15. KOA
15
KOA
I roll up the sleeves on my pale pink button down as I skip down the steps. Tonight I’m taking Sydney out on our first date, at least it is according to her. In my mind, we’ve been on hundreds of them.
Wyatt wolf whistles as I enter the living room. “Where are you off to dressed all fancy?” He has a large bowl of chips sitting on his lap and his phone occupies the couch cushion next to him.
I glance over at Nash. His stare is cold and his mouth is clamped shut.
“You got a hot date or something?” Wyatt asks, not reading the room.
“Who are you going out with?” Nash asks, standing from the couch.
“Oh shit,” Wyatt says, popping a chip in his mouth and settling on the couch like he’s watching the best movie he’s ever seen.
“Can we talk in the kitchen?” I ask. Wyatt holds his bowl of chips against his chest and grabs his phone before standing. “Privately,” I add, giving him a knowing look.
“That’s not very nice.” He slumps back down on the couch. “Whatever. It’s fine. Nash’s voice carries anyway. I can hear you just fine from out here.”
I snort a laugh and roll my eyes. Nash wordlessly follows me into our kitchen. Staring down at the white countertop on the island, I brace myself for Nash’s reaction to what I’m about to tell him.
He stands opposite me. His arms crossed over his chest waiting for me to say what I need to. It feels like I’ve entered confession.
“Who are you taking out on a date? I swear to God if you say—”
“I’m going to say her name. I asked Syd out a few days ago, and with a moderate amount of begging she said yes.”
Nash smirks. Strange. Not the reaction I expected. He’s too casual. Too relaxed. It makes me feel uneasy. Where is all that anger from a few moments ago? “And this is you asking for what? Permission? My approval?” He tilts his head.
“No, I’m not asking for anything. I’m telling you I’m taking her out. If you want to get mad, now is your chance. After today, I’m not talking about it with you again. I love you, man, but I love your sister more.”
“About fucking time. I’ve been waiting for you to finally man the fuck up and admit you had feelings for her,” he says, grinning back at me.
My grip tightens on the counter. “How long have you known I’ve had feelings for her? I’ve been careful. I’ve never said anything. ”
“You did. Every day, but not with words. I’ve known since the first time I told you she was off limits.”
“You what?” I roar, rounding the side of the island and inching closer to Nash. “You knew I liked her and you still gave me the ultimatum of picking you or her?”
“I was a kid. I saw my friend getting closer to my sister and further away from me. I was a jealous little fuck.”
“You’re an asshole is what you are,” I say.
“I agree!” Wyatt yells from the other room. “That wasn’t cool, Nashville .”
“I didn’t know how serious it was back then. We were kids, man. You don’t fall in love that young. I figured you would find someone else in high school and it wouldn’t be an issue.”
Has he met his sister? There is no one who could ever compare to her.
“Why didn’t you lift the ban? Every chance you had you warned all of us off of her. You knew I wanted to be with her and you still kept us apart. Why? Just to be a dick?”
“Probably!” Wyatt yells.
“I warned you off of her. I needed to know for sure you were serious about her. That you truly deserved her. All those other guys, they don’t mean shit,” he says. I couldn’t agree with him more. “You, however, are my best friend.”
“One of your best friends,” Wyatt corrects him.
“We should just let him come in here,” I say.
“Thought you’d never ask,” Wyatt says, walking into the kitchen and taking a seat at the table .
“Like I was saying. You are one of my best friends,” Nash repeats, looking at Wyatt who gives his nod of approval. “The only way I would know if you were serious about Sydney is if you said screw it to whatever I want and be with her anyway.”
“You owe her an apology.” I’m so mad at him right now. He had no right to interfere in our relationship like this. I’ve carried so much guilt for wanting to be with her but knowing that meant betraying him.
However, it’s the pain the whole situation has caused Sydney that really guts me. She deserved better from both of us. I’m angry at myself for letting Nash hold our friendship over my head for so long.
“You’re right. I do. I’ll talk to her, and apologize for my part in this mess. I don’t think you heard every warning. When I asked you to look after her in high school, I didn’t mean sneak around behind my back and sleep with her. Do I get to punch you in the face for that?” he jokes. I don’t find any of this funny.
“You wouldn’t be making jokes right now if you knew how angry I am. I should be the one getting free rein on your face for playing games.”
“Don’t put all the blame on me. I realized my mistake. I did what I could to push you together. I asked you to help with my birthday. I texted you when she was out with Joe. I invite her over here to hang out and make myself scarce. I don't really like studying that much. You never pushed back. Not once did you speak up and say you wanted to be with her. ”
“You don’t have to remind me. I feel like shit about it. I thought I was doing the right thing by being friends with both of you. I will be spending the rest of my life making it up to her.”
