by A. R. Perry
I reached over the center console and yanked out Lily’s earbuds.
“Hey!” she protested and reached for them, but I pulled away.
“I was just thinking…”
“Did that hurt?” Lily tried to take back her headphones again, but I held on tight.
“Cut the sass, I’m trying to tell you something.”
She crossed her arms over her chest and turned toward me with a deep-set frown on her face. “What?”
I focused my attention back on the road so we didn’t crash. “I think you were right. It’s kinda messed up to force you to fake-date me for the summer. After this week I’ll drive you home and we can just drop it.”
Lily scoffed, and I turned my head briefly to see her glaring at me.
Not the reaction I expected.
“So, what, you let me off the hook and then I get teased about it the rest of the summer and senior year? Yeah, I don’t think so, Hayes.”
“No, that’s not what I meant.” God, she could be so damn stubborn. She didn’t want to date me, but she didn’t want to not date me either.
“Uh-huh.” She tugged on her headphones, but I tugged harder, pulling them free from her phone and whipping the end into the windshield.
“Dude, what the hell?” she yelled and shoved my shoulder.
The car swerved, and I quickly righted it. Apparently safe driving was not something her mother taught her.
“Hey, driving here!”
“Hey, annoyed here.”
“Lily, I’m giving you an out.”
“Sure you are.”
“I’m serious. We can tell everyone we went through with it if you want, but whatever… you’re free.”
I felt her eyes on me. “Just like that?”
“Just like that.”
“Why don’t I believe you?”
“Because you have trust issues?”
Lily laughed her first genuine laugh with me in years. I smiled, feeling lighter but didn’t press the subject any further. If she needed us not to be dating, that was fine. I would have to win her over some other way. And I had a week to figure out how.
We spent the last stretch of the drive in relative silence. She didn’t attempt to talk to me, but she didn’t put her earbuds back in. Somewhere along the way she started up a game of punch buggy, but I had a hunch it was her way of getting out her aggression toward me. It seemed to have worked because by the time I pulled up the dirt road that led to my family’s lake house, she was laughing and singing along to the radio.
I almost felt bad cutting off her rendition of Ed Sheeran. It had gotten pretty animated.
Lily leaned to the side and stared up at the three-story house that had been in my family since before I was born.
“Wow. Did it get bigger?”
I smirked, holding back the comment I really wanted to say. It would only piss her off. “Must be you,” I said instead, stepping out onto the gravel.
It smelled exactly how I remembered.
“Is it weird to say it smells the same?” Lily asked from behind me.
“No, I was thinking the same thing.” We were too much alike sometimes.
“Hmm.” She strode past me headed toward the front door as if she owned the place. Judging from her purse dangling from her hand and nothing else, she also left her bag for me to lug into the house.
As punishment, I left her to wait on the front porch as I pulled the bags out of the car, taking my sweet ass time. A few times I heard an exasperated huff, but that only spurred me on. By the end of the thorough recheck of my bag, mostly just to irritate her, footsteps sounded on the driveway.
Lily rounded the back of the car, eyebrows arched when she took me in, bent over my bag, settling my shirts back in.
“Really?”
“What?” I asked, struggling to keep amusement out of my voice.
“I’m standing up there waiting for you to let me in. You could have done whatever you’re doing inside.”
I zipped up the bag and stood. “But it’s so beautiful out.”
“I have to pee!” She threw her hands up in the air and this time I couldn’t stop my laughter.
“You’re an ass!” she yelled and stomped her way back up the driveway with me in tow this time.
Guess I was an ass no matter what I did.
I shoved open the door with my foot and Lily disappeared inside presumably right to the bathroom. I had to give it to her, she still remembered the layout to the house. Although, she was right. It had gotten bigger. My dad threw himself into renovating it after my mom passed. He added a third floor that was now set up as a man cave or whatever he called it.
I had only seen it once after he was finished. He decked it out with a bunch of stuff he thought I would love including another deck with a hot tub and enough lounge chairs that every one of my friends could come over and sunbathe.
After I refused to come up that summer and every proceeding summer the past few years, it must have been covered in a layer of dust.
With Lily still MIA, I made my way to the back of the house where the spare bedrooms were. The split-level house was pretty cool. The entrance was on the second floor with the first floor leading right out onto the dock. Downstairs held the master bedroom and my dad’s bar. He would spend most of his time there so Lily and I would be left to the rest of the house.
Footsteps sounded behind me as I pushed open the door at the end of the hall on the left. It was the same bedroom she had always used when visiting, so I figured it would be the most comfortable.
Lily leaned against the doorframe as I tossed her bag onto the bed. A small smile tugged at my lips when I notice it was the same over-the-top floral comforter my mother picked out all those years ago. I guess my dad couldn’t get rid over everything.
“This room hasn’t changed,” Lily echoed my thoughts as she stepped inside and ran her hand over the bookshelf that housed the many books we read as kids.
“Yeah, looks like my dad didn’t change as much as I thought.”
“What do you mean? Haven’t you been up here the past few summers?”
