chirped, “I’m Lindsey, Tucker’s sister.”

She looked vaguely familiar, and not just because she and Tucker were products of the same gene pool. I’d seen Lindsey at rock climbing camp before. She’d been one of the counselors-in-training.

“Camille,” I replied, reaching out to grab her outstretched hand.

“I’ve seen you before,” she said, her eyes—greenish brown, like those olives that get stuffed with tiny chunks of pimentos—widening just a fraction. “You go to camp with Tuck and Matty.”

I felt a little muscle at the corner of my left eye tick.

Matty. I thought only Tucker was allowed to call him that. Matt always whined about how it sounded like a bad pet name. I let out a small, breathy snort of laughter. Lindsey must not have known Matt very well if she thought she could use Tucker’s nickname for him.

“I do, yeah,” I replied.

I hoped my smile didn’t look too haughty.

“We should get on the road,” Tucker announced, shifting on the bench beside me to hold up his watch for Lindsey to see.

His kneecap knocked against mine and I winced, suddenly fantasizing about reaching across his lap, pushing open the van door, and kicking Tucker to the curb in the literal sense of the phrase.

“We’ve got time, Tuck,” Matt said, but he turned his keys in the ignition anyway and pulled away from the curb in front of my house.

Matt’s Volkswagen drove about as smoothly as a horse galloping on a cobblestone road, and there was a draft from the driver’s side window even when it was rolled all the way up, but I didn’t mind all that much. There was something exhilarating about the van, something in the way you lurched on even bump in the road that screamed adventure.

I watched through the front windshield as Matt navigated us through the streets of my hometown. We drove around the east side of the UC Berkeley campus, down a curved road lined with eucalyptus trees and past Memorial Stadium. Then we rolled down Telegraph Avenue, flanked on either side by home décor shops, restaurants and clothing boutiques, and hit at least five red lights before we finally merged onto the highway.

For fifteen beautiful moments, Tucker O’Hara was silent.

But good things never last.

“Does anyone wanna play I Spy?” he asked.

I snorted before I could stop myself. Matt chuckled from the front seat, but Lindsey was too busy digging around inside her backpack to pay attention to her brother. Or maybe she’d just lived with Tucker long enough to learn how to tune him out. If so, I was jealous.

“What are you?” I muttered. “Twelve?”

Tucker turned on me and narrowed his eyes.

“I’ll go first,” he announced. “I spy with my little eye someone with a bad attitude.”

Matt erupted in laughter from the driver’s seat, the sound so loud and sudden that it made me jump in my seat. I was stock still for about two seconds before I felt my entire face go up in flames. Sure enough, when I glanced at my reflection in the rearview mirror, I’d gone red—no, more like magenta—from my chin to the top of my forehead, where my freckles gave way to little tufts of white-blonde hair that never seemed to grow longer than an inch or two.

“Good one,” I forced out, “You’re so funny, Tucker.”

Matt was still chuckling in the front seat, but he’d managed to reign himself in. He glanced at me sheepishly in the rearview mirror, his mouth hidden behind one fist.

“Sorry, Camille,” Matt said, clearing his throat. One corner of his mouth twitched, like he was fighting back a smile.

I turned on Tucker, my embarrassment transforming into anger. Tucker seemed to notice the way I’d balled my hands into fists and flared my nostrils, but he just narrowed his eyes at me. Not in a fight me kind of way. Not even in a don’t even try to strangle me in front of my own sister way. He just narrowed his eyes at me like I was a bug he’d pinned underneath a microscope, which was infinitely more infuriating.

“Who wants fruit snacks?” Lindsey chirped.

Tucker and I snapped out of our little staring contest.

Lindsey was turned around in her seat again, a box of some generic grocery store brand fruit snacks in her hands.

“I’ll take some,” I said.

“I’ll pass,” Tucker said as Lindsey shook a couple packets of the gummies into my waiting palms. He dug his hand into the front pocket of his jeans and withdrew a small ice-blue packet with mint leaves decorating the front. “I stocked up on gum before we left.”

I tore open my first packet of fruit snacks.

“Do you want any, Matty?” Lindsey asked.

I just barely resisted the urge to roll my eyes as I popped a strawberry-shaped gummy into my mouth, my gaze shifting between Matt and Lindsey as I waited for him to correct her.

Matt, he always said, with a little grimace. Please, for the love of God, just call me Matt.

“Sure.”

I blinked. Once. Twice.