“I have to ask though, why now? What’s changed?”
“She asked me the same thing. She thinks it’s because she’s moving away. Maybe it does have to do with that a little.” I can’t ignore the slither of fear that once she leaves for North Carolina I will lose her for good. “Truthfully? I miss her. She has always been this bright light. Without her, I’ve been miserable.”
Talking to her almost every night in the private chats has built a bridge between what we used to be when we first became friends and what we are now but it isn’t enough. I’m greedy for more of her.
“You really have been a miserable ass,” Wyatt says.
Nash laughs quietly to himself. “Is that why you’ve been so grumpy all these years?”
“It’s probably more because he hasn’t been laid in years. That always puts me in a bad mood.”
“It still does,” I say. “You’re impossible to deal with when we’re on the road.”
“Wait, back up,” Nash says, forcing Wyatt to hold his snarky comeback. “When was the last time you slept with someone?”
“I don’t see how this is any of your business,” I mumble. I like to keep this part of my life private.
“Don’t tell me you haven’t been with anyone since Syd,” Nash says, wide-eyed. My silence must be answer enough. “Holy shit. Does she know?”
I shake my head. “I’m not sure what she knows or what she thinks.”
“I can tell you right now she assumes you’re enjoying college life and all the perks of being a star athlete,” Wyatt says.
“Well I’m not.” I’ve never had the desire to be with anyone else. It would have been a waste of time. I understand her need to date other people. I'll never be mad at her about that.
I never felt the same. I knew after our first time together—maybe even before—that it would be her or no one at all.
“I’m sorry I kept you apart for so long. I was looking out for her. I didn’t want to see her hurt. I needed to know you were serious about her.”
“I said the same thing and we both ended up destroying her.” I drop my head and sigh. “I don’t like the way you went about it. You could have just asked me.”
“What would you have said? Would you really have admitted to anything?”
“Probably not.”
“I’m glad you told me now. I’m not sure how you're going to turn it all around for the two of you, but I’m rooting for you." Nash walks over and gives me a hug with a slap on my back.
“Thanks. I need to get going or I’ll be late picking her up.”
“Where are you taking her?”
“The park,” I say, leaving Wyatt and Nash confused. The park isn’t top tier dating material for most people.
But most people aren’t Sydney. Unless she’s had a complete personality transplant at some point in the last few years, she’s going to love this place.
My palm sweats, weakening my grip on the steering wheel. I didn’t think I would be this nervous for our date. It’s Sydney. We’ve known each other for over a decade. I’m an idiot for assuming we could easily slide back into our old ways or be able to talk like we do when we’re behind our computer screens.
“Where are we going now?” she asks, tapping her thumb on her thigh. Before that she was bouncing her knee up and down.
We stopped on our way out of town and picked up dinner to go at one of our favorite barbecue restaurants. Dinner at the Pierce home was a weekly thing. Once a month their parents let us pick out where we eat. When it was mine or Sydney’s turn we always picked the local owned restaurant.
“It’s a surprise.” I grin at her.
“I hate surprises. You should know this,” she says. Her little pout is cute .
“I know you always say you hate surprises but that’s a lie. Otherwise you wouldn’t get so upset when they get ruined.”
“Can I get a hint?”
“No. Tell me about your day? What did you do?”
“I went to class. Spent some time in the chemistry lab. The usual boring stuff.”
“Nothing you do is boring.”
“That isn’t true.” She rolls her eyes.
“Try me.” I shift gears and wait for her to give me what she thinks is an insignificant detail of her day. When she doesn’t answer right away, I glance at her with my peripheral vision. I have to roll my lips to keep from smiling at the fact she has her eyes glued on my forearm.
“Baby,” I say, dropping my hand to her thigh. “You were going to say something about your day.”
Her eyes zone in on my hand resting on her leg. I remove it and hold onto the gear shift again. I shouldn’t be touching her like that. Not yet, not until she’s sure she wants this.
“It feels weird making small talk with you.”
“Why? You act like we’ve never talked about small things before. Like not being able to find your matching purple socks,” I say and she rolls her eyes playfully again. “I want to know everything about your life, big and small.”
“It’s scary that you remember my purple sock fiasco from months ago.”
“Prepare yourself for the fright of your life with the amount of details I remember about you.”
“Are you obsessed with me?” she asks, teasing me.
“Yes,” I answer honestly.
Her eyes scrutinize me then she clears her throat. “Talking about missing socks still feels too simple. Even for someone with a fascination with me,” she says, smirking. I love her teasing me. I will take this over her silent treatment. Maybe she's starting to warm up to me.
