“Please don’t become one of those girls who forgets about her friends because she’s all obsessive over her boyfriend,” Molly scolds, but I can hear the mirth in her tone.
“Oh please.”
“I’m serious! I haven’t heard from you since you kissed Kason, and that was over two weeks ago.”
“I know. I’m sorry. I’ve been so distracted.”
“Well, get undistracted and catch me up.”
I shove my schoolbooks aside and roll onto my stomach as I lie in bed. “What do you want to know?”
“Umm, everything! And don’t be all PG about it.”
“Wait. First, tell me how the Spring Fling went with Robbie.”
She huffs into the phone before saying, “Officially D-listed. We went to the dance, and everything was going great until I found out that he only pretended to like me to make Stacy jealous.”
“His ex? What a jerk.”
“You’re telling me. I guess I’m destined to be alone forever,” she sulks. “But enough about my unfortunate love life. Spill it, Ady. All the dirty details.”
I laugh. “There’s nothing dirty to tell.”
“So, what’s the update since y’all first kissed?”
I go on to fill her in about how Kason and I have been spending most of our free time together, and that the awkwardness between us is pretty much gone at this point. That we stay on the phone until the early hours of the morning most nights because neither one of us wants to hang up. So, we talk until we eventually fall asleep.
“Enough,” she blurts, cutting me off. “I’m, no joke, getting sick with envy over here. But torture me more. You must have a photo of him by now.”
“Hold on.” I switch her to speakerphone while I scroll through the few selfies I’ve taken of us and text her one with the two of us at the beach that I took last weekend. I was there while he was skimming with his friends. He stands behind me in the photo with his arms wrapped around me while I hold the phone out to snap the picture. His cheek is pressed to mine, and he’s wearing the most perfect smile.
“Oh my god, his arms. Are you kidding me right now?” she gushes. “It’s a good thing I’m in Texas, otherwise I may kill you and take him for myself.”
I take her off speakerphone and bring her back to my ear.
“Speaking of that,” she adds. “I talked to my mom about coming to Florida this summer, and she finally said yes.”
“Really?”
“She’s going to call your mom later this week to talk about it.”
“I can’t believe you’re going to be here. This summer is going to be so much fun!” I squeal, more than excited to have Molly here in Florida.
“I know! It’s going to be great. And I’ll finally get to meet that man candy you’ve been kissing on.”
The doorbell rings, and I jump off my bed. “I’m going to have to let you go. Kason’s here,” I tell her as I head downstairs. “I’ll let my mom know the good news about summer.”
“Hey, babe,” Kason says when I open the door.
“Even his voice is hot.”
“You’re crazy.” I laugh lightly. “I’ll talk to you later.”
I end the call as Kason bands his arms around me and nuzzles ticklish kisses into my neck. Giggling, I do my best to push him away, and he finally relents.
“You been swimming?”
“You’re a smart one.” I smirk as glance down at my swimsuit and cotton shorts and then back at him. “Go get changed and meet me out back.”
“Where’d you put my board shorts I left over here the other day?”
“In my bottom drawer,” I tell him before going outside to wait for him to change out of his work clothes.
I slip off my shorts and get into water. It doesn’t take too long for Kason to appear on the veranda. His shorts hang obscenely low on his hips, and I can’t stop myself from watching him as he tosses a towel over the back of one of the chairs before jumping in the water. He swims over to me, and when he grabs me around my waist and backs me up against the wall, my stomach trills as it does every time we’re together.
When he braces his hands on the edge of the pool, I sling my arms around his neck.
“Did you miss me?”
“Always,” I tell him, even though I saw him at school a few hours ago.
Water droplets roll down his face as his electric green eyes fixate on me. I drag my fingers along his eyebrow and notice a faint scar I’ve never seen before.
“How’d you get this?”
He smiles.
“Tell me.”
“Skateboarding accident,” he says. “I was around seven years old when my mom bought me my first board. One of my babysitters had a boyfriend who skated, and they took me to a local skate park.” He runs his finger along the thin marking above his eye and laughs under his breath. “There was an older kid throwing down some tricks. I watched him ollie down a small set of stairs. He made it look so easy.”
“You didn’t.”
“I did. I crashed hard and wound up going to the emergency room to get stitches.”
“You’re crazy.”
“That’s what my mom said before she took the skateboard away.”
“Did you ever get it back?”
He shakes his head. “No, but I was eventually able to talk her into getting me a skimboard.”
“I used to skateboard, too.”
At this he cracks a giant, disbelieving smile. “Your mom let you skateboard?”
I’m already laughing on the inside when I recall my childhood memory. “Not exactly.”
“This ought to be rich,” he chuckles. “Tell me about this hidden skater life of yours.”
“Well, my best friend, Molly, has an older brother that used to skateboard. We’d sit on the driveway and watch him, but every time we’d ask for a turn, he’d refuse. And when I asked my mom to buy me one, she told me no. So, I did the next best thing,” I tell him, feigning as much seriousness as I can.
