He kissed me then, pulling me away from everything we’d been talking about. I moved so I was facing him, my legs straddling his, my arms around his neck, wanting nothing more than to be as close to him as possible.
“So why me?” I asked. “You had a firm no dating policy for years, and then we met and that was it? Policy out the window? I mean I know we haven’t actually been out on a real date, but at this point, I’d consider what we’re doing to be dating.”
“I would too,” he said, lacing our fingers together. “In fact, I think I should probably take you on a real date. You know, make it official.”
It wasn’t lost on me that he hadn’t answered my question, but I guess I really didn’t need to know why he’d picked me. He’d picked me, and he wanted to be with me. That’s all that mattered.
“Really? Like dinner and a movie – that kind of date? It sounds kind of cheesy and redundant at this point.”
“Hey, I’m all for being cheesy and redundant, as long as I get to be them with you.”
I smiled at him, but before I could respond, he kissed me, pulling me into a moment that made me forget about everything else around us.
Chapter Twenty-One
During our seventh week at the beach, Rachel came to visit. I was excited for her to meet Zack, although at that point, I had to keep reminding myself that it was just a summer fling – something I didn’t want to dwell on too much. I’d talked Rachel’s ear off about Zack, so she knew almost everything about him, but I was still nervous for them to meet.
“Wow,” I said, as soon as she got out of her car.
“I know,” she said, fingering her hair which had been auburn for twenty-one years, but was now dyed a dark chestnut color. “I wanted to do something different.”
I smiled. “I love it,” I said, thinking how it made her blue eyes pop. Her eye make-up was darker too. She looked amazing, edgy, but in a good way.
“I’ve missed you,” she said, throwing her arms around me. It was then that I noticed something glistening on her lip.
“Me too,” I said, embracing her. “I have so much to tell you, but first, what is that?” I pulled back and held her at arm’s length.
She bit her lip, pulling it back along with the small silver ring attached to it. “I pierced my lip,” she said, suddenly shy.
“You sure did,” I said, not sure if I was really in a position to judge since I’d gotten a facial piercing myself, but I was honestly kind of surprised that Rachel had gone to that extreme.
I smiled. “It looks good on you, babe,” I said, because I knew it’s what she wanted to hear.
She grinned back at me. “Thanks.”
Once she pulled her suitcase from the trunk, I grabbed her hand and dragged both her and the suitcase inside. We raced by Chase who had been loitering on the front porch, chain-smoking cigarettes and seemingly on edge about something.
“Hi Chase,” Rachel called, as I ushered her past him into the house.
He opened his mouth to say something in return, but we were inside before he could get the words out. Oh well. Whatever it was couldn’t have been as important as what I had to say.
“I am so excited that you’re here,” I said breathlessly, as I pushed Rachel into my room, shut the door behind me, and collapsed onto the bed. “This has literally been the best summer, and it’s just that much better now that you’re here, and you get to meet Zack.”
She grinned widely. “I know! Can I just tell you how dreadfully bored I’ve been all summer without you two!”
I paused for a second, looking over at her. “Who is you two?”
Rachel looked up at me, and I thought I caught a flash of panic in her face, but I might have just been reading her wrong.
“You and Michael, of course. Who else would I be talking about?”
“Ah, so when is the elusive Michael returning to Charlotte? And do I finally get to meet him? Please tell me you have pictures of him from his surprise visit.”
When Michael had surprised her a few weeks ago, he’d only been able to stay for a few days since he had to get back to the internship he was doing in Chicago, but it had been enough to squelch any concerns that he wasn’t being faithful to her. Rachel’d called when he left, waxing on and on about how amazing he was and providing too many details on all the things they’d done during his visit, but I let her go on and on because it was the first time she’d ever been serious about a guy, ever, but also because I was pretty sure I’d been guilty of doing the same thing to her all summer.
“Right around the same time you get back, and yes, you can meet him. I’m overly excited to see him. Oh, by the way,” she said, changing the direction of the conversation as she leaned over to dig her bathing suit out of her suitcase, “I love the nose ring. It’s so not you that it totally works.”
“Thanks, I think.”
“It’s a compliment,” she said, tossing something small at me.
I reached out a grabbed it in mid-air, closing my fingers around it. I opened my hand to reveal a tiny package that was wrapped in green paper.
“What’s this?” I asked, looking up at her.
“Just something I picked up,” she said, smiling widely.
I opened the package in a hurry, letting the paper fall to the ground and fumbling slightly with the lid of the box. Inside was a tiny, silver ring, similar to the one now gracing her lower lip.
“Rach!” I said, realizing what it was.
She shrugged. “I figured you’d want to have some variety – you know, switch up your look every now and again.”
I hurried over to the mirror, taking out my tiny sapphire stud and placing it carefully on the dresser. It was the first time I’d taken it out, and my nose looked funny with the tiny hole in it. It was like a large pore – kind of ugly – so I set to work on putting the tiny ring in place and found it was not the easiest task. For five minutes, I struggled with it while Rachel watched me in amusement from the bed, leaning back on her hands, her legs extended out in front of her.
