by Alex Rosa
Brandon jabs him in the chest. “Come on, you love-struck fucker. I can’t wait around for you.”
Caiden manages a chortle of laughter as Brandon shimmies by and heads out of the house.
CeeCee fiddles in her seat as her eyes dart between Caiden and me. I catch her smile, and although my heart swells while stuck in the middle, I so badly want simple, but this will never be simple between Caiden and me. I hate that I kind of love the beautiful chaos that seems to manifest between us, like static electricity, and he isn’t even officially my boyfriend yet.
“Do you two need a minute?” she chirps.
I shake my head, but Caiden stalks over. He doesn’t seem to care that CeeCee is five feet away, or how we’re supposed to try and keep a leveled amount of distance.
“You going to kiss me goodbye?” he hums.
I shake my head, pursing my lips to fight the annoying smile that wants to break through my face. “Nope.”
He takes another step, closing the distance between us, forcing me to look up at him.
“Are you sure?” he goads.
“Yep.”
“Hailey, kiss me.”
“Why do you ask when you’re not going to let me win anyway?”
“I think I’ve been fair enough this morning.”
CeeCee stifles a giggle, but I can’t look away. I feel the lava flow of heat to my cheeks.
“Fine.”
I stand up on my tiptoes and press a kiss to his lips, but he catches me off guard by crashing his mouth into mine. He takes no prisoners, and in a flash he’s coaxed my mouth open, dipping his tongue in for a cruel, quick taste, pressing one last possessive stroke against my lips before pulling away.
I’m out of breath within a nanosecond, my eyes heated and my body in a frenzy when I look up, feigning anger. “Was that entirely necessary?”
“Yep.”
He grins, turns around, doesn’t say another word, and clonks his way out of my kitchen and out of the house to join Brandon.
CeeCee giggles. “You let me know how pacing things goes for you, yeah?”
I’ve got more of a skip to my step than usual as I hop out of CeeCee’s Jeep, and I’m keeping the reasons why to myself, although CeeCee’s tiny smirks as she watches me tells me she’s probably figured it out. Aren’t I allowed to be filled with a little bit of smitten hopefulness? Can’t my friends let me have that?
That might be one of the things I wish had changed. We might have grown up, but I don’t think we’ve really grown up.
As I come over the small hill, I’m greeted with the sparkling horizon of the lake mid-summer. The air is thick, teetering on humid as we walk through the fading woods, and I pull in a deep breath, liking that pine smell freshly diving into my lungs this late afternoon.
As I stroll toward our secret spot on the shore, Cameron is already barreling toward me from the sand.
“Hailey, where have you been all my life!?”
I’m in such a good mood, I meet him in stride and leap into his hug. “Where’s my beer?”
“Did I ever tell you you’re my favorite? Beer is right this way.”
He swings me around once before letting my feet back onto the ground, keeping an arm around me as we walk.
“Funny thing, Hails, it seems you and Caiden have matching smiles this afternoon. Coincidence?” He smiles dopily, too, beer surely fueling it.
I laugh, turning my head completely to face my friend, his shirtless form showing off his heavily tattooed chest, though his arms are free of ink, the opposite of Caiden. I’m a bit stunned by the deep intricacies of ink and lettering.
“You checking me out now, Hailey?”
I laugh again, snorting. “You wish—”
Ring. Ring. Ring.
How dare my phone interrupt my dealings of potentially well-crafted insults.
As I pull my phone out of my jean shorts, Cameron adds smugly, “Oh, I forgot, you’re kind of taken now. Better be on your best behavior, huh? You can’t be ogling the hot guys on the lake, ya know?” He takes a swig from the beer can I didn’t know he was holding while shooting me a wink.
“You’re ridiculous,” I quip before answering the phone. “Hey, Janet.”
“Who’s Janet?” he interrupts, eyebrows wiggling. “Is she one of your friends in California?”
I try shoving the idiot away, but he bungees back as I reply, “She’s my literary agent, now go away—Janet, you there?”
Cameron is bouncing around me like a puppy looking for a treat as I try to make my way to our friends. I can’t stop laughing.
Janet answers, “Who’s that?”
I press my palm against Cameron’s face while saying into the phone, “My friend Cameron.”
