I picked it up carefully and to my relief it was okay. Thank fuck. Because I needed to hear from her again. All I could think about was the look on her face when we’d seen the cop approaching us. She was terrified. Even the thought of it made my stomach twist up into a hot, hard knot inside me. And I hadn’t seen or heard from her since then.
What if something had happened? Who bailed her out? Was she still in jail and waiting for me to come by and set her free? I pulled up her number on my phone, dialed it, and my call went straight to voicemail. The robotic voice provided no relief to everything I was so worried about. I couldn’t take this. I needed to hear from her, and I needed to see her.
I flopped down on the bed, put my hands over my face. What the fuck could I do now? And then, of course, it hit me.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Aria
“You have to believe me,” I said.
It felt like those words had been haunting me the last few days. I couldn’t convince anyone of the truth, no matter how certain I was of it, and it was starting to piss me off.
“I think he’s bad news,” Floundy said, holding up his hands. “Maybe your dad’s right.”
I managed to get in touch with him before he’d driven too far to Sand Dollar Beach, but I could tell he was still a little pissed at me for dragging him all the way out of bed in the first place. I would be too, but I needed him on my side now, more than ever.
I was back at home, and I was practically locked up in my room so my father could keep an eye on me. Well, so he could have Claude keep an eye on me. I’d shooed him out of my bedroom while Floundy visited, and he agreed to wait outside with a very dirty look in my direction. I mean, I got it. I likely landed him in a hell of a lot of trouble with my father, and he’d be damned if he was going through all of that again. But I could do without the fucking babysitter my father seemed so intent on forcing on me. And hell, wasn’t all this a little bit like kidnapping? I was a grown fucking adult and my family had been keeping me locked up against my will.
Dad had barely spoken to me since I returned home. I didn’t expect him to. He was furious with me and took my phone away so I couldn’t call Elliott. He warned me if I tried any of this shit with him again, he would cut me off for good. It seemed the last time was just an effort to spook me, but this time, he was threatening me with the real deal. Or so he said. If he wanted to cut me off so bad, why was he holding me prisoner?
And no one would believe that Elliott actually liked me, that he was so close to starting a whole new life with me. Everyone seemed to think he was using me for his own gain, and I was being delusional in thinking anything different. Even Floundy thought so, which was the hardest part.
“I’m sorry.” He held his hands up as I glared at him. “I just don’t think he’s good for you. Ever since he came into your life, it’s been nothing but trouble.”
“Yeah, from our families, not from him,” I pointed out. “He’s amazing, Flounds. Really. You’d see if you got to know him.”
“I don’t think the kind of guy who would push you to hook up on the beach, when he knows how inexperienced you are, is a good dude,” he protested. “That’s just how my brain works.”
“It wasn’t him who pushed for it,” I defended him. “I wanted it. Seriously.”
Floundy cocked an eyebrow at me.
“You don’t have to defend him to me.” He shook his head. “I’m not going to tell you to break up with him. I just don’t want to be a part of whatever you’ve got going on with him right now. Especially not with your father peering over my shoulder the entire time.”
“I get that,” I conceded with a sigh.
My father tended to have that effect on people, driving away the friends I valued the most and making it impossible for them to have actual relationship with me. He approved of Floundy, but only because he’d known him my entire life and knew he wasn’t interested in me. If Floundy had ever come close to actually sniffing around me for a date, he’d have been out on his ass before he could so much as ask me to the prom.
I lay back on the bed and looked up at the skylight above me. I’d asked to have it put in when I was a little girl, giving me a little glimpse out into the expanse of the night sky when I slept. But now, the only bit of the outside world my father would still allow me unfettered access to felt more like a window in my cell. What a depressing thought.
“I just really miss him,” I murmured to myself, even though it wasn’t going to change Floundy’s mind. He was already shocked enough that I’d given my virginity to Elliott, and no matter how much I tried to convince him it was my decision, he didn’t buy it.
“This is all so dramatic.” Floundy nudged me with his foot. “Romeo and Juliet shit over here.”
“In Sand Dollar Beach,” I managed, and he grinned at me and then frowned.
“I hate seeing you like this.” He shook his head. “It’s just… Elliott. I don’t know if I trust him.”
“I know where that’s coming from,” I assured him. “Really, I do. But he’s different. He’s not what you think. I know you’ve got this image in your head of him as this playboy or whatever, but it’s not like that. Even Tucker, his best friend, said he’s changed since the two of us got together, that he’s different now.”
“Aren’t you worried he could just as easily change back?” Floundy said with an anxious tone.
“Of course, I’m worried about that,” I conceded. “But I’m willing to take the chance on him. I think I might be, well, never mind.”
I cut myself off before the words came out of my mouth. For some reason, I wanted Elliott to be the first one to hear them, not my friend. Floundy cocked his head at me, clearly figuring out what was coming next.
“You what?” he pressed, and I closed my eyes. The words I withheld were the only things that would get Floundy on my side.
“I think I love him.”
Floundy’s mouth opened in surprise, and I thought he was going to tell me, no, I didn’t love Elliott. I was crazy, and I didn’t know what was good for me. I was a kid with too much time on my hands who had romanticized this relationship with a guy I barely knew. But, to my relief, he didn’t. Because he was my best friend, he loved me first and foremost.
“You serious?” He raised his eyebrows at me.
“Deadly serious,” I said. “I really have feelings for this guy, Flounds. It’s real.”
He stared back at me, and I could tell he was going over in his head all the ways this could go wrong, all the ways I could wind up hurt. I wanted to assure him that I’d already gone over them dozens of times in my own head, and there was nothing he could say to me I hadn’t already said to myself. But he needed to get there by himself, and I had no desire whatsoever of rushing him.
Suddenly, there was a knock at the door, and I lifted my head to see my father enter the room. I rolled my eyes at him visibly. There was no need to play at being polite, now that he’d forced all these rules on me.
“What are you guys up to?” he asked, and I knew he meant the question in the literal sense, not the informal one.