“My man!”
Keith jumped from the deck, landing in front of us like Tarzan, if Tarzan wore...oh my God, Speedos? Keith was a big guy—big like a bear, broad shouldered and tall. Speedos shouldn’t be in the same zip code as him.
“You brought Lena!”
Sebastian halted to a stop in front of me. “What in the hell are you wearing?”
I tried not to look down, but it was like I was compelled by some dark magic and couldn’t help myself. I saw... I saw too much. I took a step back, but it was too late. Keith darted around Sebastian, and a second later my feet were lifted off the ground and I was being squeezed to death. I squeaked like a chew toy.
“It’s been forever since I’ve seen you.” Keith moved his shoulders, swinging my legs to and fro. “How long has it been?” he asked, and I could smell the beer oozing out of his pores.
“I don’t know,” I gasped out, my arms pinned. “A month or so?”
“Nooo!” he drew the word out. “It has to be longer than that.”
“Put her down,” Sebastian barked. “Jesus, you’re practically naked, man.”
Keith threw his head back and laughed and then twirled, spinning me along with him. Without any warning, he let go and I stumbled back. Sebastian’s hands landed on my shoulders, steadying me. “You guys like my swim shorts?” He put his hands on his hips and widened his stance, and oh my God, my retinas were burning. “I can move more freely and I think it makes my ass look amazing. Plus the green matches my eyes, don’t you think?”
“Yeah,” I whispered, slowly shaking my head.
Sebastian reached under the bill of his cap and rubbed his forehead. “I’m officially scarred for life.”
“More like blessed. You’re both officially blessed for life.” Keith smacked his hands down, one on each of our shoulders. He steered us through the open gate. “Hamburgers are almost ready. We’re about to throw some dogs on the grill in a few. Drinks are in the coolers.”
Keith’s place was always the spot to party. Fall through spring, there were bonfires every weekend in the fields beyond manicured lawns, and during the summer, everyone was gathered around the pool as large as the first floor of my house. And that wasn’t including the sand-colored brick patio surrounding it. A dozen lounge chairs dotted the patio, most of them occupied by faces I recognized from school. A few waved when they spotted us.
His parents had to have dropped some major money on the backyard—the kind that could’ve paid off Mom’s mortgage. Besides the pool and patio, there were flower gardens and benches everywhere, a horseshoe pit behind the pool house that was bigger than some people’s apartments and a badminton net strung up.
I hadn’t been back since the party in July.
“Hey.” Keith ran a hand over his buzzed head, drawing my attention. “Is your girl Abbi coming out?”
“Yeah.” I pictured Abbi’s face when she saw what Keith was wearing and nearly laughed out loud. “She’ll be here soon, and she’s going to be so happy to see you.”
She was so going to kill me.
“Awesome,” he replied, appearing a little too pleased by the whole idea. “Glad you made it out here. Was beginning to think you no longer wanted to be friends with me.”
I shook my head. “I still love you, Keith. Just been busy.”
“You can never be too busy for me.” Keith started walking backward, making his way to where his older brother, Jimmy, was standing in front of the grill.
His brother looked over and then burst into laughter. “Holy shit, you’re wearing them.”
Keith stuck out his rear, shaking it at his brother. “I don’t think I’ll ever take them off.”
“God help us,” muttered Sebastian.
Wiping the beads of sweat off my forehead with the back of my hand, I peered up at Sebastian. It was so hot I was already beginning to regret the whole no-bathing-suit thing. “He’s your friend.”
“Yeah.” Chuckling, he stepped around a colorful potted plant.
Glancing at the double glass doors leading into the back of the house, I thought I saw movement inside. “Do you think Keith’s parents are here?”
“God, I hope so.” Sebastian eyed the pool. “Nothing’s more hilarious than his father coming out here and challenging everyone to a horseshoe tournament.”
I dropped my purse by several others and said, “I can’t believe his parents are cool with these parties. I mean, my mom is pretty chill, but I’m also not throwing parties every weekend.”
“Guess Keith and Jimmy lucked out in the parental department.” He angled his body toward mine. The cap hid the upper half of his face. “Before we were interrupted by the disturbing sight of Keith, I—”
“Yo! Seb.” Over his shoulder, I saw Phillip pop up from one of the loungers, his dark skin glistening in the sunlight. “When did you get here?”
“Just a few seconds ago,” Sebastian answered as he turned.
Phillip swaggered over to where we were standing. He clapped a hand on Sebastian’s shoulder as he nodded in my direction. I wiggled my fingers at him.
The two started talking about the scrimmage game and their first game of the season next Friday while I stood there singing “It’s a Small World” in my head. Eventually Keith returned to deposit a red plastic cup in my hand and another in Sebastian’s.
“Only one,” he said, sipping at the foam. “Got to drive back tonight.”