As if by some absurd form of coincidence wielded by hormonal pixie dust, I hear in unison from my phone and from the frenzied friend in heat in front of me, “Is he/she hot?”
“What the fuck,” I whisper, leading into a hysterical laughing fit. I choose to respond to Janet. “Well, Cameron’s not your type. He’s not shirtless riding a noble steed or anything.”
“... But I’m at least shirtless! One out of two ain’t bad!” Cameron shouts.
Janet squeals into the phone, “Alert the damn town. Someone get him a horse, stat.”
I groan, rolling my eyes, finally seeing light at the end of the tunnel when I see Caiden sitting on a fallen log, seemingly distracted as he talks to Tyler, shirtless himself.
“Janet, you’re absurd. I gotta go.”
I’ve switched from loud and rambunctious to breathy and waif-like in a nanosecond, not looking to see where Cameron ran off to.
“I was kidding,” she replies. “But seriously, is he hot?”
“Spare me,” I chortle. “I’m serious, though. I have to go. I don’t mean to answer and then cut the phone call short. I—uh—just walked into something.”
“Huh,” she tuts knowingly, but refrains from saying what’s really on her mind. “No worries. Just... call me back when you get a free moment. It’s kinda important.”
“I will. Bye, Janet.”
“And ya know, enjoy your time there...”
The trailing off of her sentence doesn’t sit well with me, but I shake it off. Then it almost leaves my mind immediately because Caiden notices me, his eyes seemingly smiling in recognition.
“Hailey?” Janet questions.
“Hm?”
Caiden rises from his seat, making his way toward me, my heart revving hard in my chest, like a car about to take off at the finish line.
“Just call me, okay?”
“You know I will.”
“Sooner than later.”
“Of course.”
“You’re distracted.”
“There’s a shirtless guy in front of me,” I add quickly before Caiden can hear. “And not Cam,” I’m sure to make clear.
She sighs, which I don’t expect. My brows pull together at hearing it, and the smile on Caiden’s face fades.
“Just call me. Bye, Hailey. Miss you.”
“Miss you, too.”
She hangs up, and so do I. I place my phone back into my shorts pocket. My eyes drop to the mixture of dirt and sand at the shore’s edge.
Caiden’s fingertips meet my chin, lifting my face up.
“Everything okay?”
“Everything is perfect.” When the words leave my lips, I don’t completely mean them. My body involuntarily flings itself into Caiden’s arms, seeking some sense of gravity. My arms wrap around his neck, breathing his skin in when I nuzzle into him.
I had originally wanted to keep us platonic this afternoon, keeping our distance and only allowing little touches here or there, but for some reason, my body rumbles with the need for his in a way to remedy my troubled soul and overly cautious mind.
I pull in a deep breath, letting the thoughts of my phone call with Janet dissipate and fade away.
He squeezes me close. “Can I kiss you?”
I snort,
finally feeling like my feet are back to being planted. I pull away, releasing my grasp, but he tugs me harder. “That’s kind of you to ask.”
“So, the answer is yes?” I shake my head. “This is so not fun.”
I laugh, trying to step out of his grasp, but am met with resistance even when he lets me go. His fingers drag heavily into the light, holey material of the sweater that’s covering my bikini-suited body. I grab for his wrists, peeling him away completely. “Settle down, Sparky.”
“Baby Bird, cut the man some slack. He’s been blue-balled for years over you.”
I hadn’t realized Brandon had managed to get away and notice everyone else. He’s perched on the open flatbed of his truck, Tyler and Cameron sitting in lawn chairs in front, while CeeCee is cackling over the joke as she situates the grill.
“I refuse to believe he was blue-balled. The person I think who’s blue-balled is you.”
Brandon’s face falls flat while everyone starts cracking up.
“That was a low blow, Hails,” he says, feigning pain, placing his hand over his heart.
“You mean, no blow at all,” Cameron adds, slapping his knee.
“That joke only kind of works.” I move around Caiden, hating that I can’t look him in the eye with the mention of blue balls. I can’t help but think of how he’s been in a relationship and how it’s impossible he’s been celibate.
Caiden trails close behind, whispering, “He’s being an idiot, and you know it.”
I shrug. I so badly don’t want to care. “It’s water under the bridge and all that, Caid. What do I care?”
