by Amanda Abram
She pointed the camera at me again and I reached up and placed my hand over the lens. “Grace, if you want to talk about this, then you need to put the camera away. Otherwise, I have nothing more to say to you.”
With a huff, she removed my hand from her camera. “There’s nothing to talk about. I just wanted all my followers to see the face of the jerk who tried to ruin my summer. But FYI, I’m doing just fine without you.”
“Great, so glad to hear that,” I said sarcastically as she began to walk away. When she was gone, I turned to Matt and asked, “How was I with her for so long?”
Matt shrugged. “I don’t know, man, I always wondered that.”
I shook my head. “Okay, sorry about that. You’ve been trying to talk to me about something. What’s up?”
“Oh, it’s nothing, really,” Matt said, playing with the tab on the top of his Coke can. “I was just saying that I think I’m going to ask out Emma.”
I’d been in the middle of taking a drink of my own Coke when he finished his sentence, and I almost spit it out. “Wait, what? Emma who?”
He glanced at me sideways. “The only Emma we know, you moron. Your Emma.”
My Emma.
My Emma.
I stared at him, my mouth agape. “But why?”
He looked confused, like he wasn’t sure why he had to explain himself. “She’s cute. Actually, she’s kind of hot. I enjoyed playing mini golf with her the other night and it was pretty obvious she’s into me. I don’t know, I think she might be fun to hang out with. If nothing else, she might be a decent hookup.”
I felt a knot beginning to form in the pit of my stomach. My plan to get Matt and Emma together was working and I’d barely had to do anything other than having them hang out one time. It couldn’t have possibly been that easy, could it?
I should have been elated at this news. I should have been pulling him into a hug and giving him a bro kiss on the top of his head. I should have been thanking him for saving me from a family trip to New York. I was free. Once he asked out Emma and they went on a date, I was free. Free from the trip. Free from spending all my time with Emma.
Free.
But I wasn’t elated. That knot in my stomach was making me feel queasy. Swallowing hard, I spoke before I could stop myself.
“I’m not so sure that’s a good idea.”
“Why not?” Matt asked, looking confused.
“Because,” I said, and I realized I suddenly had no control over what I was saying, “she’s not exactly your type.”
“Dude, my type is female, and she fits that description quite nicely.” He flashed me a grin.
I gripped the can of Coke in my hand so hard I almost crushed it. “Come on, let’s be real here. Dating her would be committing social suicide. Guys like you don’t date girls like Emma.”
Stop. Talking.
Matt shifted uncomfortably in his chair. “What do you mean, girls like Emma?”
“She’s a nerd. She’s boring and lame. She passed up a trip to Florida with her best friends so that she could stay behind and organize her book collection. Who does that?”
“Um, I don’t—”
“She’s never even had a boyfriend. That alone should be a red flag.”
I’m serious. Shut. Up.
“She’s a loser, Matt.” The words felt wrong on my tongue. They tasted bitter. But by this point, it was like somebody else had taken over my body and was speaking for me, and I was powerless to stop it.
Matt looked skeptical. “If she’s such a loser, why have you been spending all your time with her lately?”
I was really hoping he wouldn’t ask that.
“Because Rachel’s been forcing me to,” I replied, the knot in my stomach beginning to harden and grow. “I did something kind of shitty, and Rachel told me if I didn’t make it up to Emma, she’d convince my dad to make me go with them on their trip to New York in a couple weeks. So, that’s why I’ve been hanging out with her. It’s not because I’ve wanted to.”
Matt studied me for a moment before nodding slowly. He opened his mouth to speak, but Justin interrupted by calling out his name from over at the grill.
“I’ll be right back,” he said to me before getting out of his chair.
I blinked as my head started to clear up. What was I doing? Matt just told me he wanted to ask out Emma—which was the goal I’d been trying to reach for the last couple of weeks—and now I was trying to talk him out of it? What the hell was wrong with me?
“Wait, Matt,” I said before he had the chance to walk away.
“Yeah?”
“I’m just messing with you, man. I think you should ask Emma out. I actually think you two would be good together.”
Funny. Those words felt wrong, too.
He looked like he didn’t know what to think as he turned and headed over to Justin.
As soon as he was gone, I leaned forward and buried my face in my hands. I felt terrible. Horrible. I was such a jerk. I was ruining Emma’s chances with Matt. On purpose. All the girl wanted was to find love, and here I was, taking that possibility away from her. Again.
And I had no idea why.
I had to fix this.
Or, at the very least, I had to make myself feel better.
Taking out my phone, I got up and walked around the side of the house where it was more private, and I dialed Emma’s number.
She picked up on the second ring. “Hey, Logan.”
For a split second, I was worried this conversation was going to be awkward, considering we hadn’t spoken since…well, since I’d almost kissed her. But as soon as I heard her voice, my concerns flew out the window. Her voice sounded normal. Pleasant. Friendly.
I smiled. “Hey.”
After a pause, she said, “What’s up?”
I ran a hand through my hair. “Not much. I was just wondering what you were up to today.”
