Lover's Game (South Bay Soundtracks Book 3)

by Amelia Stone

  After a long couple of minutes, I reached the top of the path, and I tried not to huff and puff like an old man as I took in my surroundings. A lush green lawn meandered until it reached the sheer cliffside, and unlike the formal gardens below, the landscape here was rougher, wilder. The moon was full and bright tonight, illuminating the long grass and wildflowers undulating gently in the breeze. Everything here was so calm and quiet. Peaceful. I breathed deep, just enjoying the wind running through my hair.

  Kind of like the way the long, curly red hair in front of me was being blown about by the warm summer air as Krista destroyed her elegant updo.

  I should have been surprised to see her. But instead, I shook my head, thinking about the way I’d mindlessly limped up here, as though some invisible force had been pulling me. Of course it was her.

  She held those sinful high heels in one hand while the other angrily pulled the pins from her hair. She scattered them to the wind when she was finally done, and I watched as her curls tumbled and danced in the breeze. I was utterly absorbed in the sight, feeling almost hypnotized.

  Until she let out a frustrated growl, lifting her free hand to swipe at her cheeks.

  Shit. If there was anything worse than seeing the girl who never cried finally letting it all out, it was the guilt that flooded me knowing I’d been at least partly responsible for her tears.

  My feet were moving of their own accord again, steering me toward her before I could think about it. I had no idea what I was going to do once I got to her. Part of me wanted to pull her into my arms and comfort her. Part of me wanted to yell at her, to rage and storm like the surf far below us, to tell her how much she’d hurt me.

  But mostly, I just needed to make sure she was okay.

  “Hey.” I called out to her while I was still a few feet away, so I wouldn’t scare her by sneaking up on her.

  She didn’t turn. She just stood there, staring out at the bay, furiously scrubbing at her cheeks to rid her face of the evidence of her emotions. When her hands finally stopped moving, she spoke.

  “Of course.” She chuckled humorlessly, tipping her head up to the sky. “Of course it’s you.”

  I almost asked how she knew it was me, since she still hadn’t turned around. But the question seemed unnecessary. There used to be a time when her voice was the most familiar sound in the world to me. I would have recognized her anywhere, anytime, with nothing more than a word, and I knew she would know mine in an instant, too.

  My feet stopped when I drew level with her, and I glanced at her from the corner of my eye. Her tears had dried for now, but her makeup was all smeared, and her eyes were raw and red. I had no idea what to say or do in that moment; I was simply too shocked.

  This was the first time I’d ever seen her cry.

  The enormity of the moment hit me full force, and I struggled to form an action plan. Part of me wanted to apologize for my behavior tonight. Part of me needed to hear one from her, for her behavior ten years ago.

  And all of me was once again struck dumb by the woman who used to be my best friend. The woman who was so different, yet still the same.

  So we stood side-by-side a few feet from the cliff’s edge, staring at the bay far below us, saying nothing.

  “You had no idea I was going to be here tonight, did you?”

  Her words startled me. They were graveled, like her throat was clogged with emotion. This time, I turned fully, taking in her crushed expression. But she didn’t look at me, didn’t so much as turn her head in my direction. She just continued to stare out at the water.

  “No,” I admitted. “Jess told me you weren’t coming.”

  She nodded, biting that fucking lip. Despite everything between us, I had to stifle a laugh, because that stupid, puffy, perfectly-shaped lip was still as tempting as ever. More, even, thanks to the ridiculously sexy color she’d painted it. I’d never seen her wear makeup before, and the sight of those deep red lips was seriously messing with my head.

  She took a shaky breath, letting it out slowly, before she spoke again.

  “Would you still have come if you knew I’d be here?” she asked.

  I swallowed roughly. “No.”

  She nodded, like she’d expected that. Somewhere in the middle of that nod, she looked down at her feet, and I followed her gaze. Thanks to the bright moonlight, I could see that her toenails were painted a blue-green color, like a peacock.