“Are you just saying that?”
“No, I mean it. What do I care?” I repeat. “We lived different lives, remember?”
“Not anymore, we don’t.”
My brow twitches, and a siren goes off in my brain, because I want to tell him, “but we actually still do,” but my teeth come down on my bottom lip, holding it back.
“Hamburger, Hailey?” CeeCee shouts from the grill.
Caiden raises his hand up to my face again, smoothing out the skin between my eyes. “There you go again, thinking too hard.”
I smile, trying to find something easier to stare at, but unfortunately, my eyes only drop to his bare chest, the speckling of hair doing nothing to hide the burly but lean muscular lines of his chest and abdomen. I like that his chest is free of ink and his arms are packed full of scenes of nature. It just looks so good on him.
“You try and act like a lady, calm and controlled, but I know you’re not even close,” he says, catching me in something as his fingertips scratch over that defined “v” on the right side of his hips.
I shake my head. “You probably shouldn’t walk around not wearing a shirt, then.”
“That so?”
I lift the left corner of my mouth, smirking in a way that I know Caiden will see as challenging. I reach for my shorts, unbuttoning them, his eyes dropping to my hands.
“You need help with that?”
“You wish.”
“You know I do.”
I cluck my tongue, rolling my eyes as I let the material drop to my feet. I bend down, grabbing for them, and shove them at his chest. He begrudgingly takes hold of them as I let them go.
I reach for the edge of my sweater, swiftly lifting it over my head, wielding this black bikini with a lot more confidence than the last time.
“Hailey,” he groans, “totally unfair.”
I toss my sweater at him and walk away, making sure to swing my hips more deliberately as I stroll toward CeeCee.
I strut past Brandon and the boys, and I hear Brandon chortle quietly to Cam, “He’s totally blue-balled. Women are cruel, man.”
“Preach, brother, preach,” Cam barks back.
CeeCee is grinning as she flips a burger on the grill, shaking her head at me. “You’re just as bad as the boys, you know that?”
“Of course I do. It only feels fair.”
“I guess.” She laughs. “I must admit, I do enjoy seeing the guy suffer for once.”
“Me, too,” I grin, leaning down to open the ice chest, grabbing for a beer. That is, until a hand comes down fairly hard on my ass.
“Eep!” I squeal, barely managing to keep a grip on a beer can as I stand. “Caiden!”
“That’s for teasing me.” He grins, winking, before turning to CeeCee who looks as happy as I feel, even though I might be rubbing over my stinging bum. “Burgers ready yet?”
“Caiden Anderson!” I reprimand. I won’t let it go.
“Yes, sweet, sweet, frustrating, Hailey? Want me to kiss it better?”
I’m blushing beet red, especially when CeeCee’s incessant high-pitch giggles are barely being muffled by her hand.
I grab for his arm, tugging him to turn around so he’s facing me. “You are making such a scene in front of our friends.”
He shrugs, reaching for my beer can, and opens it for me before handing it back. “You don’t think they know what’s going on? You don’t think they know how badly I want you?”
I gulp down his words, grabbing for my beer. He smiles knowingly. The jerk.
“It might do us both some good, Hailey, if we actually just live in the reality of the situation. Might save us from the stress.”
“Oh, you have this all figured out now?”
He nods, leaning in, and I think he’s going to kiss me, but he doesn’t, and I hate that he doesn’t. He places a sweet peck of a kiss on the tip of my nose.
“I have it more figured out than you, I think.”
I smile, but it’s sadder than I intend it to be. “You actually have no idea how right you are.”
He releases a long breath that matches my remorseful smile, and I wonder if we’re thinking the exact same thing. Which is, Can we keep this? And, Is time our enemy?
He grabs for my hand, tangling his fingers around mine, which I willingly accept.
“That’s my girl. C’mon, let’s go take a seat with our friends.”
He tries turning around, but with his hand in mine, I yank him back.
“Hail—”
I cut him off, kissing him on the lips. Not for too long, but enough to ignite that waiting wick of my heart that sizzles a trail to my core. I pull away, feeling that gravitational pull all over again, grounding me.
“I feel better now.”
He smiles smugly. “Good.”
I think we just made progress on something I didn’t know we needed to work on.