Why, when Hayes drove off, so did a small part of my nostalgic hope that he’d come back for me. And that in itself irritates me.
Ten years have passed. I’m no longer that young girl he once knew. I’ve lived and grown and learned from my mistakes. Most notably the ones I made in loving him.
“Saylor.”
“Not now, Dee.” I hold up my hand to her, my heart racing and head reeling.
“No. You don’t get to ignore me on this one, Saylor. How did I not know that you know him? I mean I knew he grew up around here but, holy crap, I just made a complete ass out of myself in front of him.”
I snort. “You and me both.” I head straight into the back room and unlock the door that leads up to my apartment. “Give me a few.”
When I shut the door behind me, DeeDee is still talking. Still telling me she’s not going to stop asking questions until I answer. And all I can think as I enter my apartment is that the answers don’t matter. Hayes Whitley was a part of my past. Is a part of my past. And if seeing him has churned up all of these unacknowledged emotions that I swore I’d dealt with a long time ago, then he needs to stay right where he is.
In the past.
Because by never looking back, he let me know he didn’t want anything to do with my future.
“You up there, Ships Ahoy?”
I cross my arms over my chest, roll my eyes. Sigh. Will he ever stop calling me that stupid nickname?
The sound of his feet clomping up the stairs of the old tree house greets my frustration and I know like always, he’s not going to leave me alone. He’s so annoying. And such a guy. Ugh.
Keeping my eyes fixed on the hole in the roof of my most favorite place in the world, I stare at the stars above in the night sky—visually trace the constellations—rather than look over to where the makeshift door has creaked open announcing his presence.
“Hey, kiddo.”
I grit my teeth. Hate the feeling as my stomach flip-flops at the sound of his voice. At the stupid nickname that makes me feel like he thinks of me as a little kid when I’m not. He’s only two years older than me.
Boys are so frustrating. And stupid. And gross.
But he’s Hayes Whitley. All swoony and tall with his light brown hair and dark brown eyes. He’s funny and flirty and supposedly knows how to kiss better than any of the other guys in school. At least that’s what the older girls claim when they’re giggling on the other side of the locker room before gym class.
Because I’ve never kissed a boy before.
But I don’t believe them. He’s just Hayes Whitley. My brother’s best friend. The one who, during my last slumber party, helped Ryder squirt drops of mustard on all of my sleeping friends’ faces before slowly tickling their cheeks with a feather so they’d smear it all over. The boy who takes a cookie out of my hand after school without so much as a thanks before heading to my brother’s room and slamming the door shut to do who knows what before they head out to whatever practice they have for the day. The same guy who, every time Ryder has a party when my parents go out of town to wherever they go, makes sure to climb up the ladder to my tree house to make sure I don’t want to come down and do whatever all the cool kids are doing down below.
I like it and hate it and don’t understand why I feel that way.
“I’m not a kid anymore so don’t call me kiddo. Go away.”
And of course being the stubborn teenager I know him to be, he doesn’t leave. Rather his footsteps clomping around the small area tell me he’s invading my space. My reprieve from the annoying giggles of the popular senior girls downstairs, trying to impress the jocks.
The floorboards flex beneath me from his weight. The subtle scent of his shampoo and beer fill the space around us. The sound of his body shifting—shoes scraping, jeans sliding over wood, the grunt as he lies down beside me. The heat of his upper arm pressing against mine as he scoots next to me.
“What are you looking at? Ah man, there’s tons up there tonight,” he says as he sees the bright stars spread across the darkened sky above us.
“Mm-hmm.” For some reason I can’t say anything else. Nerves rattle around inside me when it’s just Hayes.
Irritating.
Frustrating.
The boy who’s like a third child in our house most days. A second, annoying, brother.
And yet despite all of that, the nerves I don’t understand are there.
I concentrate on the sky above. Try to draw lines from star to star and make them any shape I want them to be. It’s so much easier to focus on that than the funny way my blood rushes in my ears. Or the chills that suddenly blanket my bare skin despite the warm night.