  A sad smile twisted my lips as I remembered the number of times I’d watched her inexpertly apply polish to her fingers or toes. She was so talented artistically. I’d seen her doodle lushly detailed landscapes on napkins and animate a video game with nothing more than a computer mouse. But she couldn’t paint her nails to save her life.

  “I guess I deserve that,” she croaked, still struggling not to cry. “I don’t think I could forgive me, either.”

  I choked on my reply, and I had to take several deep breaths before I could speak again. Forgiveness was a concept I’d thought about a lot over the years, thanks to her. And though I’d gone extra innings on the subject, I had never managed to get there, in the end. Admittedly, it seemed kind of stupid to hold on to all that old pain for so long, especially now that I was a grown man. It had been ten long years; I should have been over it by now.

  But now, with her poking at the wound, all that betrayal was still bubbling so close to the surface, as though the slightest bit of pressure could make it erupt.

  “Do you ever wish you could have a Time Turner?” she asked, just as I opened my mouth to say something.

  I frowned, both at her interruption, and at the abrupt change in topic.

  “Like in Harry Potter?” I asked.

  She’d finally made me read the whole series, years after that stupid kid had ripped up her book at my Little League game. Turned out, they weren’t too bad. I wasn’t a super fan or anything, but I definitely wasn’t a Muggle anymore.

  She nodded. “I would go back to that day. I would go back to that exact moment when I ruined everything, and I would do it all differently.” Her voice was quiet, almost like she was talking to herself. “Maybe this time I’d even tell you the truth.”

  I froze. “The truth?” I turned to her again, taking a step toward her. “What truth?”

  She looked up at me, and something in my expression must have spooked her. She took a step back, her lips pressed together like she couldn’t speak.

  “The truth about what?” I demanded.

  She shook her head. “I can’t tell you that,” she mumbled, so softly I had to strain to catch it.

  I took another step forward. “The truth about what, Krista?” I pressed.

  She continued to shake her head stubbornly, no longer meeting my eyes. “It doesn’t matter now.”

  And there it was.

  Anger coursed through my veins, my pulse suddenly racing with ancient, unresolved feelings. Because she’d used those same words ten years ago, when I’d asked her how she could so easily cut off her best friend. How could she just ignore all the years we’d had, the good times, the history?

  Because it doesn’t matter now, she’d said.

  “How could you say that?” I ran my hands through my hair, my own words echoing the ones I’d said back then, too. “How the fuck could you say it doesn’t matter?”

  She inhaled sharply, and I watched as she opened and closed her mouth, like she was struggling with what to say. But ultimately, she shook her head.

  “You know what?” I threw up my hands. “Never mind. Like you said, it doesn’t matter now.”

  I wouldn’t waste any more time pushing her for something she’d never give me. I didn’t want to run in circles anymore. So instead, I turned to go. But I had only taken a few steps when her voice stopped me.

  “Because you can’t forgive me?”

  I ran my hand through my hair, realizing I needed a cut already. I liked to keep it short these days, because I would simply never have the swagger to pull off the Ben Gibbard loo
k.

  Ben Gibbard, who wouldn’t even be my favorite musician if it weren’t for the Death Cab for Cutie CD Krista had given me for my twelfth birthday.

  Fuck.

  I blew out a noisy breath. “I don’t know. Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe I already have.”

  As I stood there, staring up at the huge old hotel, I realized I wasn’t really angry at her, not anymore. No, I was tired. I was so fucking tired of everything just hanging there between us in perpetuity. One way or the other, I wanted to get past all the bullshit and just move the fuck on.

  I heard her footsteps in the grass, and a moment later she was standing in front of me. I inhaled her familiar scent as the increasingly strong wind wafted it to me. She still used her mom’s homemade coconut shampoo, then.

  “Do you think we could ever be friends again?” she asked, her voice almost blown away by the growing storm.

  Friends. Seemed like too small a word for what we used to be, yet somehow too big for where we were now.

  “I don’t know,” I repeated.

