Meet Me in Hawaii by Georgia Toffolo (best affordable ebook reader TXT) 📗

Her parents hadn’t wanted her to take the job at the Shack, hadn’t seen the need for it given the generous allowance they gave her. But all her friends had summer jobs lined up and she’d pleaded, and her BFFs had pleaded, and even Ewan, the owner of the Crab Shack, had pleaded (such a softie), and at last she’d been given the okay to be just like every other sixteen-year-old in the village.

Unfortunately, a week into the job she’d had a wisdom tooth out—typical that she’d get her wisdom teeth earlier than any other kid and that one of them would be impacted. (Seriously, it was like the universe had it in for her!) Her parents, true to form, had acted like she was about to be measured for her coffin and it had taken two days in bed and an extra day of frantic begging before Zoe was allowed to return to work.

But her parents’ capitulation had come at a price: constant phone calls.

After their eighth call on her first day back, Zoe had decided that giving up the job was preferable to having every Shack employee lining up to throttle her. She’d hurried out to the storeroom, blinking tears away because she didn’t cry, ever, phone gripped in one hand, when Finn had…well, materialised.

He’d looked at the phone, at her face, and understood the situation instantly. That was when he’d said those words to her. And then he’d told her that the big battle had been getting her parents to agree to the job but the phone calls? Pfft, they were nothing.

And just like that, the phone calls had ceased to matter. So she’d called her parents, right there in front of Finn, and explained that if she didn’t answer a call immediately it didn’t mean she was being rushed to hospital, only that she was busy, and in such cases she’d call them back within half an hour, cross-her-heart-hope-not-to-die. Then she’d set the phone to vibrate-only, and whenever it had buzzed in the back pocket of her jeans, she’d smiled at Finn and he’d smiled back, sharing the secret. And over the next few days the calls had tapered off. The way the emails she was currently dealing with always did eventually.

So deal with it, Zoe. The sooner you deal, the sooner you’re free.

She switched windows on her computer. For long responses—and she was determined to compose a long one, knocking off every possible issue she could think of as a forestalling tactic—she preferred keyboard typing to tapping on her phone.

She couldn’t imagine what there was left for them to warn her about but when she opened the message she saw they’d found something: Cristina, Zoe’s regular travel companion.

The email was oh-so-carefully worded; this wasn’t a hill her parents were prepared to die on lest Zoe decide no more travel companion at all, but nevertheless the dictates were clear: Zoe should remember Cristina was there to help. It was fine for Cristina to enjoy herself, and nobody expected her to hover over Zoe twenty-four hours a day, but Zoe shouldn’t see it was an imposition to request Cristina’s assistance whenever she needed it. Cristina was stronger than Zoe as well as being a trained nurse, so Zoe shouldn’t insist on doing all those transfers to and from her chair herself all the time.

The easy way to head this particular concern off at the pass was to let her parents know that Cristina had become as tediously dedicated to Zoe’s wellbeing as they were, to the point where Zoe had to send her on made-up errands to win herself some breathing space. Today, for example, Zoe had asked her to carry out a completely unnecessary accessibility check of the entire Poerava resort. Problem was, though, if she told her parents Cristina had been afflicted with the protect-Zoe-Tayler-at-all-costs disease they’d probably kick off a campaign to get Zoe to hire Cristina as a permanent live-in assistant. Not! Happening!

Zoe wished she knew what she did that made people want to stand guard over her so she could stop doing it! It happened to everyone who came into her life sooner or later, and as for those who’d known her from her cradle…?

Well, gah! Just…gah!

Yes, three miscarriages before Zoe was born had conferred ‘precious’ status on Zoe. Yes, Zoe had suffered all the health issues associated with being premature. Yes, Zoe had been a sickly child, in and out of hospital with bronchiolitis. But—ginormous, important BUT—by the age of eleven she’d been as hardy as any kid in the village. Small, yes, but perfectly formed and perfectly fit! And yet a slight breeze sent half the village running for her coat. A yawn and the other half would urge her to rest. A scratch on her arm and she’d be fending off offers to drive her to Accident and Emergency. As though she were a piece of delicate porcelain teetering on the edge of a cliff and it was everyone’s collective responsibility to stop her going over.

Thank God for her best friends, Victoria, Malie and Lily, who treated her like they treated each other: no fuss, no concessions, just love. Without them, Zoe would have spent the span of her life from primary school to coming-of-age peering through the windows of her parents’ clifftop mansion—or as the girls called it Palace de Prison—at everyone else frolicking on the beach below.

Zoe smiled around a sigh, as she always did when thinking of her friends. She depended on the girls in a way she never let herself depend on anyone else. It didn’t feel like a weakness to need them, to lean on them when the going got tough. They had each other’s back, always. Knew each other’s frailties and strengths. Knew each other’s scars. Were always there for each other—whether it was a quick phone call or an all-in session via