I cleared my throat and avoided eye contact. It was a secret kept between my dad and me. Whenever he would come up, I would say I was too, but would go camping or on a road trip. Telling everyone that stepping foot inside the house where I spent so much time with my mom was akin to taking a knife to the heart wasn’t the type of information I doled out. It wouldn’t have made much sense anyway considering we still lived in the house I grew up in. But the lake, it was always something my mom and I shared. Something special about our love for the water.
“Yeah sure,” I mumbled as I made my way out of the bedroom. “I just never come in this room.”
“Oh.” Lily plopped down on the bed.
I crossed the hall to the bedroom I planned on using. My real bedroom, the one my mom designed for me, was a couple of doors down, the first bedroom in the hall, but I just couldn’t.
“Why are you staying in there?” Lily demanded from the hall.
Sometimes I forgot she shared enough of my childhood to read me. I wasn’t used to it and I certainly didn’t like it in this situation.
“Dad never got around to renovating my normal room.”
“Uh-huh.” She wasn’t buying it. Before I could stop her, she raced down the hall and flung open the door. “Looks livable to me. Looks the same actually.”
“Exactly my point.” I reached around her, making sure to avert my eyes and slammed the door. “It’s a kid’s room. Do I look like a kid to you?”
“You look like an ass.” She threw a smirk my way and leaned against the closed door. “Seriously, what’s your issue with this room? Monsters under the bed? Spider that got away?” Her mouth dropped open as she palmed her chest. “Bad breakup go down in there? Haunted by ghosts of girlfriends past?”
“I just told you, I prefer not to spend all my time in a kid’s room. It’s kind of a turn off for the ladies. Who needs a room decor
ated like the ocean when you have a huge body of water right outside?”
“You’re such a bad liar.” Lily pushed off the door and poked my chest. “I’ve seen you get it on in the back of a truck with a bunch of people around and—” She poked my chest again when I opened my mouth to defend myself. “—under the bleachers during a game. Seems to me that the types of girls you pick don’t have turn offs.”
“Wow, Holladay, seems to me that you’ve been keeping a close eye on my love life.” I deflected because I really didn’t want to get into it with her. Not with my emotions spiraling.
“I wouldn’t exactly call a hookup a love life,” she grumbled and smoothed down her hair. “And it’s hard not to hear the rumors or, you know, witness it when it’s going down at a party I’m attending.”
Remember that story for another time? Yeah, not my best moment.
“You make going to a party sound like class. You don’t attend a party. You have fun at it. But fun is a word you lost a long time ago, isn’t it?”
“Whatever, Hayes.” She brushed past me headed for her bedroom. “Let me know when your dad gets here. I need a buffer if you expect to live through the rest of this week.”
I smiled at her retreating back. There may have been one small detail I left out when I picked her up. My dad got called into a last-minute project with work. He wouldn’t be able to make it until the weekend, which left me exactly four days alone with Lily. Four days to turn her feelings of hate into something that resembled love. Hell, I would even take like.
I remained locked in my room for the majority of the afternoon. Parker said his dad would be up by dinner, but after wasting a mindless hour surfing social media, five unanswered texts to Madison, another half hour trying to beat the level I had been stuck on Candy Crush since I quit playing it freshman year, and the thirty minutes I took putting my clothes neatly away… I was pretty much going out of my mind with boredom.
I wasn’t lying when I said I needed a buffer. Parker and I hadn’t spent more than a few minutes together since we were thirteen. After the car ride, I could almost feel a shift as if we were friends again. He even let me choose the radio station and didn’t complain once about my singing along with every song.
But this was Parker. New Parker, not the one I had grown up with. That guy hightailed it out of town around the same time my dad did. In fact, everything changed for both of us the summer before eighth grade when my dad left and his mother unexpectedly died. He retreated into a shell and when he emerged in the fall, he looked like my Parker, but his personality had done a 180. Body snatchers scary.
But I did have him to thank for Madison. If he hadn’t ditched me to go be Mr. Popular, we never would have become friends. And although I was still kind of pissed at her, I loved her like a sister.
Around five thirty I couldn’t take it anymore. I poked my head out into the hall. Parker’s door was closed, and the house was dead quiet. Maybe he was out riding the Jet Skis. I shut my door and grabbed my suit. My mom made good on her promise of buying me a new one. Suit shopping with my mom wasn’t my favorite pastime, but I used it as one of the many excuses to stay out of the house to avoid Parker. It was surprising how long you could drag out a simple trip to the mall when desperate.
I slipped on the flimsy material. I had always been a one-piece kind of girl so I was stunned when my mom bought it for me. Of course, she insisted on buying me the matching cover-up, but whatever. I figured if I had to spend a week at the lake, I might be able to meet a guy. If I did, then it would give me plenty of time to avoid Parker. Simple plan all hinging on my ability, or lack thereof, to flirt.
As I piled my hair up into a messy bun, I did a once-over. Maybe the bikini was a bad idea after all. It was more Madison’s style. The lady at the store called it bandage or something. The light pink bottoms had a bunch of bands on the hips instead of the normal ties. That was all fine and good and I figured they would stay on better out in the water. The top on the other hand…I really don’t know what got into me. The color matched the bottoms, and it was considered full coverage, but that was only because it covered the parts of the cup that normally wouldn’t be there with a sheer material. On top of the sheer material was a solid delicate flower. It concealed all the important parts, but still left way too much to the imagination. Notably side- and underboob.