  She nodded again, looking resigned, and for some reason my heart sank. Maybe it was the way her eyes were still swimming with unshed tears, or the way her shoulders were folded in on herself. She turned to go, and I watched her walk away, her bare feet carrying her toward the path. Suddenly I had this urgent, overwhelming feeling like I couldn’t let her go. Not yet.

  “Hey.” I jogged the distance between us, swallowing a curse as searing hot pain licked up my bad knee. “Hey, wait a second.”

  I grabbed her by the shoulder, spinning her around to face me. Then, without another word, without even thinking, I folded her into my arms.

  She stiffened, her shoulders tense for a moment. But then she relaxed, and I breathed a sigh. It felt weird to me, too, probably since she was so much taller than she used to be. Even without the heels, the top of her head came up to my nose. But it only took me a moment to get used to it. Ultimately, it still felt right, hugging her. We had always been a good fit, like we were two halves of a whole.

  “I’m sorry. I don’t-” I huffed. “I hate this shit, okay? I hated not having you in my life.”

  “Me too,” she mumbled against my shoulder. “I’m sorry. I was stupid, and scared, and selfish, and I’m just so sorry.”

  “I don’t even care why you did it,” I told her. “I just want you back. I want my friend again.”

  I knew it was colossally fucking dumb not to at least ask for an apology. But as we stood there on that windy cliff, with our arms wrapped around each other and her head tucked under my chin, I found that I didn’t really care.

  “No.” She took a deep, shuddering breath that I felt all the way through my ribcage. Then she looked up at me, her blue eyes defiant.

  I frowned. “What?”

  “I don’t want my friend back.” She stood up to her full height, like she was gathering her courage.

  Every single muscle in my body locked up, and I dropped my arms, stepping away from her. “You what?”

  “I never wanted to be your friend.”

  “You-” I swallowed a couple of times as I tried to process her words. “What do you mean? Do you think I what, coerced you into this, or something? Because I asked you if you wanted to be my friend. I fucking asked you. I know I was only five years old, but I distinctly remember asking you to be my friend, and you said yes. So you don’t get to tell me now that you hated me that whole time. You don’t get to revise our history like that.”

  She huffed, running a hand through her hair in frustration. “Damn it, Seth.” She sounded almost angry, and I glared at her. What right did she have to be angry right now? “I never hated you!”

  “Then why would you say that? What the fuck are you even talking about, you never wanted to be my fr-”

  Her lips cut me off, swallowing the end of my rant. Her lips. On my lips.

  She kissed me.

  She fucking kissed me.

  It lasted no more than about twelve seconds, and there wasn’t even any tongue involved. But holy shit.

  She. Kissed. Me.

  “I never wanted to be just your friend,” she whispered as she pulled her lips from mine. She stared up at me, eyes wide and expectant, like I should know what she was talking about.

  Which was fucking ridiculous. She could have been speaking Hindi, for all I understood. She kissed me. And ‘just my friend?’ What did that even mean?

  Also, in case I hadn’t made it clear enough, she fucking kissed me. My brains were completely scrambled, and I stood there like a dumbass, staring at her. My mouth was hanging open and everything.

  She closed her eyes, nodding her head one last time. Then she turned to walk away again.

  And I let her. Because I couldn’t move. Not when her hips swayed with each step, not when she bent to slip her grass-stained feet into her expensive red-soled shoes, and not when her voice floated back to me on the wind, putting a nightcap on this fucking mind-bender of an evening.

  “Good night, Seth.”

  I’d gotten zero sleep the night before, and I could barely bend my knee by the time I heaved myself out of bed Saturday morning.

  So naturally, I went for a run.

  When I slipped out my back door, the sky was just beginning to fade from the inky blue-black of night to the soft gray-pink of dawn. I stood in my backyard for a few minutes, watching as the stars winked out. I couldn’t see the sun yet, but it was only a matter of time. As my eyes roved to take in the near-panoramic vista, I noted that the bay was calm this morning. Last night’s wind storm was nothing but a distant memory.