“You want me to unwrap it for you?” Lindsey asked, dumping another packet of fruit snacks into her own hand.

“Yeah,” Matt nodded, his eyes shifting off the road momentarily so he could shoot Lindsey a smile—his smile; his killer, beautiful, white-toothed smile. “That’d be great, thanks.”

Lindsey tore off a corner of the plastic wrapping, then shook out a couple of the gummies into Matt’s hand.

“Here you go,” she giggled.

I had about a half a second to let myself wonder if Lindsey was actually attempting to flirt with Matt or if I’d lost my mind completely. Then I took a breath and inhaled a lungful of the overwhelming scent of spearmint, and my attention was diverted.

“Tucker,” I snapped.

He’d been staring out the window, but at the sound of his name, Tucker turned to face me. His eyebrows—a little lopsided, but not to the extent that his smile was—furrowed in question.

“What?” he asked.

“Could you please chew with your mouth closed?” I hissed.

“I am,” he said, frowning.

His breath brushed across my face. Not only did it reek of mint, but it was also disturbingly warm and just a tiny bit moist, like a dog’s tongue against my cheek.

“Well,” I said, crinkling my nose, “I can smell your gum.”

“Do you want a piece?”

He held up the little ice-blue packet.

“No,” I snapped. “I hate spearmint.”

“You’re kidding,” Tucker said, tilting his head to the side like I’d actually managed to interest him. “You don’t like mint? How do you even brush your teeth in the morning?”

“The taste is fine,” I said. “It’s the smell I can’t stand.”

“You know, the Greeks and Romans used to put mint to perfume their bath water,” Tucker told me, tipping his chin up. “The Egyptians buried some of their Pharaohs with mint, too. It’s a pretty important herb in ancient cultures.”

Lindsey twisted around in her seat, the hem of her faded navy I Heart The Grand Canyon t-shirt tugging up just enough to reveal a sliver of toned abdominals.

“Tuck, I don’t think Camille wants to hear any of your fun facts,” she said to her brother, then shot me an apologetic smile. “Sorry about him. He read too much historical non-fiction as a child. Whatever you do, don’t ask him about the French monarchy.”

I frowned.

“What’s wrong with the French monarchy?”

“Well, for starters,” Tucker interrupted, leaning forward in his seat to perch his elbows on his knees as he pressed his fingertips together, “Louis XIV was totally problematic. He and the aristocrats spent all their time in Versailles while—”

Lindsey reached out and thumped Tucker on the forehead.

“Stop talking,” she demanded, but her smile told me she thought all of Tucker’s ramblings were endearing. “You can save the fun facts for all the other nerds in NYU’s history department.”

My stomach lurched.

I couldn’t have heard that right.

“The what?” I asked, tucking a chunk of my hair behind my ear, as if it’d somehow managed to distort Lindsey’s words.

“Oh, that’s right,” Matt chimed in from the driver’s seat, glancing in the rearview mirror at us. The harsh sunlight reflecting off the top of the dashboard illuminated the golden undertones of his skin. “Camille, I totally forgot to tell you. Tuck got into NYU, too.”

This is not happening.

“He did?” I croaked, my voice suddenly hoarse.

“Yeah,” Matt plowed on, beaming at me. “You guys are gonna be classmates. Isn’t that chill?”

No, it certainly was not chill.

I risked a glance at Tucker, who’d leaned his shoulder against the window of Matt’s Volkswagen. The corner of his mouth twitched upwards in amusement, like he thought the whole situation was real funny. I grit my teeth together and faced forward once more, trying to calm down the roar of frustration in my head.

So, Tucker was going to NYU, too.

It wasn’t that big a deal. There were something close to twenty-three thousand undergrads at the school; I’d probably never even see him, unless the two of us somehow ended up joining the same rock climbing club or something. Besides, I’d already been looking into transferring to the same community college in San Mateo that Matt was headed off to in the fall. I could have the paperwork done by Christmas, and then I’d only have to endure one semester in the same city as Tucker before I was reunited with Matt.

I rolled my shoulders back, trying to ease the tension out of my muscles. I let my eyelids flutter shut and took a deep, calming breath. Well, it was supposed to be calming. But the inside of Matt’s van reeked of spearmint flavored gum, so I ended up choking on the air and doubling over in a hacking, eye-watering fit of coughs.

We hadn’t even crossed the state border yet, and I was already sure Tucker O’Hara would be the death of me.