Keith snorted. “Pansy ass.”
“Whatever.” Unbothered, Sebastian grabbed some plates and we got down to eating cheeseburgers. “You see the quarterback for the Wood team? He can throw...”
I zoned back out of the conversation, sipping my beer until I saw Chris coming around the corner of the house. Slipping away from the guys, I met Megan and Abbi at the gate.
“Thank God you two are here,” I said. “They’re talking about football. Nothing else but football. That’s it. Only football.”
“No bathing suit?” was the first thing out of Megan’s mouth. She was wearing cutoffs and a bikini top. Half her face was covered by black oversize sunglasses. “You and Abbi have no concept of how to dress when you come to a party that involves a pool.”
Abbi’s curls were sectioned into two pigtails. “Heads up, she’s been bitching the whole ride out, about everything and everyone.”
“It’s been a long day.” She snatched my cup out of my hand and lifted it to her mouth, downing at least half of it in one impressive gulp. “First off, that jerk over there,” she said, extending her finger—middle finger—in Phillip’s direction, “didn’t text me back last night, and I know he was here and so was Meg, and you know how Meg has been obsessed with him for, like, two years.”
I pursed my lips. I didn’t think Meg Carr had been obsessed with anyone, but I wisely remained silent. Abbi didn’t.
“Do I need to remind you that you guys are actually broken up? I mean, you said you were talking, but that doesn’t mean anything.” Abbi leaned into me, resting her arm on my shoulder. “So what’s the point?”
“There’s a point. I’m getting to it.” Another deep gulp of my drink. “He says he wants to get back with me, and I’m entertaining the idea. But if he wants to get back with me, he should at least be responding to my texts.”
Abbi looked at me.
I kept quiet.
“Then my dumbass cousin over there—” her middle finger went toward Chris, who was with Sebastian and the guys “—who, mind you, I love deeply, was texting Mandi like crazy on the way over here. And I’m pretty sure he’s already half-lit. I thought we were all going to die a horrible death.”
My stomach dropped slightly. Mandi was friends with Skylar. If Mandi was seeing Chris, which was a new development, then she’d be here tonight. So would Skylar, because those girls traveled in packs.
So did I, but whatever.
“That last part is true,” Abbi confirmed. “I thought we were going to die, too.”
“Finally, Mom wanted me to go out to dinner with her new boyfriend tonight. Who, by the way, is maybe only ten years older than me, and that’s gross.”
I glanced over at Abbi. She was grinning slightly, despite what she suspected her family was going through.
“So I had to explain to her that this was my last weekend before my senior year and the last thing I wanted to do was spend it with her and the guy who’d be replaced by a newer, shinier version next month.”
“Uh-oh,” I murmured.
She lifted my cup again. “That went over well, but I’m here, so I win.” She raised the cup in a toast and then offered it back to me.
“You can have it.” I waved it off. “Seems like you need it more than I do.”
“Thank you.” Megan popped forward, kissing my cheek. “You’re my very best friend.”
Abbi cocked her head to the side. “What about me?”
“You just said I was being bitchy. You’ve been downgraded to second place,” Megan replied over the rim of the cup.
I laughed. “So Dary is in third place?”
“When is Dary getting back?” Megan asked, looking around.
“Tomorrow,” Abbi reminded her.
Her face fell. “I miss her. We should take a ton of selfies and continuously bombard her with them.”
I laughed. “I’m sure she’ll appreciate that.”
“But first, how are things with Sebastian?” Abbi asked, nodding in his direction.
“Fine,” I replied quickly. “We’ll chat later about it. Okay?”
Abbi looked like she wanted to protest, but she let it go. I wanted to enjoy myself for a little bit before I started stressing over what Sebastian wanted to talk about.
We spent way too long taking random selfies with everyone at the pool and all around the property, sending them to Dary from all our phones. Her initial amused responses had died, and knowing her, she was probably getting super annoyed by the twentieth selfie, which kind of made it all the more entertaining.
Later, Keith did a grab-and-twirl with Abbi, who appeared horrified by his outfit, but I could tell she was also reluctantly amused by it. She wiggled free, groaning about how much of an idiot he was while smiling. Megan eventually roamed off, joining Phillip and another guy on the other end of the pool.
“Is she really thinking about getting back with him?” I asked Abbi.
“Who knows?” She sighed. “God, I hope not. They’re like the Selena Gomez and Justin Bieber of Clearbrook.”
“Except no one wants them to get back together?”
A loud laugh burst out of Abbi. “So true.”
Looking around the backyard, telling myself I wasn’t looking for Sebastian, I spotted Cody by the grill, cup in hand and surrounded by the rest of the guys. “When did he get here?”
“Who—Oh. No idea.” Abbi straightened her hot-pink sunglasses. “A lot of people have just randomly shown up. It’s crazy.”