“Oh,” she said. “Nothing, really. My parents just left with your dad and Rachel to go to their friend’s cookout. I’m just chilling here with all my book friends.”
“All alone?”
“No, not all alone. What part of ‘book friends’ did you not understand?”
I couldn’t help but chuckle. The girl had book friends. She was taking the definition of nerd to new heights.
“Emma, it’s the 4th of July. You should be out having fun with your real friends.”
“Yeah, well, my real friends are in Florida, so…”
“I’m not in Florida,” I pointed out.
She was silent for a moment before saying, “You consider yourself my friend?”
I shrugged even though she couldn’t see it. “Sure, I do. I mean, we hang out all the time. We talk. I don’t hate you as much as I used to. So, yeah. I think I consider myself your friend.” I paused and then added, “Whether you like it or not.”
She giggled, and it was like music to my ears. “I never thought I’d live to see the day you and I would label each other as friends.”
“Yet here we are.” I grinned as I nudged a random rock with my foot. “So, I was wondering if you were going to the fireworks later?”
“I wasn’t planning on it,” she said with a sigh. “I usually go with Chloe and Sophia, and since they’re not here, I figured I would sit this one out. I’m pretty sure going to watch fireworks by yourself makes you a loser.”
I cringed at her choice of words. Loser. I’d just told Matt she was a loser. Shaking my head, I said, “You won’t be by yourself. You can watch them with me.”
“I don’t know. I’m not really in the mood to hang out with your friends—”
“I meant we could watch them alone. Just the two of us.” Actually, I hadn’t known that’s what I’d meant until I’d said it.
“Oh.” She sounded relieved. “Well, in that case, sure. Yeah. I’d like that.”
I ignored the sudden quickening of my pulse. “Great. Pick you up a little after eight?”
“Sounds good,” she s
aid. “I’ll go break the news to all my book friends.”
I rolled my eyes. “Dork,” was all I said before hanging up.
So, I was going to go watch fireworks with Emma. Alone.
Perfect. It would give me plenty of time to tell her about how my plan had worked. How Matt was going to be asking her out. She’d be so happy. I couldn’t wait to see the smile on her face.
The knot in my stomach twisted as I made my way back toward the party, but I paid no attention to it. It was nothing. Probably something I ate. Maybe a stomach bug.
It was the only explanation.
Chapter Twenty-Five
LOGAN
I knocked on Emma’s front door at about eight-thirty. As I stood there waiting for her to open it, I found myself growing increasingly nervous. I couldn’t decide whether to tell her that Matt was planning on asking her out—if he was still planning on asking her out. We never spoke of it again after we met back up. He didn’t mention it, and I didn’t dare to start the conversation again.
I was worried I’d really screwed things up, although Matt did have a mind of his own. If he wanted to date Emma, he would date her, regardless of how anyone else felt about it. I’m sure he dismissed everything I’d said and would be calling her or showing up at her door any moment now to ask her out.
My nerves instantly dissipated when she opened the door and greeted me with a warm smile.
“Hey,” she said.
“Hey,” I returned the greeting.
While everything was fine between us over the phone, now that we were standing face-to-face, things felt a little awkward.
“Ready to head out?” I asked her.
“Yeah,” she said, stepping out onto the porch and shutting the door behind her. She stared ahead at the driveway in confusion. “Where’s the Mustang?”
“Over there,” I said, pointing to my own driveway. “We’re taking the pickup truck tonight.”
“Oh, fancy,” she said with a smirk.
The truck was my dad’s. It was about ten years old and had seen better days, but he was obsessed with it. So obsessed, I was surprised he let me take it out for the night. I just figured a truck would be nice for the fireworks because we could sit in the back and watch them, instead of standing in a crowd full of obnoxious people.
“I’m glad you agreed to this,” I said as we climbed in. “I couldn’t stand the thought of you sitting at home all alone.”
She glanced at me curiously as she buckled up. “Why is that?”
I shrugged, putting on my own seatbelt. “You should be out enjoying stuff like this. You know Chloe and Sophia aren’t going to skip fireworks in Florida just because you’re not there with them. So why should you?”
“Good point,” she said as I pulled out of the driveway.
We fell into an uncomfortable silence as I began to drive, so I turned on the radio. I didn’t know what to talk about, and it appeared she didn’t either, since she wasn’t attempting to spark up any conversations herself.
It was about a ten-minute drive into town and I could tell before I even made it anywhere near the waterfront, where they were going to be setting off the fireworks, that this was a bad idea. There were large crowds of people everywhere and traffic was backed up nearly a half a mile.
“This should be fun,” Emma muttered, staring out her window.
I couldn’t help but agree with her sarcasm. I wasn’t usually turned off by large crowds—I could take them or leave them—but I wasn’t in the mood tonight to fight my way through hundreds of people, or to even try to find a parking space.
Glancing in the rearview mirror, I saw that nobody had pulled up behind me yet, so I put the truck in reverse, backed up a few yards to the nearest side street and turned down it.
“What are you doing?” Emma asked.
“I’m taking us somewhere a little more private.” I turned my head to glance at her. “Unless you’d rather deal with that cluster of madness back there, in which case, I can turn back around.”
