Lily: …I’m sorry.
I stared at those words for hours as I lay in bed. I couldn’t quite figure out what she was sorry for. After all, I was the one who paraded Tracy around the party and got caught in a compromising position. If I had kept my head on straight like Hunter told me to do, the night might have ended differently.
With me telling her I was out-of-the-world in love with her.
Well past midnight, I set my phone on the nightstand and tried to sleep. It was no use. Around and around, my thoughts chased each other. Both possible reactions from Lily. The good and the heartbreaking. I kept wanting to walk over there and drag her out of the house to show her what I spent the day building for her when I should have been at swimming practice.
It was a conversation I would need to have with my dad after I sorted everything out with Lily. I hoped I would be in a better mood because I would need it to face off with my dad about swimming. And maybe if I had Lily by my side I could draw strength from her.
Then again, my whole plan was riding on Lily hearing me out. Past experiences showed that when upset, she wasn’t good at listening.
Dragging her best friend into the mess only made things worse. I might have had a better shot without her, but at the time I was desperate. Especially after I caught her peeking at me from inside her house and then refusing to come out. Again, from past experience I figured she would spend the whole summer avoiding me and wouldn’t even think about hearing me out long enough to get her to my house.
With a sigh, I threw my arm over my eyes to block out the moonlight flowing through the gap in the drapes I forgot to close. Okay, maybe not forgot, more along the line of left open hoping I would catch a glimpse of Lily because I was that desperate. Unfortunately, her blinds remained closed tight.
Not even twelve hours to go. Twelve hours separated me from either heartbreak or happiness. Knowing I wouldn’t be able to sleep, I got up and threw on my jeans and a hoodie with the plan of taking a drive to clear my head. My dad passed out early after a couple of glasses of scotch, so it wasn’t as if he would notice.
I grabbed my keys from the hook next to the door then slipped out as quietly as possible. I had gotten good at it over the years so really, I had no reason to be jumpy. That was, until I bumped into a body on my porch.
No joke, I almost screamed. Almost.
Lily jumped back, her hand flying to her heart as I gripped my stomach and tried to breathe.
“You scared the crap out of me!” Lily whisper-yelled, her heightened anxiety making her voice come out higher than normal.
“I scared you? You’re the one skulking around my porch.”
She glanced away, but even in the yellow glow from my porch light I could see her cheeks turn pink.
“Yeah…well… I kind of couldn’t wait to talk to you, but then I changed my mind. I changed my mind about ten times since I’ve been standing out here, actually.”
Her words gave me hope. A ray of sunshine cutting through the cloudiness in my heart. I reached for her hand, surprised when she didn’t pull away, and tugged her down the steps toward the gate that led to my backyard. “I want to show you something.”
“Now?” she asked but didn’t put up a fight.
Yes. Now.
She was there and the second I saw her face I knew I couldn’t wait until morning. Especially when I noticed how puffy her eyes were. They looked like that the day after my mom died. I knew she had been crying and if it was because of me, which I had a hunch it was, I wanted to take those bad feelings away.
I reached over the top of the fence and undid the latch, thankful that my dad’s room faced the other way.
“Close your eyes.” I stopped before we turned the corner and my surprise came into view.
“Is this where you murder me? ‘Cause it kind of feels like that type of moment.”
“Please,” I snorted. “If I wanted to murder you, I had plenty of time at the lake house. A perfect place to dump the body too like that one creepy movie where the guy has a garden of dead women under the lake.”
“Cabin by the Lake!” Lily smacked my arm and giggled. “I always knew you connected with that character too much.”
“You caught me.” I smiled and covered her eyes with my hand. “Now close ‘em and keep ‘em closed till I tell you.”
“Exactly what a killer would say.” She laughed but did as I said, her eyelashes tickling my palm as her eyes closed.
With a stomach full of what had to be raging wasps, I led her to the middle of my backyard where I had sweated all day building an amazing replica of the tree house we had as kids. Except this time, I built it on the ground.
“Okay, open them.” I let her go and stepped to the side.
Lily did as I said. It took her a moment, but I knew the exact second she noticed it because her breath caught in her throat and her hand reached out to grip my arm.
“Parker… Is this our old fort?”
“As close as I could get it. Had to put it on the ground since Dad ripped down our tree.”
Her eyes found mine, wide with what I hoped was excitement because I sure as hell was.
“Why?”
“Come here, let me show you.”