It was a relief when I finally had the ring securely in place, and even though my nose was a little sore and red from the small amount of abuse I’d inflicted upon it, the ring looked really good. I spun around to show Rachel.
She grinned. “I love it,” she said, nodding.
“Me too,” I giggled, feeling like I was ten years old again.
Rachel slowly ran a hand through her long dark hair, letting the strands fall through her fingers. I was having a hard time getting used to her new look. She looked so different from the girl I’d hugged goodbye six weeks earlier.
In that moment, it seemed like she was contemplating something, as she had a faraway look in her eyes, and I waited a few beats to see if she would tell me.
“You okay?” I asked her, thinking maybe she wanted to talk about what was bugging her.
She looked up at me slightly startled, but it was so subtle that only someone who’d known her as long as I had would have been able to pick out that she was a little on edge.
Realizing that I was on to her, she gave me a wide smile that I could tell wasn’t fully genuine, and said, “Let’s go to the beach. I’m dying to lie in the sun and relax. Can we?”
“Absolutely,” I said, wanting to pry, but knowing that it was better to let her tell me in her own time. I knew that when it came to Rachel, I had to exercise patience. “The beach is pretty much all there is to do here.”
“And sleep with hot guitar-playing guys,” she said coyly, and was instantly back in the moment.
“Ha, ha,” I said, thinking that sleeping with a cute guitar-playing guy named Zack was one of the top three things I’d done that summer, so I really couldn’t argue.
“I still can’t believe you cheated,” she said. “I mean, I know I’ve been the biggest advocate of you breaking up with Ben, but you were so set against it, and then wham, you’re here two weeks and it’s game over. Shit, you made Ben wait a year before you slept with him, and Zack had
to wait, what, less than a week?”
“Rach, you know I love you, but you also know you’re not exactly in a position to judge me.”
She put her hands up in defense. “I’m not judging,” she said, shaking her head. “I’m freakin’ proud. My girl’s all grown up!”
I had to laugh at her before opening my mouth to tell her to get her butt moving if she wanted to hit the beach, but it was then that I noticed the intricate marking that encircled Rachel’s belly button. It looked like some kind of tribal design with lots of twists and swirls in all black. She had definitely not had that when I left for vacation
“Um, excuse me, but is there something you’d like to tell me?” I asked, pointing at her stomach.
She looked down, noticing her tank top had slid up to reveal her new tattoo. “Oops,” she said, guiltily. “Yeah, so, I also got a tattoo.”
“Um, yeah, I can see that. I thought you were going to get one while you were here?”
“I didn’t wait. When I told Michael about it, he sort of designed this for me, and we went while he was visiting.”
“Is he a tattoo artist? I thought he was an economics major or something.”
Rachel laughed. “Environmental Biology,” she said. “But he’s also an artist.”
“Yeah, I can see that,” I said, leaning over to inspect it. The artwork was beautiful.
“Can you see it has my name twisted throughout?” she asked, trailing her finger along the letters hidden in the design. If you didn’t know they were there, you couldn’t see them.
“That was so sweet of him,” I said, thinking how much this guy must really like her. I wondered what her plans were once school started. He didn’t exactly live near Chapel Hill, but I guess the distance was better than that what they’d been dealing with all summer.
I walked over to the dresser to grab my latest acquisition – a red string bikini that looked fantastic with the deep tan I’d acquired.
“These are so cute,” she said, and I turned around to see her clicking through the pictures on my iPhone. She held up one of me and Zack. “He’s gorgeous.”
Zack and I had been messing around taking pictures of each other the day before after getting back from the beach. We’d taken the one self-portrait of us lying side by side on my bed, our heads touching. We both look way too smiley and happy. Even if we didn’t keep in touch after the summer, I’d always have a memory of just how great our time together had been, but I a part of me really wanted to keep seeing him.
“Yeah, I know.”
She set the phone on my nightstand and got to work switching her bra for her bathing suit top.
“You’re glowing by the way,” Rachel said, as she tied the strings to her black bikini.
“I know,” I said again and grinned widely. “Zack is amazing. You’ll love him. He’s meeting us at the beach.”
“You never looked this way with Ben – not even in the beginning.”
“I know,” I said, sounding like a parrot, but those were all things I’d already thought about, so they weren’t a surprise to me.
We both turned around upon hearing a knock on my door. “Come in,” I said, looking around for my beach bag.
Chase opened the door and leaned against the door jam, but didn’t come into the room. He was wearing black and gray board shorts and carrying a towel. He still had an apprehensive look on his face.
“Hey. We’re almost ready.”
He nodded his head once and looked at the floor, shuffling his right foot slightly. I wondered what was with him and noticed that he was sober and had actually been all day. It was a first, and maybe it was the reason he was being so weird. Maybe weed really did calm him down.
“So Chase,” Rachel said, and I could hear the start of a taunt in her voice. “I hear you have a girlfriend.”
Chase looked up at her for a second, turned bright red and then looked down at the floor again. I looked between the two of them, seeing how visibly uncomfortable my brother looked and how satisfied Rachel looked that she’d embarrassed him. She was playing into his weird mood, and I knew it. She’d known him way too long not to pick up on it, and being so true to form, she was taking advantage of the situation. Poor Chase.
