In This Moment(80)

“I told you already… I have plans later.”

“It’s Friday and we don’t have practice tomorrow. What kind of plans do you have that are so important? It wasn’t too long ago that the only planning that you did revolved around getting drunk and getting laid.”

“Things change.” I don’t tell him that my plans happen to be showering, putting on presentable clothes, and picking Aimee up to go to some swanky party at her parent’s house. Just the thought of managing small talk and eating off a tiny cocktail plate has me cringing, but when Mrs. Spencer invited me, I couldn’t exactly say no.

“So you’re really in this, huh?”

I glance over at Daniel. “What do you mean? In what?”

He pushes damp hair away from his forehead and takes a large gulp of water out of the bottle in his hand.

“You and Aimee,” he clarifies, stretching one arm over his head and bending his knees so that they crest above his chest. “I don’t know. It seems sort of serious.”

How the fuck am I supposed to respond to that?

The corners of my mouth twitch. “I don’t know that serious is the right word, but yeah, things are good with us.”

Things are good. Shit. They’re better than good. Ever since that night at the beach—the one that I keep on a steady repeating pattern in my head—things are more settled between us. When I close my eyes, I can almost feel her small, tight body against mine. It was unbelievable and if I let my brain drift too much longer I’m not going to be able to keep my hard-on at bay.

“I’ve got a ton of shit to do. We should—” The roar of an engine drowns out my voice. I pick my head up off the grass in time to see Adam’s car screech to a stop near the curb. “What the hell?”

“Cole!” Adam calls out the open driver’s side window. “Get over here, man. Your sister has been trying to call you for the last hour but you forgot to take your fucking phone with you.”

A nasty sensation shoots down the column of my neck and settles deep in my stomach. I stand up and cross the distance to Adam’s car.

This can’t be good. Not a fucking chance.





Aimee



“Door!” Mara shouts over the noise of her hairdryer.

Grappling with the bottom of my dress, I dart a quick look at myself in the mirror and decide that the lipstick that my sister suggested is too much. It’s a shade that belongs on the sorority and pageant circuit. I wipe at my mouth with my thumb as I scramble down the hall to answer the knock.

The door swings wide, pulling in a puff of sticky air. “We’re almost r…” The sentence shrivels up and dies in my mouth. I drop my pink-smudged hand to the doorjamb and crease my forehead.

Cole is standing on the paved walkway in his sneakers and sweat-stained gym clothes. He tilts his head up and I see that his skin is pulled taut and pale over his cheekbones and his eyes are a starker green than I’ve ever seen them.

“What’s wrong?” I ask immediately, bile creeping up the back of my throat.

“It’s going to rain,” Cole says absently.

“Um…” I can smell the impending storm in the air and feel it like an electrical charge crawling over my skin. A strange, sudden breeze rushes over us and the light shifts. I watch shadows slide into place over Cole’s face. “What’s wrong with you?”

He narrows his eyes, trails his fingertips over the uneven bridge of his nose and shifts his weight to one foot like he’s uncomfortable. He coughs. “You look nice.”

My eyes fall to the dark grey sheath dress that I borrowed from my sister and swing back to him. “Cole, what the hell is wrong?” I repeat my question for the third time.

Cole looks away, nudges the rock-lined path with the side of his foot. “I was going to call you and just tell you over the phone but I… I…” His voice is gruff, filled with an emotion that I don’t understand. He shoves his fingers back into his light hair and shakes his head once, then twice. “I can’t go to the party with you tonight.”

Feeling shaky, like the ground beneath me is moving as fast as the gathering clouds, I take a tentative step forward. “I-I’m getting that from your clothes, but that still doesn’t answer my question. What’s wrong?”

“I know that it was important to you that I make a good impression on everyone and—”

“I don’t care about my dad’s thing,” I say firmly, laying my palms on either side of his biceps. His muscles stiffen and he moves back out of my reach.

He brings his hands in front of his body like a shield. “Aimee, I can’t right now. I just…”