We walked over to the cooler. Abbi grabbed a soda as I fished a water bottle out of the ice. “So Sebastian says he wants to talk to me later.”
“About?” She popped the lid on her can.
“I have no idea. Usually he’s not so evasive. But I’m thinking it’s about the obvious, you know?”
Abbi was quiet for a moment and then she said, “You saw Skylar’s Instagram post from last night, right?”
Knots filled my stomach. “Yeah.”
“Maybe he’s planning to get back with Skylar,” she said, and I sighed. “He might want to tell you they’re getting back together. I hate to say that, but after the whole kissing thing, he probably thinks he should say something to you about it,” she said, pushing her sunglasses up as a cloud covered the sun.
“Well, he and Skylar do make the perfect couple.” I glanced at the guys. Keith was thrusting his hips and smacking the air with one hand.
“You and Sebastian would make a perfect couple.”
I suddenly wanted to throw myself under the bushes. “I don’t want to think about this anymore. It’s annoying—I’m annoying myself. For real.” I turned to Abbi. “I’m literally driving myself crazy.”
“Then you should find some hot dude to pass the time with until you leave for college.”
“Now you sound like Megan,” I said. “But maybe I will find someone to pass the time with. Preferably a hot dude who likes to read and is interested in history.”
“That sounds like relationship material. I was just talking about Netflix and chill.” Her tone was dry. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”
I laughed as I took a sip of water.
Abbi turned as Megan danced her way over to where we stood. She stopped in front of us, shoving her sunglasses up. “Guys, you’re not going to believe what I just heard.”
“What?” I asked, happy for the distraction.
Excitement buzzed in Megan’s voice. “Griffith and Christie just left with Steven to meet up with some shady-ass dudes from the city to buy coke.”
I lowered the water bottle. I was so not expecting that to be what she was going to tell us.
“Not surprising,” muttered Abbi. “Didn’t they do that in July? Christie got all kinds of messed up. Keith almost called 911.”
Megan’s mouth dropped open. “You knew about this? Is it something regular they do?”
“Regular enough that they’re going to get it now, apparently,” she shot back.
I was still stuck on the whole randomly-leaving-to-buy-coke thing, like they were going to the store to pick up some chips and dips.
Jesus, that seemed hard-core.
I wasn’t naive, but I was surprised that they were the ones going to get stuff. Really, I would have been surprised if anyone I knew was doing coke or heroin.
“Well, hell.” Megan looked down at her red cup. It had been refilled. “Phillip is thinking about trying it tonight. Like, he almost left with them. Can you believe that?”
Abbi curled her lip. “Idiot.”
“Right?” Megan took a drink. “I’m going to go yell at him. Be back later.”
My brows rose as I watched her walk away. “That’s... Wow.”
“Do you think Keith does it?”
I tucked my hair back behind my ear. “I didn’t even know they did, so I have no idea.”
“Well, that would explain the Speedo,” she said with a heavy sigh. “You would have to be high to think that was a good idea.”
I giggled. “So true.”
“Hey.” Sebastian’s voice was in my ear a second before his arm curled around my shoulders. A puff of air left me. His warm, hard chest pressed against my back. A tight wave of shivers wound down my spine as heat blasted my face. “Where’ve you been?”
Abbi stared at me, brows arched.
I quickly focused on the pool. “I’ve been right here. Where’ve you been?”
“Everywhere,” he replied, and he turned me around. The baseball cap was on backward again. Our faces were inches apart, nearly as close as we were at the lake. So close I could smell the faint trace of beer on his breath. “So, I have this idea. It involves me. And it involves you...getting wet.”
My mouth dropped open as my mind belly flopped into the gutter.
Oh my God.
“Really?” Abbi chirped. “I cannot wait to hear more about this idea.”
Oh. My. God.
He grinned as he reached over and plucked the sunglasses off my face. He put them on top of his head. “Well, I’m more of a show versus tell kind of person.”
All I could do was stand there and stare at him, because I felt like I’d slipped into some alternate reality—the kind that existed in the super-adult romance books I read, where public declarations of love were abundant and happy endings were promised. I couldn’t look away from his heavily lidded eyes, which were so blue they almost seemed unreal. We were so close I could see the one tiny freckle he had under his right eye.
“What are...?” I whispered, completely losing my voice.
Sebastian dipped his chin as he slid his arms down my back, hooking me around the waist. He drew me up against him, and my heart was beating at a near-deadly pace.
This was actually happening. Surrounded by our friends, this was actually happening.
His head tilted to the side, and our mouths were lined up. “Lena, Lena, Lena.”
My eyes drifted shut, and I felt his warm breath on my lips. Every muscle in my body tightened. I was breathless with anticipation, want and need.
It was happening and this time it would end differently.