  If only all my troubles could be wiped away so easily.

  The quiet moment alone with my three-point-seven-five-million-dollar view served to wake me up better than even coffee could, so I figured I’d better get a move on while I had the energy. I shuffled around my driveway for a bit, trying to get my blood pumping and my limbs loose. After two or three rotations, I was probably as warmed up as I was ever going to be.

  I set off slowly, because that was my default pace these days. By the time I reached the end of the block, I was winded and achy. But I wouldn’t turn around now. For one, I was stubborn as fuck. Now that I’d gotten going, I was unlikely to call it quits until I was done.

  For another, I’d just spotted a certain redhead stepping out the side door of her parents’ house, which was only a few doors down from mine.

  I stopped abruptly, shocked at seeing Krista up and out of the house this early. And I had to admit, I was a little nervous to be face-to-face with her so soon after everything that had happened last night. I still had no idea what to make of all the truths she’d revealed about our former friendship.

  Or the kiss. I especially did not know what to make of that kiss. The feeling of her lips on mine had fucking haunted me all night, until I had no idea which way was up. Was the moon made of cheese? Was Bigfoot real? Was there really such a thing as a carnivorous platypus? Who knew?

  She stopped short when she saw me, too, squinting in the not-quite-dark. “Seth?”

  “Yeah. Hey.”

  I stood in front of her with an awkward smile on my face, because I had no idea how to address the elephant in the driveway. Rather than try, I decided to concentrate on why I was up and out at five o’clock on a Saturday morning. I made a feeble attempt at jogging in place, but that involved a whole lot of lifting of knees. So I just shifted my weight from foot to foot, something she noticed immediately, judging by the way she was frowning at the brace on my right leg.

  “What are you doing up this early?” I asked, trying to take the attention off me and my bum knee.

  To say the girl I used to know was not a morning person would be an understatement. She got out of bed at the last possible second, took showers at night just to get an extra ten minutes of sleep, and she couldn’t even speak until she’d had a Diet Coke.

  So what the hell was she doing out of her house before six a.m.? And dressed in running gear, to boot? She wa
s standing in her driveway, looking like Exercise Barbie in a pair of blue leggings with those trendy mesh panels on the sides, a loose tank with the Ravenclaw Quidditch Team logo on it, and a sports bra I could see a lot of.

  A lot. Like, I now knew she had freckles on her tits.

  And yeah. I should not have been looking at Krista’s tits while I was wearing compression shorts.

  “I was going for a ru-”

  She cut her reply off, pressing those now-naked lips together. She looked a lot more like herself without the makeup she’d worn last night, although her eyelashes were inexplicably a different color than I remembered. They used to be almost invisible, but now they were dark enough that I could see how thick and long they were. I spent way too long wondering how that was even possible. Did eyelashes change color as a person aged?

  “I was going for a walk,” she said, not quite meeting my eye.

  She wasn’t wearing glasses anymore, either. I’d noticed that the night before, but it was too dark then to see whether she was wearing contacts. It was still too dark this morning, and I was not about to be a creeper and stare at her eyeballs. That was a little too “it puts the lotion on its skin” for my taste.

  I supposed she might have gotten that laser surgery, though. It was crazy how much she looked like her mom now, without those thick glasses distorting her features. Except her coloring, of course. She’d always had her dad’s hair and freckles.

  “Maybe we could go get some breakfast?”

  I blinked. “What?” I shook my shoulders out, trying to clear my thoughts and actually concentrate on what she was saying.

  “I said, maybe we could drive into town and get some breakfast?” She looked up at me with an uncertain frown. She must have been about five-ten, maybe five-eleven, I decided. She was tall, but still about half a head shorter than me. “There’s a new coffee shop on Grand that opens at five. They have a kitchen, though, and they do a full morning service.”

  My blood started to hum at her words, which felt weird. She wanted to have breakfast with me? That was good, right? It could mean that she wanted to talk, maybe clear everything up and move forward with our lives. I hoped it did, anyway.