I was sitting in a dark movie theatre, about to watch Inception, when I got a text from him saying he was in town and needed to see me. My insides flipped. I tried to focus on the movie, but my mind was elsewhere, which was a pity because I loved Leonardo DiCaprio. When the movie was over, I had no idea what I’d just watched. Adam, on the other hand, was “mind blown” by it. He kept saying, “Oh my god. Mind blown!”
“Want to grab dinner?” he asked when we got outside. I automatically clutched my phone tighter. I hadn’t put it away since I got Jensen’s text, just in case.
“Maybe another time. I have to do a couple of things,” I said.
“Mia, you know I like you, right?” Adam asked in a soft voice.
“I like you too,” I said, looking up at his bright blue eyes.
“But,” he said, chuckling as he ran his hand through his blond wavy hair.
“It’s just…”
“You’re still into Jensen.” Adam and I hung in the same crowds— the artsy types—as did Jensen.
“I’m…” I took a deep breath and smiled at him. “Can we still be friends?”
He nodded, smiling, then shook his head. “I can’t believe you friend-zoned me on our third date.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. I’ve always known it would be hard to get you to stop thinking about him. I mean, he’s all you talk about when we’re together anyway,” he said with a shrug that made me frown.
“That’s not true.”
“Hey, I’m cool with it. I get it. He has the motorcycle, the cigarettes, and the aviator shades.”
That wasn’t why I liked Jensen, though the appeal wasn’t lost on me, but that wasn’t why I fell in love with him. I gave Adam a long hug and made him promise me we’d still hang out, because I truly did like spending time with him. Then I got in my car and headed toward Jensen.
As I drove to Patty’s house, where I knew he’d be, I thought about all of the things I loved about him: the way he looked at me; the way he spoke to me; the way he listened; his brokenness; his hands; the way he made me feel when he touched me; the way he made me laugh; the way his hands were always stained from the charcoal he used to draw. The more things I cataloged, the bigger my smile. Our story wasn’t always pretty. Some would argue it was quite the opposite, but it was beautiful to me.
Winding down that road brought back memories of my first glimpse of the teenager who made girls’ heads turn—myself included. Growing up, I saw him around a lot, and he intrigued me like crazy, but Jensen wasn’t a chaser, and I wasn’t up to doing the chasing. I parked my car in front of the house and closed my eyes for a moment, remembering the stupid game, during spring break my freshman year of college, that changed everything.
Chapter Two
2 years prior
“DID YOU PACK your bathing suit?” Estelle called from the bathroom stall beside me.
“Yeah, didn’t you?” I replied and groaned, looking beside me. “Do you have any toilet paper in your stall?”
She handed me the paper under the partition as she flushed. “I did. I just wanted to make sure I wasn’t the only idiot thinking we were actually going to use the hot tub.”
I laughed as I opened the door and stood beside her to wash my hands. “I doubt it. Corinne said she got ten confirmations—four guys, six girls—and that’s only people who are actually staying over.”
Estelle’s eyes widened, her smile matching it soon after. “This is going to be insane.”
“Spring break, baby,” I said.
We originally planned to go to Cancun, but Estelle’s dad ended up in the hospital, and she didn’t want to be too far from him, just in case. Everything turned out fine, and he went home with a high cholesterol warning, but by then it was too late to book Cancun, so we opted to go to Malibu for the weekend. Our friend, Corinne’s, family had a huge empty house there, and it was a hop away, so it was perfect.
That night, after we got the house and helped set everything up—towels in every room, more alcohol than a sports bar, and enough chips and salsa to supply a Mexican restaurant—I decided to take a short nap.
“Who’s coming?” I asked Corinne, stretching my hands over my head as I woke up and saw her doing her make-up in the Jack-and-Jill bathroom.
“Well, Fern, obviously,” she said with a huge smile.
“Obviously,” I said, smiling back at the mention of her new boyfriend, who she’d crushed on all through high school, despite the fact that he always had a girlfriend.
“I think Carlos, Logan, and Jensen, too, and as far as the girls go, you, me, Elle, Pamela, and Danica.”