“And what’s that?”
“I built my own,” I say with pride. “There was a house being built in Molly’s neighborhood, so we stole some scrap pieces of wood, unscrewed the wheels from a pair of old roller skates, and used her dad’s tools to attach the wheels to the boards.”
“You’re kidding?” he laughs.
“It was pretty impressive craftsmanship if I do say so myself. I mean, those boards were slick,” I quip. “We even decorated them with markers, stickers, and glitter.”
“And when you hopped on, did you bite it?”
I start cracking up. “I totally bit it. I fell off and scraped my arm pretty bad. No scars like you, but that doesn’t mean I was any less hardcore. In fact, I think I was more hardcore than you because I built that thing from scratch.”
“You can’t claim to be hardcore when you admit to accessorizing with glitter.”
“Hey,” I defend. “In my defense, that glitter was gold. Like, blinged-out gold!”
“You’re crazy, you know that?”
“Just saying, we’ve got a lot in common.”
His smile is big and so is mine, and when he leans in to kiss me, I let go of a slight giggle against his lips. He swallows my jovialness, exchanging it with sincerity as he presses his chest against mine. I hang on to him, wrapping my legs around his waist as his lips move with mine, and somehow, under the heat of the sun, my skin pricks in goose bumps all over. He moves slowly, in no rush as I hold him close. I let him take the lead as I always do, but when his tongue slips into my mouth and his hand touches my breast for the first time, I tense up, not knowing what to do. He gently squeezes me in his palm, and I tighten my grip on him, self-conscious and unsure.
He’s the first boy who’s ever touched me like this, but I get the feeling, with his ease and confidence, that it isn’t his first time. Not that it matters, but it doesn’t help my nervousness, and he senses it and pulls back.
“Is this too much?”
My cheeks heat, and I hug him to hide my face.
He lowers his hand to my waist. “Can I ask you something?”
I nod, but I still can’t look him in the eyes.
“I honestly don’t know how to ask this, but . . .” He takes my arms from around his neck so he’s able to look at me. “Have you done this before?”
I drop my head, shying away in utter mortification. My legs fall from around him, desperate to escape having to admit how innocent I actually am.
“Adaline . . .”
Too reluctant to look at him straight on, I keep my chin tucked down.
“Hey.” His tone is soft, and he lowers himself into the water to meet my level. “Look at me,” he requests, and sheepishly, I do. “I don’t want you to be embarrassed with me. I want to know this about you because I don’t want to assume you’ve done things if you haven’t yet.”
“I haven’t done anything.”
“Anything?” He stresses the word as if my admission is too unbelievable to be real, but I’m only seventeen, which has me worried about what all he’s done.
I shake my head again. “I mean, I kissed a boy I went to school with back home, but . . . not the way we kiss. You’re the first guy I . . .” Awkwardness skyrockets to unimaginable levels. I cover my face and drop my head to his shoulder. “God, this is so humiliating.”
His arms come around me, and with lightness in his tone, he assures, “You have no reason to feel that way . . . not with me.”
“What about you?” I ask when I lift my head. “Am I the first girl you’ve made out with?”
His expression grows cautious. “No.”
Attempting to cut through all the unpleasant tension, I poke fun, saying, “Well, aren’t you the lucky one, getting stuck with the inexperienced maiden,” but it does nothing to quell my insecurities right now.
“It’s not what you’re thinking. But you are the first girl I’ve ever had these feelings for. Actually, you’re all I can think about.”
“Really?”
The corners of his mouth lift. “Yes, really. I’m crazy about you.”
“Can I ask you something now?”
“Go for it.”
“Why do you still call me Adaline after I told you everyone calls me Ady? You’re the only one who does that, you know?”
Bringing his hands to my cheeks, he tells me, “Because I don’t want to be like everyone else to you.”
And this time when he kisses me, I kiss him back, and my heart swells with the love that’s beginning to bloom between us. He’s still so brand new to me, but I can already see myself falling hard for him. I run my hands up his chest and over his shoulders, and as soon as he moves to deepen our kiss, we’re interrupted by a loud, “Get a room, fuckers.”
Kason turns, and I see Trent running toward the pool and launching himself into a cannonball, splashing the two of us.
“What are you doing here?” I ask Micah as he takes a seat along the steps of the pool.
“Been trying to get ahold of this loser,” he says, motioning to Kason.
“Phone’s inside.”
“Apparently.”
Kason goes over to Micah and steps out of the pool. I watch as they talk, keeping their voices too low for anyone else to hear, and when Kason looks over to me, saying, “I’ll be right back,” I know he’s selling Micah more pot.
He grabs his towel, and the two of them head inside, leaving me in the pool with Trent. He just smiles and winks, “Nice bikini.”
I roll my eyes and splash him. “Stop gawking.”
He throws his hands in surrender. “Just making a harmless observation.”
“Observe elsewhere,” I tease before he reaches up out of nowhere and dunks me.