“You already know all of the basic stuff anyway.”
“Twenty years from now I will still want you to tell me about your day. Even if we spent the entire day together. I want to hear about it from your perspective.” I take my eyes off the road for a moment to look at her.
“That makes no sense if you were there too. Why would you want me to tell you everything you already know?”
“So you agree we’ll be together in twenty years?” I ask, stopping at a red light. She wiggles in her seat.
“We should get through our date first.” Her eyes hold mine captive and the atmosphere in the car becomes electric. My eyes drift to her lips. She put on a light layer of gloss or maybe lip balm that pulls my attention to the lush pink center of her bottom lip. I want to swipe my tongue over her lips and see if they taste as good as they look.
The car behind me honks ruining the moment and forcing me to focus on the road again. “We’re almost there.” The sun is starting to set behind us. We’ll have just enough time to find a spot and get everything set up before we lose the natural light.
“How is everything going with your new job? Do you know when your first day is?” I ask to kill the silence. We haven’ t gotten to the point where the silence feels comfortable. At least not for me. I can’t sit here quietly and not wonder what she’s thinking. Everything about tonight has to be perfect. I can’t afford to mess anything up.
“Oh, um. Immediately after graduation. I started looking at apartments today.”
My grip on the steering wheel tightens. “Did you find anything good?” If she doesn’t find anything, she can’t move, right? She’ll have to stay here in Alabama.
“Nothing promising. Not without a roommate. All the money I’ve been making at Ray’s is going to come in handy for deposits.”
“That’s good. About having the money. I still don’t like you working at Ray’s.”
“Why? I thought it was because of Nash but now…”
“I already told you I’ve never done anything for Nash. He asked all of the guys to keep an eye on you when we started high school and again when we came to Newhouse but just to make sure you weren't left to the wolves.”
“That doesn’t make any sense.”
I turn down the street that leads to the park. “I said he asked, but that isn’t why I did it. I was always going to look after you because you were mine to look after.”
I put the car in park and undo my seatbelt. Turning toward her I say, “I don’t like you working at Ray’s because I don’t think it’s safe. I worry about you. If you want me to say I’m jealous, I can, but that’s not why.”
She unbuckles her seat belt and twists her body so she’s facing me. Her pink blouse tightens against her chest, exposing her cleavage that’s peeking through a floral tank top. It's hard to keep my eyes focused on her face and she knows it.
“You mean when I’m dancing with other men or they flirt with me that doesn’t drive you crazy?" she asks with a smirk. "Just before spring break when the whole team came out to Ray’s you about lost your mind when me and the girls did our routine on top of the bar for them."
“You’re right, I did. It wasn’t because they were touching you or looking at you like they wanted you.” I run the back of my pointer finger down her bare arm. “It was because I couldn’t do the same. I couldn’t show you how much I wanted you. Me looking like I wanted to kill them was me trying to stay in control around you.”
“Did this happen every time you looked angry around me?”
“More than likely this was the reason, yes,” I admit. She nods, inhaling a deep breath while staring down at her hands. “Come on,” I say, hopping out of the car. I walk around to her side and open the door. “We need to hurry before it gets dark.”
I hand Sydney the food to carry while I grab my backpack and the blanket I brought from the backseat. With a hand on her back, I usher her down the path to the park entrance.
This park is a mix of walking trails, nature preserve, and botanical gardens. When I was trying to find something for us to do, I stumbled across this Starlight in Spring Festival .
Going by the look of awe on Sydney’s face as a few fairies hand out maps of the park, I’m on the right track.
“Let’s head out to the lawn and eat first. Then we can look around and explore everything,” I say after taking a quick look at the map.
We walk down one of the pathways passing elves, a few more fairies, and other woodland creatures. Sydney squeals and grabs hold of my arm when we pass a row of small cottages. “I want to go in there,” she says, craning her neck to keep looking at it.
“We will, but first we need to eat.” I nod toward the open area in the middle of the gardens. She drops her hand from my arm but I snatch it back before she gets too far away.
She looks down at our hands laced together. I give her hand a gentle squeeze before focusing on finding us a place that is private but also where Sydney can enjoy the ambiance.
When I spot a row of willow trees, my heart pumps a little faster. I rub a hand over the tattoos on my chest. The trees are larger and more mature than the ones I have back home but they still manage to dredge up all the memories of us together.
“How did you find out about this? I’ve lived here my whole life and have never been here,” Syd says, slowly spinning around, absorbing her surroundings.
Unfolding the blanket, I lift it a few times letting it slowly drift to the ground until I position it the way I want it halfway under the willow tree branches.
