I cringed, biting my lip as I brought my gaze back to hers. “Since we were eight years old?”
It came out like a question, like a permission I was seeking, as if Betty Collins would somehow be able to grant me access to the boy who had been off-limits my whole life.
Sure, honey. Go right ahead! Tell him how you feel and he’ll be yours. You’re welcome.
Betty shook her head, clucking her tongue. “It’s even worse than I thought. And he has no idea, does he?”
“Completely clueless,” I said on another sigh.
She was quiet for a moment, her eyes reflecting the turquoise water of the pool as she thought. It was a perfect summer day — just a few white clouds in the sky, temperature in the mid-seventies, a cool breeze coming in from the north. It was the kind of day that made you feel like no matter what was going on in your life, it would all be okay, somehow.
“Well, I think there’s only one solution to your problem, and it’s an obvious one.”
“I can’t just tell him how I feel.”
“Ah, so she does know,” Betty said, pointing at me.
“It’s not that simple,” I said, dropping back down into the water. It hit just above my waist now, and I let my fingertips run along the top of the water as I paced, trying to explain. “He’s still heartbroken over Bailey. He couldn’t see me as a possible girlfriend before Bailey messed him up — how could he possibly see me like that now? When she’s the only thing taking up space in his head, other than moving to New York?”
I was surprised by how easily the words came out of me, as if I’d been waiting my whole life for someone to figure out the secret that I’d been hiding so that I could finally talk it through. The sad truth was, Mikey had always been my person. So, when he ditched me for Bailey, I didn’t have a girlfriend to spew all my feelings to. It wasn’t for lack of trying — hell, I’d even joined three more clubs that I had absolutely zero interest in in the hopes that I’d find a new friend. But everyone in our school had already been cliqued off by then, and though I made some casual friends to talk to at school and during club meetings, none of them were eager to hang out with me outside of that.
Dad was my best friend outside of Mikey, and clearly I couldn’t talk to him about my boy troubles.
Maybe it was because it was Betty, and if the Becker family trusted her, I knew I could, too. Maybe it was because I’d had it all bottled up for years, and for some reason, I felt like that moment when Mikey had hovered over me in the mud pit — like he saw a little something more than he had before — had somehow busted the top right off, my insides spewing and fizzing to get out. Or maybe it was just something about that perfect summer day, about the whisper of promise that floated in on the cool breeze.
Whatever it was, relief washed over me with each confession I made.
“Speaking of which,” Betty said, calling me back to the moment. “What are you going to do when he makes the move to the big city?”
I shifted uncomfortably. “Well, as of now, I’m trying to stop him.”
“How?”
“I made a list of things he used to love about this town, things that made Stratford home to him — his favorite things to do, favorite restaurants, favorite places. I want to show him that he still loves this town, and that Bailey isn’t the only thing that he loved about it.”
Betty nodded, a small smile on her thin lips. “Smart. I like it.” She frowned again. “Let me ask you something. Have you ever dressed up around him? Did you guys go to homecoming together, or prom?”
I wrinkled my nose. “I don’t need to dress up around him. That’s the best part of our friendship. I can be in sweatpants and a t-shirt and he still treats me the same way as if I was all dolled up. And, no. I mean, we did get dressed up for freshman homecoming, but we both felt awkward and neither of us really wanted to go. So, we bailed out and opted for an all-night Halloween movie marathon, instead. And then…” I shrugged. “Well, then he had Bailey.”
“Hmm…” she mused. “Well, I’m glad you feel comfortable around him, and you don’t strike me as a girl who likes to paint on a full face of makeup and wear high heels.”
I wrinkled my nose again. “Definitely not.”
“But, have you ever thought that maybe he doesn’t see you as a possible girlfriend… because he’s never really seen you as a girl, at all?”
I opened my mouth to argue, but her words hit harder than I expected, and memories of countless nights spent together in close proximity in his bed or mine flashed through my mind. He was a teenage boy. Even if we had been friends before, why did he never get an unfortunate boner at our close proximity, or try to make a move on me with all those raging hormones?
My mouth snapped shut again, because Betty was right.
I might as well have been a teenage boy, too.
“Listen, you two haven’t really hung out in the past two years while he dated that girl, right? Not until these past few months?”
I nodded.
“Well, boys and girls change a lot when they’re your age, and I’d bet that you have some…” Her eyes dropped to my chest. “Assets now that he might not have noticed before.”
I gaped, covering my bikini top with both arms. “Betty!”
“I’m just saying!” she said, throwing her arms up. “God, I know it’s archaic. It goes against every feminist bone in my body and I know Julia Roberts would be ashamed of me if she could hear me saying this. But… the truth is, boys — especially boys his age — tend to think with only one part of their anatomy.” She paused, one eyebrow arching. “And it ain’t the brain, sweetheart.”
I snorted.
“Maybe wearing makeup and a fancy dress and high heels is too much,” she continued. “But you can still show him how very womanly you are in other ways.”
I laughed, shaking my head. “You are a dirty old woman, you know that?”
“And proud of it, sweetheart.” She winked. “Now, that list of yours with all of Mikey’s favorite things in town… any of them involve swim suits?”