“No, no,” she said. “Private sounds nice. I like private.”
She smiled, and I had to quickly avert my gaze back to the road. My grip tightened on the steering wheel as I struggled to push certain thoughts out of my head. Thoughts of being alone with Emma, in private. This was a bad idea. I should have just stayed in the line of traffic, circled around for a while looking for a parking space, and then walked down to the waterfront and enjoyed the fireworks with everyone else. Safety in numbers.
I could have still changed my mind and turned around, but I didn’t.
Instead, I kept driving. Driving to somewhere more private.
“Where are we going?” she asked.
“You’ll see.” I turned down another street that moved us farther away from our destination. There was a hill nearby with a scenic turnout at the top with an impressive view of the town, and I figured it would be the perfect place to watch the fireworks from a distance. Chances were good nobody else would be up there; most people enjoyed being part of the crowd for things like this. Usually, I was one of those people.
But not tonight.
It only took a couple minutes to get there from where we were, and she seemed to figure out my plan right away as soon as I turned up the hill.
“You’re taking me to Lover’s Lookout?”
“Lover’s Lookout” was what most of the kids at our school referred to this area as. For some reason, it was a popular spot for them to park their cars and make out with each other, even though it wasn’t too far from the road. However, the road was not well-traveled, and there were no street lights nearby, so it was fairly private.
“As a matter of fact, I am,” I said with a slight smirk. “It will be the perfect spot to watch the fireworks, far away from people. I can’t guarantee we’ll be the only ones there, but it’ll be more tolerable, anyway.”
“Sounds good to me.” She paused for a moment. “I’ve never been to Lover’s Lookout before. I certainly never thought I’d ever end up there with you.”
“Well, lucky lady, you play your cards right and perhaps there will be fireworks inside the vehicle tonight, as well as outside. If you catch my drift.” I gave her a dramatic wink, to which she responded with a giggle.
“Oh, Logan,” she said in a breathy voice, fanning herself. “You’re so bad.”
I grinned as we made it to the top of the hill and I pulled into the turnout. So far so good—not another human being in sight.
“Looks like we have the place all to ourselves. For now, at least.” I pulled right up to the guardrail and cut the engine. “They should be setting the fireworks off right over there, so we’ll have a perfect view of them.”
“This is nice,” Emma said with a smile. “Usually Chloe and Sophia drag me right into the middle of the biggest crowd they can find and there’s always somebody there who ruins the experience for us. Like last year, it was a group of older guys who continually kept brushing up against us, trying to cop a feel. One of them managed to grab my butt and then tried to brush it off as an accident.”
My jaw clenched at the thought of some disgusting pig laying his grubby hands on Emma. Whoever he was, he was damn lucky I hadn’t been there to witness it.
“Well, you don’t have to worry about me groping you,” I said. “Unless you want me to.” I wiggled my eyebrows.
I had no idea what had gotten into me tonight. I was flirting with her.
“We’ll see how the night goes,” she said suggestively.
And she was flirting right back.
Time to change the subject.
I cleared my throat. “Hey, your birthday is next week, isn’t it?”
She blinked at me in surprise. “It is. I can’t believe you remembered.”
“How could I forget? Harassing you on your birthday every year was always one of my favorite pastimes.”
That wasn’t a lie. Growing up, I was forced to attend all of Emma’s birthday parties up until I was eleven. The la
st one I attended—her eleventh—was when she tried to push me down the stairs. If I remembered correctly, that was the year I’d saved up as many spiders as I could find outside, placing them inside a jar with holes in the lid. I placed the jar inside a box right before going over to her house and wrapped it up in some pretty pink wrapping paper I’d found lying around inside a closet. When I presented her with the box, she actually seemed touched that I would get her a gift. I remembered feeling guilty at the last second and almost grabbed it back, but I wasn’t quick enough.
She’d opened the box, saw what was in the jar, screamed, threw it to the ground where it shattered, and all the little critters came scurrying out, invading her bedroom. She freaked out, started hyperventilating, and then chased me out of the room and down the hallway, where she then attempted to kill me on the staircase before her mother intervened.
Rumor had it that she wasn’t able to sleep in her bedroom for about a week after the incident. Not until her father had managed to find and kill every last spider.
Yeah, not one of my finer moments. Actually, none of my moments with Emma growing up could be considered fine. I was always a jerk to her. Always taunting her. Teasing her. Pranking her. I’d always enjoyed making her mad at me. I liked the way her nostrils would flare, the way her eyes got so wide they almost fell out of their sockets, the impressively high pitch her voice would reach as she screamed at me, all the different shades of red her face would turn…
Emma chuckled softly. “You did successfully ruin most of my childhood birthdays.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, and I meant it. Emma had never done anything to deserve the treatment I’d given her growing up. “I’ll make it up to you this year. I promise.”
A light bulb suddenly illuminated above my head. I would make it up to her this year. Matt was going to ask her out. I would tell him to ask her out for her birthday. I would plan the perfect, most romantic date for the two of them. It would be like something out of one of her romance novels. A night she would never forget.