Boys. They love taking up as much space as possible.
I inch back, all casual like. Being close to New Sam, yes, even to just his knee, isn’t good for my equilibrium or state of mind. And I’d like to enjoy my ice cream in a state of relative peace, thanks all the same.
We eat in silence. My sundae is soft serve vanilla covered in a thick, creamy peanut butter sauce and sticky, sweet marshmallow fluff.
But it’s not mint chocolate chip.
Ice cream regret is the worst.
“Don’t you like your sundae?” Sam asks.
One more thing that hasn’t changed. Sam reading my mind.
Or else he noticed me staring at his minty, chocolate concoction with what I’m pretty sure is lust in my eyes. Either way, the boy still gets me better than anyone else ever has.
“No, I do.” To prove it—and, yes, maybe to prove he doesn’t know me as well as he thinks he does, to show I’ve changed over the past eleven months like he has, and there are new, hidden depths to me he’s yet to discover—I take another bite. Speak around my mouthful. “It’s good.”
He smirks. He knows what I’m doing. Not lying, exactly.
Just not telling the truth.
Story of our lives right there.
“But it’s not what you really want?”
And that is a dangerous question, especially when asked in Sam’s deep voice, his gaze on mine. When I know he’s asking about more than ice cream choices.
He’s asking about us, about our previous friendship. How I was content to settle for it when I wanted so much more.
He’s not the only one with a strong ESP game.
“No.” Time for more of that faith. “It’s not what I really want.”
It was never what I wanted. It was what I thought I deserved.
I’m still not so sure I deserve more, but I’m going for it anyway.
He puts his leg down. Scoots closer. “Want to switch?”
I eye the cup of ice cream he’s holding out. “Did you order that because you knew I’d like it?”
“Maybe.” He skims his gaze over my shoulders, down my chest before oh-so-slowly dragging it back up again to my eyes. Despite it being a million degrees and the sun burning down on us, my insides get shivery. “Did you wear that shirt because you knew I’d like it?”
I open my mouth to deny it—like I’d denied it to myself when I put the stupid shirt on—but that would be pointless.
And cowardly.
Brave and bold. My new life motto.
I take his cup and, as I slide my ice cream toward him on the table, move closer to him. My thigh pressing against his knee, my stomach jittery, I meet his eyes. “Maybe.”
The one word comes out husky and breathless but he doesn’t seem to mind. He wipes his hand over his mouth and leans his upper body back, keeping his knee right where it is.
It’s cute, that he’s flustered. That I can make him nervous in a good way.
Cute and hot and very, very rewarding to know I affect him the same way he affects me.
“I don’t suppose you have your swimsuit on?” he asks.
I raise my eyebrows then turn my back to him, gathering my hair over my shoulder so he can see that beneath the crisscrossed straps, it’s all bare skin. Then I look at him over my shoulder. He’s gone still, his jaw tight.
This isn’t so hard. Flirting with Sam Constable.
In fact, it’s incredibly easy.
“No suit,” I say. “Why?”
“I…” He stops. Runs his palms down the tops of his thighs then up. Down. Up. He clears his throat. “I thought we could go swimming.”
Brushing my hair back, I face him again and nod at his shorts. “Do you have your trunks on under there?”
He shakes his head. “In the car.”
Digging out a chunk of mint Oreo with the long-handled plastic spoon, I wrinkle my nose. “The last time you left wet trunks in the car, it smelled so bad I had to ride with my head out the window like a dog for two weeks.”
He laughs. Ah, time. The great equalizer when it comes to lessening the pain of heartache, grief, and how fast a pair of wet swim trunks can turn moldy in a hot car. Or how bad they can smell.
Especially when it takes an entire week to find them under the backseat.
“Man, that was rank.” He digs into my sundae. “I learned my lesson. You can keep your head inside the vehicle and the windows up. These trunks were completely dry when I put them in there. We always kept suits and a few towels in our cars in LA in case we decided to go to the beach after school.”
The Oreo gets stuck in my throat and I take a bite of ice cream to push it down. That’s right. Sam spent the past eleven months in California.
So much for that whole I will never forget how he left vow I made three days ago.
The power of a pretty face. Turns a girl’s memory to mush.
“Did you go to the beach a lot?” I ask.
The thing is, I know he went there a lot. At least, for the first few months. I stopped following him on Instagram after Christmas. Didn’t see any sense torturing myself with the pictures he posted of himself on the beach, shirtless, tanned, windblown and smiling, arms around the shoulders of his new equally tan, equally buff buddies or curvy, bikini-clad girls.
Not something I needed to see on my Insta feed each day. Not if I wanted to get over him.
Of course, the boy is next to me, his knee warm and solid against my leg, so I guess that whole getting-over-him thing was a big, fat fail.
“Every weekend,” Sam says in response to my question. “And a few times during the week.”
I can see it now. Sam laughing and goofing off with his entitled LA friends as they jump into their shiny BMWs, Lexuses and Audis after school on their way to a sun-filled, fun-filled few hours of splashing in the waves and playing beach volleyball. While I was here. Alone.
Bitter? Me?
You bet.
Something I need to work on. To get over.
“Must’ve been nice,” I say, trying to keep the resentment from my tone. Not sure I succeed, but I’d like a few points for the effort. “Being that close to the ocean. Going to the beach all the time.”
He finishes my sundae and puts the crumpled napkin in the container along with the spoon. “It was cool at first, but it got old after a while.”
I roll my eyes so hard, I’m surprised I don’t see my brain. “Yes, I can see how all that sun, surf and sand would eventually get to be super boring.”
“Not boring. Just…the same. After a while, no matter what you do, if you do it all the time, it becomes ordinary.”
“I’d still take an ordinary day at the beach over any day here. Especially between the months of November and March.”
The wind blows my hair and he reaches out, as if to brush it aside, but then curls his fingers into his palm and lowers it without touching me.
It’s what I wanted. To take this slow. For him not to push me.
So there’s no reason for me to be disappointed.
I tuck my hair behind my ears.
“I missed the snow. The snow and the rain and the leaves changing in the fall. I missed the hills and how green it is here.” He slides me a glance. “I missed a lot of things.”
“What about the friends you made in LA? Won’t you miss them now that you’re back?”