Her grin was wicked, and I was already shaking my head.
“Yes, but I don’t like the way you’re looking at me.”
Betty chuckled, walking over to where I’d stopped pacing in the pool to frame my face with her wet hands. “It’s now or never, little lady. Get that boy to see you in a new light. As a woman, not just the girl he’s been best friends with for years.” She smacked my cheeks softly, letting my face go with a knowing smile. “I promise, it only takes one time for them to see it. After that?” She shook her head. “They can’t unsee it. Even if you do go back to sweatpants and t-shirts.”
“Is this you speaking from experience?”
“Oh, heavens no,” she said, waving me off. “I had one man and one man only, and he made it very clear how in love with me he was from the day we met. But,” she said, pointing her finger at my nose. “I watched a lot of romantic comedies, and I promise, this is the trick.”
Something between a whine and a laugh came from my lips, and I sighed, dropping down until every inch of me was under water. I blew bubbles from my mouth, sinking down to sit on the pool floor, and with only my heartbeat in my ears, I internally chastised myself for taking advice from a nearly senile woman whose advice was built from too-good-to-be-true romance movies.
Still…
At this point, what did I have to lose?
Michael
Logan was the first one in the water when we drove out to the lake on Saturday.
He barreled past the rest of us, setting up blankets and chairs on the grass, tearing off his shirt and throwing it at Mallory as he ran past her. She was still laughing when he grabbed the rope swing at the end of the dock and swung high into the air without a second thought, letting go of the rope when he was at the highest point of the swing and then plummeting down into the water with a giant splash.
Jordan and Noah rewarded him with whoops of encouragement when his head emerged from the water
, and Mom laughed from where she was spreading out a giant picnic blanket beside me.
“Gosh,” she said, shaking her head and pulling some grapes from the cooler we’d packed. “It’s been so long since I’ve been out here… feels like another lifetime.”
I nodded, knowing without asking that the other lifetime she was thinking of was when she and Dad would bring me and my brothers out here when we were younger.
I didn’t have much recollection of all the lake trips we took, but I did remember one time — the summer before my dad passed away. I remembered the sunburn, the first fish I ever caught on my own, and that I’d been missing my front tooth.
It was hard, because I didn’t know how much of that I actually remembered, and how much was only a memory because someone else had told me the story about it. I was so young, I couldn’t actually close my eyes and remember catching that fish. But I could look at the photo of our family in front of our tents, of my missing front tooth, of the sunburn on my cheeks.
It was one of the most difficult parts of losing my father at such a young age.
I could barely remember him.
I never admitted it out loud — not to anyone but Kylie — mostly because it made me feel ashamed for some reason. But it was the truth, and if anyone understood it, it was Kylie. When I looked back on my younger life, I hardly remembered anything that happened with my dad past what someone told me or what a photo or video had captured, and it was the same for Ky.
I knew what Mom meant by it feeling like another lifetime.
For me, it felt like another person’s life altogether.
“Well, we all know the stubborn girl you can thank for bringing you back,” I finally said on a smirk.
Mom’s smile brightened at that, and she cast a glance across the way where Kylie was setting up her own blanket. She was the reason we were all here today, and she’d organized it all before she even told me, which meant I couldn’t say no. There was no saying no to my mom, and when the rest of my brothers were involved, I knew there was no use even trying.
Not that I would have tried to back out, not after the promise I’d made Kylie. For whatever reason, her showing me what I used to love about this dump of a town was important to her. And even though I knew she’d never change my mind about moving to New York, I would follow through on the promise I’d made to let her try.
“That girl has always been something special,” Mom said, still eyeing Kylie.
Before I could respond, I was hoisted up over Noah’s shoulder, and he took off after Jordan toward the water. There was no use fighting it, so I rally cried all the way until Noah threw me into the water, him and Jordan jumping off the dock right after.
Logan threw his fist in the air, immediately shoving Jordan back under water as soon as he surfaced. They were still wrestling as I reclined back, eyes cast toward the blue sky dotted with puffs of white clouds. The air was hot and humid, but the water was cool and crisp, and nothing said summer more than that combination.
“Look at that,” Logan said, nodding toward the shore with a goofy grin. “When’s the last time you saw Mom have a smile like that?”
My brothers and I all turned to look, and Mom was mid-laugh, sitting on the picnic blanket with Ruby Grace as they both lathered on sunscreen.
“I don’t know why none of us ever thought of bringing her out here,” Jordan said, voice low.
Noah shrugged, running a hand over his face to wipe off some of the water. “I guess I thought it would bring up memories of Dad.”
“I’m sure it does,” Logan chimed in. “But, maybe that’s okay. It’s not like she’s ever going to forget him.”
We all fell silent at that.
“Speaking of dopey smiles,” Jordan said after a long pause. “I think this is the first time the four of us have been alone since your big news, Noah.”
That dopey smile Jordan spoke of doubled, and Noah’s cheeks flushed like he already had a sunburn coming on.
“Congrats, big bro,” Logan said, clapping him on the back. “Let’s hope this town is ready for a Becker wedding.”
