“You comfortable?” I nudged her shoulder with my knee. We were sitting on a blanket by the fire. She was between my bent legs, and leaning against my thigh.
“Sure,” she murmured. I couldn’t see her face, but her body language and the tone of her voice told me she wasn’t as ok as she said.
“What’s wrong?” I nudged her again. “I know something’s on your mind.”
“I’m sorry. I got another email from the college about my records. Apparently, I need to get those in asap or I’ll lose my spot. I’ve been worrying about that, and then I can’t help but want to beat the crap out of him.” She nodded to where Dean was talking to some of the other guys. I found out through the grapevine that he was also accepted to BC, and knew Brandon from some baseball camp they attended a few years ago.
“We can leave if you want.” I sat up slightly and wrapped my arms around her shoulders. “I only want to be here if you do.” I pressed a kiss under her ear, and she sighed as her body started to sag against me.
“I don’t want to leave. I like being with you,” she murmured. “I just want to make him eat dirt. I’ve never had the desire to hit someone like I do with him. Is that wrong?” She turned slightly and her face glowed in the firelight.
“He was your first serious boyfriend. You had expectations of what that meant. It didn’t mean the same to him. I get it.” I shrugged slightly.
“You say that like you really understand.” She blinked and it looked as if she was ready to cry.
I released her, and slowly stood. “Come on.” I held my hand out. “Let’s take a walk.”
She stared at my hand for a moment before taking it. “Ok.”
“This way.” I led her in the opposite direction of where Dean was. “Do you know why I chose to go to BC?”
“I know what your mom told mine, but I’m sure your reason is better.” She stared straight ahead. The waves crashed beside us as we made our way farther and farther down the beach.
“Remember when you were about fifteen? I stopped hanging out with you at the gym. I came around less and less?” I worked to pull up details of a time I’ve spent over a year trying to forget.
“Yeah. I thought you hated me. I figured you’d gotten your license and could finally go places without your parents. That’s when we lost touch.” She began swinging our joined hands between us.
“I’ve never hated you, Princess. That’s really when I started to notice you, and by notice, I mean think of you as a girl and not a friend. You had a sassy little attitude and were starting to look like a woman.” I took a few deep breaths. “I got a job that summer and met this girl, Lisa. We got serious really fast, and I really liked her. We dated for two years.”
“But that means you’ve only been single since last fall.” She pursed her lips in thought.
“Yeah, well I didn’t think it would be that way. Senior year, we made plans to go to BC together. We were both going to major in business. We even went far enough as to take some of the same classes. Stupid, right?” I growled as I thought about how wrapped up in Lisa I’d gotten. “I thought she was the one. I thought we’d graduate and get married.”
“You don’t have to tell me this if you don’t want to,” Riley mumbled.
“It’s not that I do or don’t want to tell you, it’s that I want you to see that we’ve all had that one person who makes us want to break things, including their face. Lisa and I finished high school, and spent the summer together. At the end of the summer when we were getting ready to pack up and move to the dorms, she breaks things off. I found out that she had been dating me to get close to my dad, Carsen. She thought I was her ticket to getting an in with a professional athlete. I think she thought our life would be easy because I’m his son.” My free hand balled into a fist.
“Why did you stay?” she murmured. “I mean, if you wanted to go somewhere else, why didn’t you?”
“Because BC is a good school. I didn’t want a girl to dictate any of my life decisions, especially Lisa. She’d inadvertently made a lot of choices for me, and I wasn’t going to let her decide my fate anymore. Besides, if I didn’t go to BC, I might not be home this summer and I wouldn’t have run into you.” I smiled as I stopped us.
“So, what does all this even mean?” She turned to face me.
“It means, don’t let Dean get to you. You may want to hit him, I know I do, but he’s taken up enough of your energy. Save it for something else, and ignore him. Being happy… is the best punishment. Trust me on that.” I leaned down and placed a light kiss to her lips. She swayed closer to me and her eyes fluttered closed.
“How’d you get so smart?” She blinked as she looked up at me.
“I’m a college guy, remember?” I laughed.
“Alright, college guy. I think we better head back. I need to get home soon. It’s getting late.” She grinned as she lightly smacked my chest.
“Come on, Princess, we don’t want you turning into a pumpkin.” I grabbed her hand once again, and started back the way we came.
oooooooooRiley
When