At least there weren’t any ties that could get snagged. That happened to Madison once on a school trip to the water park. She almost flashed half of the sophomore class and a crap ton of little kids running around.
I let out a low breath and pulled on the cover-up. I made my choice and I would have to live with it. Parker would just have to keep his eyes to himself. Not that I worried about him ogling me. More like informing me about how inadequate I was compared to his many, many hookups.
A girl’s ego could only take so much.
The clock read close to six as I made my way into the kitchen. Still no Parker or Mr. Hayes. Then again, traffic was probably terrible leaving the city on a Tuesday.
I snagged a water bottle from the fridge and surveyed the living room. Parker wasn’t kidding when he said his dad renovated. It looked nothing like the lived-in room of my childhood. In place of the comfy worn-in couch sat a modern brown sectional I imagined was better to look at than sit in. All the family photos were gone, replaced with a gigantic white screen. I looked up and saw a projector mounted onto the ceiling.
Fancy.
The staircase to the left was also new. I thought the house looked bigger. I couldn’t remember there ever being a third floor. Uncharted territory. With my curiosity taking over I made my way upstairs. It was ridiculous to feel like some kind of intruder in a house I spent so much time in, but that didn’t stop me from flinching with every creak of the wood.
Once I reached the top, I had to do a double take. It wasn’t what I expected. In fact, it didn’t look like it belonged to the same house. Another one of those huge screens hung on the far wall damn near taking up the whole thing. The opposing wall had a long leather couch that looked brand-new. To the left sat a pool table and a minibar, much smaller than the one on the first floor. And to the right there was a wall made of glass. From the looks of it, it led out onto a deck.
And at that moment is when I realized where I would spend most of my time. Parker wasn’t kidding, I did need some color. My skin tone could have rivaled a ghost after the craptastic winter we just came out of. Being from the Pacific Northwest we live through months of rain, rain, and more rain leaving most of us sun starved.
I slid open the door and took a deep breath. The house always had a beautiful view, it sat on the lake for crying out loud. But the new height gave the advantage of seeing the whole lake and Olympic mountains. Breathtaking hardly covered it. There was a reason I always loved coming there during the summer.
I was so taken with the view I didn’t notice the person lounging in a chair until he spoke up and scared the ever living out crap of me.
Did I mention that attention to my surroundings wasn’t a strong trait of mine?
“Gorgeous, huh?” Parker slid his sunglasses to the tip of his nose and peered over them at me.
I tried to answer, I did, but all that came out was a weird gurgling noise. I blamed it on the scare, but it might have had a tiny bit to do with the fact that Parker was topless. Again. And let’s just say that chest wasn’t the same bony, concave, prepubescent chest I remembered. Somewhere along the way Parker had filled out. And then some. I had managed to overlook that at the party. Probably because I was doing my best to ignore him in general.
Parker smirked and put his sunglasses back in place. My whole body flushed red from embarrassment. He one hundred percent caught me ogling him. Parker. A boy I hated. But I couldn’t deny those muscles.
He stretched, resting an arm behind his head and when my gaze dipped taking in the six-pack rippling in the sunlight, I had to look away. Maybe burn my eyes. A lobotomy wouldn’t hurt.
Pull
it together, Lily.
I plopped down on a lounge chair a couple over from him. Space was defiantly welcome. Needed even. With him on the outskirts of my peripheral vision, I could pretend he didn’t exist. Get some sun and wait it out until Mr. Hayes arrived.
Only that’s not what happened because the second I got comfortable it was as if someone had injected him with pure caffeine and he wouldn’t shut up.
“Need anything to drink?”
I held up my water bottle. Eyes averted.
“Bring sunscreen? I have some if you need it.”
“No thanks.”
“No, I don’t suppose you would with that sack you’re wearing.”
“It’s a cover-up.” Okay, it wasn’t the most attractive thing, but my mom insisted. I had never agreed with her fashion choices until that moment.
“It’s almost one hundred degrees, why would you want to put more clothes on?”
Because there is no way in hell you need to see what’s going on under it—not with everything you got going on over there.
“We can take the Jet Skis out tomorrow if you want.” Parker continued before I had a chance to answer his previous question.
“Sure.”
“Maybe one of these nights we can go into town. I hear they still have that old-timey ice cream parlor that we used to go to.”
“Cool.”
Shut up. Shut up. Shut up.
He reminded me of that girl on How I Met Your Mother who wouldn’t stop talking, to the point where no one could get a word in edgewise.
Don’t judge me. My mom loved that show. I had seen the whole series at least three times.
“What do you want for dinner?”
“Whatever your dad is making.” I took a long drink of water. Parker wasn’t kidding, it was blazing hot out, but I wasn’t about to take off the cover-up. Nope. I might even swim in the damn thing. Die in it. Marry it and have little cover-up babies. Presumably not in that order.
“Oh, yeah, about that. Dad texted me earlier. He won’t be able to make it until Saturday.”