Noah laughed through his nose. “Let’s hope they’re ready for two, since I bet you won’t be too far behind me.” He cocked an eyebrow, looking up the bank at where Mallory was taking a seat next to Ruby Grace.
“Ugh, you guys are disgusting,” I finally said, splashing them both. “Can we please talk about football or fighting or literally anything but this.”
Jordan high-fived me, but Noah and Logan just laughed, both of them shaking their heads.
“Just you wait,” Noah said. “It’ll be you talking like this soon enough.”
I rolled my eyes hard enough to cause an aneurysm. “Fat chance. I gave up on the whole love thing months ago.”
“What about Kylie?” Jordan asked.
Something about the way he said her name, about the way all three of my brothers watched me once he’d said it, made the blood in my veins turn to ice.
“What about Kylie?” I echoed.
“You guys hang out almost every day,” Logan pointed out.
Noah nodded. “And she clearly has feelings for you.”
The laugh that bubbled out of me was loud and surprising — just as surprising as the words that had just come from my big brother’s mouth. I shook my head. “She does not have feelings for me. Guys, it’s Kylie,” I said, as if just reminding them of that simple fact would put all their idiotic questions to bed. “We’ve been friends since we were in elementary school. Yeah, we hang out every day, but we play video games and listen to music and try to crack the code on Dad’s hard drive — not make out and feel each other up under the covers.”
They all smirked at that.
“Seriously, we’re not even remotely attracted to each other. She’s my friend,” I reiterated. “The way our relationship is, she might as well be a boy.”
Logan’s eyebrows shot up into his hairline as he looked somewhere behind me, and a low whistle came from his lips. “I don’t know, little bro. Not sure I know a single boy who looks like that.”
I turned, following his gaze up to the shore where Kylie was, and when I saw her, something inside me grabbed my next breath in a hard fist and squeezed.
She had her tank top in her hands, suspended above her head as if she was moving in slow motion as she stripped it off. Her long, dark hair tumbled free from the neck of the shirt once it was over her shoulders, falling down her back as she let the tank top drop to the ground. Her stomach was tight and toned, the tan she always attained easily every summer already starting to bronze her skin. But what made the fist around my lungs impossible to escape was the tiny, red scrap of fabric that covered her chest.
No, not her chest.
Her breasts.
Maybe it was because I’d been so wrapped up in Bailey for two years, or maybe it was because we hadn’t been swimming together since before Bailey and I started dating, or maybe it was just because I was a blind fucking idiot. Regardless, one thing was sure — I had never seen Kylie like that.
Her breasts were small, but perfectly round and perky, and exactly the right size for how small she was. They stretched the fabric of the cherry red bikini she wore, the bottom of the round swells peeking out in a little hole that was cut in the top.
She had cleavage.
My best friend had fucking cleavage.
How had I never noticed that before?
She was oblivious to the stares she was getting from me and my brothers, and she flicked the top button on her jean shorts next, sliding the zipper down before she moved her hips in time with her hands, shimmying the denim off to reveal a little strap of fabric that matched the top. Tiny strings zig zagged on each hip, the V of the bikini bottom accenting her toned stomach, her lean legs, her narrow hips.
And when she turned, taking both her shirt and her shorts and shoving them in her bag, I saw more of my best friend’s ass than I’d ever seen in my life.
That bikini was practically
a thong, the center of the fabric bunched together at the small of her back. It hiked that red fabric up, and the bottom swells of her ass mimicked those of her breasts.
Gone was the Kylie who was all knees and shoulders and braces.
And the Kylie I saw now?
I didn’t recognize her at all.
The hyena cackle of laughter that erupted behind me shook me from my thoughts, and I picked my jaw up from the ground as I turned to face my brothers again.
They all wore shit-eating grins, and Jordan looked at me with a mix of amusement and pity. “Yeah. The way you just watched her strip down to that bikini definitely screamed ‘not even remotely attracted.’”
That earned another fit of laughter from Noah and Logan, and I narrowed my eyes. “We’re friends. That’s it.”
“Uh-huh,” Noah said, floating on his back. “Say that again when the dude down the beach comes over and asks her for her number.”
My eyes narrowed farther, this time in confusion as I glanced back over my shoulder. And sure as shit, there was a group of guys from our high school down the beach from us.
And one of them had his eyes locked on Kylie like he was a wolf and she was his next meal.
I recognized him — a jock from the grade below us named Parker. He and his group of friends were seniors now, and I could see it in the confident way he watched Kylie that he was just as full of himself as any new senior football star was. He had a reputation around Stratford High for being both a straight-A student and a playboy. He was one of those guys you wanted to hate, but couldn’t really because he was funny and charming and talented as hell on the football field.
Still, everyone around that high school knew he had a specific taste for good girls, ones he could pull in easy and leave just as easy when he’d had his fill.
One thing I knew for sure — there was no fucking way I’d let him hurt Kylie.
It was absurd, that that was where my brain went. He hadn’t even talked to her and a wave of possession had swept in on me like a surprise summer storm. In fact, that entire moment had hit me like a bolt of lightning, like a crack of thunder, loud and quaking as it rattled everything I thought I knew.
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