I hold open the branches like a curtain allowing her to step inside. “It took some research but once I found it my gut told me this would be a good idea. Is it okay?” Maybe I’ve made the wrong choice.
“You’re kidding, right? This is incredible with everyone dressed up and the decorations. Every little detail is perfect. This is perfect,” she says, settling herself on the blanket.
“I’m basing my choices on the Sydney that I think I know. You said you’ve changed a lot over the last few years.”
“You know me better than I’m willing to admit.” She pulls out the styrofoam containers from the bag and checks to see which one is hers. “Or maybe more than I’m willing to accept.” She passes me my sandwich platter.
“You’ve always been a little stubborn. Among other things.” I eat a large chunk of my sandwich and chew while I enjoy the blush on Syd’s cheeks.
“What about you? How much have you changed since…before?”
“I don’t think I’ve changed much at all.”
She pops a kettle chip in her mouth and lets her eyes wander down my body. “I’d say you’ve changed a little bit.”
Her perusal makes my cheeks warm. It isn’t often she blatantly checks me out when she knows I'm looking. “I think I grew about four inches since high school,” I say, then bite into my sandwich.
Sydney’s eyes dart to my crotch where I have my container of food sitting on my lap. The piece of bread I’m chewing gets lodged in my throat. I cough a few times but it only makes it worse. She passes me an open water bottle and I take a long swallow.
Fuck. After the way she was just looking at me, all I can picture is her…no. I won’t even go there. Not tonight. As much as I want her, she needs to understand I want more from her than that.
“Fucking trouble,” I mumble to myself.
“Are you calling me trouble?” she asks, feigning innocence.
“Yes.”
“It’s not the first time someone’s called me that,” she says, and her eyes widen at her admission. She’s talking about me—well online me—I’m the one who called her trouble.
“Do you know how many times I got grounded because of one of your wild ideas? Two whole weeks for sneaking down to that private lake,” I say, to get her mind off of what we've talked about online. I'm not ready to fess up to that yet.
“Maybe you should have done a better job at not getting caught,” she says, smugly. “You didn’t have to go with me.”
I scoff. “You say that like I had a choice.”
“I never forced you.”
Stuffing the last bite of my sandwich in my mouth, I wipe my hands with the courtesy wet napkin the restaurant provided. I place all my trash back in the bag and then lean back on my hands.
Sydney daintily picks at her nachos until she creates the perfect bite. Her hair is pulled back in a high ponytail and tied with a silk, pink bow that matches her blouse .
“You wouldn’t have to force me. You still wouldn’t. Tell me what we’re doing next and I’ll be ready to go.” If I knew she was ready to hear it, I would tell her I'm not talking about tonight. I'm talking about forever. Is it North Carolina? Fine with me. My bags are already packed.
The sun is moments away from setting behind the trees. Reaching behind me, I grab my backpack. I dig around until I find the tiny battery operated lantern.
“You thought of everything,” she says, closing up her container of food and placing it in the bag with mine.
“I didn’t really know what to expect. I wanted to be prepared.”
She tips her head back and looks up into the branches of the tree. “I love these trees. Sitting under the branches like this…” her voice trails off as if she’s afraid to finish the thought and admit it reminds her of us.
“They remind me of the trees in my backyard.” I maneuver myself so my back is leaning against the tree trunk. “We met under those trees all summer. Every day was a new adventure. One look at you in your favorite worn down overalls and I knew the answer would be yes. It didn’t matter what you had schemed up. I was in,” I share the memories that still haunt us both.
Her head drops into her hands and she groans. “Those overalls were so ugly.”
“They were cute with all the patches you had sewn on them.” I poke her arm.
“I had to do something. They kept getting holes in them.”
“Because you were climbing trees and jumping off rocks all the time.” A slow, cool breeze floats between the branches. They swing back and forth as if they are being manipulated by invisible fairies setting the mood.
“What else did you bring in your bag?” She nods to where it’s sitting beside me.
“Come over here and I’ll show you.” I smirk. It’s a cheap shot but I have to take my chances when I can if I want to get her close.
“You’re not playing fair.” Her arms cross over her chest, she squints one eye, and her lips purse.
Holding out my hand towards her I wait for her to make her decision. My palm grows clammy and my pulse quickens. I swallow as my eyes bounce from her hand to mine silently willing her to take hold of it.
When she does, my chest deflates, expelling a breath, and I guide her toward me until she is resting against my side. “I’m playing to win.” My lips press against her forehead over her curtain of curly bangs.
Reaching into my backpack I pull out what I hope is my smoking gun. The proof that Sydney has been, and will always be the only woman for me.