She took my hand as I led her up to the small entrance. I tried to make the walls higher, but we still had to duck to get through the front door.
I switched on the camping lantern I had taken from the garage and watched carefully as Lily took in the decorations I covered the walls with. Finding those photos had come in handy after all and it was worth it to see the look on her face.
“Parker…”
“Lily.” I squeezed her hand, trying to ignore the shaking in mine. “I’m terrible with how I feel. It used to take my mom pointing it out before I even understood it. That was true with everything. Swimming. Writing. You…” Her eyes met mine and I swallowed hard not knowing if I should continue.
“Me?”
“Yeah, Lily, you. See, my mom picked up on it first. The day you busted your face on that hill I was out of my mind with worry. When they didn’t let me go to the hospital with you to get your stitches, I locked myself in my room and refused to come out until you got back.”
“Later that night my mom pulled me aside and asked me what made me so scared. The fact that you were hurt or the fact that you wouldn’t talk to me about it? It was that moment I realized losing you would be like taking all the color out of the world. And I loved color.”
Lily’s breath picked up and she squeezed my hand so hard I thought it might break. But I didn’t shy away. A broken bone would be a hell of a lot better than a broken heart.
“It was a secret I kept to myself for a while… For seven years.” I grinned, trying to ease some of the tension, but Lily didn’t move. Didn’t blink. “My plan was to tell you at Christmas the year we turned thirteen. It was your favorite holiday, and I thought maybe I could make it mine too if you felt the same way. Only problem was, my mom died that summer. Suddenly the color really was gone from my world. Light too. It left me in such a dark place that I didn’t want to drag you down with me. I wanted to preserve your light.”
Lily stepped closer, her free hand trailing up my arm until it rested on my shoulder.
“My mom always knew about how I felt and suddenly I didn’t have anyone in my corner. No one to root for us or tell me how to feel. I shut down right when you needed me most and when I finally came to my senses, we were over. You had Madison and Milo and I figured I did it to myself so I would have to live with it. Problem was, every day felt like walking through mud and when I would see you in the halls that mud became a little easier to tread. But you refused to acknowledge me so I went about getting your attention in the only way I knew how. You always were a hothead.”
Laughing, Lily brought her face closer to mine. I wanted to wrap her up in a tight hug and kiss the breath right out of her, but I needed to finish. Four years of unrequited love couldn’t be silenced.
“What happened at the lake wasn’t what you thought. My plan was to spend that week fixing all the damage four years and a crap-ton of resentment caused. But every time we came close, one of us would shut down. See, the thing I never thought of was how wrecked our hearts were. And what you walked in on would never have happened if I didn’t throw Tracy in your face in a last-ditch effort to get your attention. Nothing happened, you need to know that. I need you to know—”
Lily’s lips crashed into mine, taking me by surprise. I took a staggered step backward, about all the room the tiny space would allow, before my spine pressed into the wall. Lily’s hands were in my hair in an instant, her body flush against my chest as she dominated my mouth in a way I had never experienced.
Her tongue ran laps around mine, as if she needed to get it all out before something ruined it. Before we ruined it.
Not a chance of that happening this time.
I broke away from her with a gentle shove. There was nothing I wanted more than to continue, but I needed to get one last thing out.
“Lily, I love you. I’ve loved you since the day you took my dare and raced down that hill even though you knew it would end badly. I might be terrible at expressing myself, so I built you this fort and filled it with photographic evidence of our love. Platonic and not.”
I tapped a photo of us at twelve, both dressed up for our first official school dance.
Her eyes took in the picture as a smile spread across her beautiful lips. “I almost kissed you that night. But you ran off with Marco Flores to TP Principal Beck’s car.”
“Guess I need to make up for that.” I threaded my hands into her hair, bringing her face to mine. She placed a gentle peck on my lips before leaning back.
“In case you were wondering, Hayes… I love you too.”
My heart glowed in my chest. A lightness I hadn’t felt since my mom was alive. Those three words were all I ever wanted to hear from her mouth.
“Truth or dare?”
Lily bit her lip in an effort to keep the grin off her face. “Dare.”
“I dare you to spend the rest of your life being honest with your feelings and not letting the crappy shit in our past scare you off.”
She pretended to think about it before bringing her mouth to mine again. “Only if you’re right by my side,” she whispered against my lips.
I couldn’t think of one good reason why not. So I answered with a kiss.