“Yeah, I do,” he mumbled.
“Amy, is it?” Rachel asked.
“Yeah.”
“Who apparently he did not cheat on with Molly, even though they spent two nights in a hotel together,” I said, still not believing that my brother had been faithful to his long distance girlfriend.
Chase shot me daggers.
“Aw, that’s so sweet, Chase. I always knew you were one of the good guys,” Rachel said. She shook her head, stood up, grabbed her bag and started for the door. “Of course, that blows my plans of hooking up with you this week completely out of the water, but I guess I missed my chance.”
I watched Chase’s face turn bright red as she smacked his cheek lightly a few times, stunning him as she walked past.
“So adorable,” she said, teasing him as she glanced over her shoulder, smiling wickedly.
“Eww, gross,” I called after her.
“Totally kidding,” she called from down the hall, not bothering to turn around.
“Thanks,” Chase said sarcastically to me.
“No problem,” I said as I walked past him, smacking him on the chest as I did. “Quit being so weird. You’re freaking everyone out.”
I left him standing in my doorway, as I followed Rachel downstairs. Chase eventually caught up with us when we hit the sand, but then he veered off to the side of the house.
“Where are you going?” I asked him.
He paused and turned halfway around. “I’ll meet you down there.”
“Have fun,” I said, hoping smoking would mellow him out. I turned back to Rachel. “Come on, let’s go.”
“Can you give me a sec?” she asked.
“What for?”
She glanced in the direction Chase had walked. “I feel bad that I made fun of him. I just want to apologize.”
My eyes went wide. “To who? Chase? You think he feels bad that you made fun of him?”
She shrugged. “He seems a little on edge. I just want to make sure he knows that I was only joking.”
“Okay, but I’m sure he’s fine,” I said, thinking she might be just a little oversensitive. My brother was not easily rattled. Rachel’s comment shouldn’t have gotten to him.
“I’ll be down in a sec,” she said, already walking toward the side of the house.
I decided not to try to stop her since I could see Zack walking toward our beach spot with his cousins and some tattooed guy I’d never met. I ran down to meet them, losing sight of everything else, as I did whenever Zack was around.
“How’s today,” I asked, as soon as I reached him and gave him a kiss.
He shrugged. “A six,” he said, using his one to ten rating scale on how his Mom was doing. “She got up and had breakfast, watched a little TV and went to the grocery store, but when she came home, she said she was exhausted and has been napping for the past three hours.”
“Well, I’m sure she’s okay,” I said, spreading my towel out in the sand. “She probably just needs some rest. She had a pretty full morning.”
He nodded, drifting away from me for a few seconds before snapping back. “Em, this is Derrick. He’s a friend of mine from Durham.”
He let me turn around in his arms but kept ahold of my waist, as I shifted my attention to the blond with sleeves of tattoos on both his arms and half of his stomach. He looked vaguely familiar to me. I figured I might have seen him out around town before. It was really too bad Rachel was taken, since this guy was exactly her type.
He just nodded once in my direction. “Hey.”
“Hey, yourself,” I said, figuring he wasn’t much of a conversationalist.
“So, where is this elusive best friend I’ve heard so much about?” Zack asked, as he pulled me back against his chest. “Is she here yet?
”
I grinned and turned to look up at him. “She’ll be down in a second. She made Chase upset or something, so she wanted to apologize.”
“I can’t wait to meet her,” he murmured, and leaned down to kiss me, making me forget that we were surrounded other people.
I got lost in the kiss, and everything around me dropped away until I heard Molly say, “Okay, enough. Get a room, or I’m getting a crowbar.”
I felt my face turn bright red, as I pulled away from Zack and looked up at him. He grinned sheepishly at me and leaned down to kiss my nose once.
“You changed it out,” he whispered, noticing my new ring.
I nodded. “I wanted a ring all along. Rachel gave it to me.”
“It’s cute,” he said. “Just like you, princess.”
I’d succumbed to the fact that Zack thought I was cute and sweet and a ‘good girl’, and I let him call me princess. I honestly sort of liked it when it was him saying it.
“Oh, you so must be Zack,” I heard Rachel say from behind me. I jumped in fright, not having heard her sneak up on us.
I looked over to see her standing there, a wide smile on her face and her hands on her hips. I couldn’t see her expression from behind her big celebrity sunglasses, but I could tell she enjoyed catching us. Next to her Chase looked visibly more relaxed and visibly stoned.
“I am Zack,” Zack said, running a hand through his dark hair. I watched it flop back down, half in his eyes, in that sexy way it did when he was playing the guitar and so in tune with the music that he forgot about everything else.
“Well, I’m Rachel,” Rachel said, “and I approve.”
Zack laughed and put his arm around me, pulling me close again. “Okay, good to know. Nice tat, by the way.”
“Thanks,” Rachel said. “You too.”
Zack looked down at the large overlapping ‘LE’ tattoo on his arm that I’d just assumed it was his mother’s initials. It was surrounded by some intricate design work that I loved to trace when Zack was shirtless.
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