Chapter Ten #2
I was still smiling at the memory when I dropped my bag at the end of the dock, stripping my dress overhead and reaching into the bag for the sunscreen I’d packed.
I rubbed a small amount on my face, lathering up my shoulders and arms. I was just starting to spread the block on my chest when I turned to check on Tyler, and there he was, at the other end of the dock, rooted in place with his eyes on me.
I didn’t want to notice it, the way those deep, brown eyes cascaded over every inch of me like a waterfall.
I didn’t want to notice how tense his jaw was, how the muscle ticked a bit when his eyes paused where my hand was rubbing lotion over my cleavage.
I didn’t want to notice the way those eyes crawled slowly and purposefully over my stomach, my hips, my thighs, all the way down to my ankles before they trailed back up.
But I couldn’t help it.
And the monster inside me purred with satisfaction.
I’m not sure how I managed it, but when his eyes found mine again, I smiled, waving him down the dock.
He blinked a few times before his feet finally moved, and when he made it to me, he offered a small smile.
“You’re sneaky,” he said, gesturing down to his swim trunks.
“You’re also very lucky I still fit into these. ”
I shrugged. “I’m sure we could have figured it out otherwise. Here,” I said, tossing him the bottle of sunblock after I squeezed a healthy amount into my hand. “Lather up. Your sister would kill me if either of us got a sunburn before her big day.”
“The pictures ,” he mocked in her voice, and I laughed before we both fell silent — mostly because he had just started rubbing lotion over his broad, sculpted shoulders, and I was trying to remember why I ever thought this was a good idea.
Once we were protected from the sun, we spread out our towels and took a seat on the dock.
Then, I pulled the Bluetooth speaker out of my bag, propping it up between us and pulling out the clipboard with the band’s lists of songs they knew how to play.
Then, I uncapped my bright yellow highlighter and we started from the top.
Slowly, song by song, we filtered through the list, going over everything from what the band would play while everyone ate, to what would make people get up and sing and dance, to what would be perfect for the bouquet toss and garter throw.
We selected a handful of slow songs, deciding which ones to group together for the couples to get some dances together, but ensuring it wasn’t too long so that the solo folks would want to throw themselves out the nearest window.
Turned out Tyler and I had both been to weddings where we felt that latter scenario.
The band had given us five pages of options, and after a few hours, we’d gone through them all, highlighting the ones that would go over best with the crowd that would be there for the wedding.
And when our duty was done, I let the clipboard fall between us, the highlighter clacking on top, and then we both leaned back on the heels of our hands with a sigh, our eyes wandering the length of the lake.
Clouds had begun to roll in, shielding us from the sun more than they had in the earlier afternoon, but the sun still peeked through enough to warm our skin, and the breeze was warmer now, too.
I closed my eyes and soaked in the feeling of it blowing over my face as an old Tom Petty song played on the speaker.
“Now this is summer,” I said, and I didn’t have to open my eyes to know that Tyler was watching me. “All we need now is a good swing off the rope.”
I creaked one eye open to look at Tyler, who chuckled in response. “You first.”
“I’m not scared.”
“Prove it.”
I smiled, closing my eyes again and sinking back onto my palms. “I will. In a little bit though, because I’m enjoying this right now.”
“Suuuure,” Tyler teased.
My smile grew, my stomach doing a little flip with his tease.
I could tell he was still tense from our last conversation, but he’d let me drag him out here.
And the more we’d gone through the playlist, the more the summer sun had found us through the myriad of clouds throughout the day, the more he’d relaxed.
Maybe it was working.
Maybe I could break down that barrier, after all.
Maybe, we really could be friends.
I ignored the way my stomach did a different kind of flip at the notion of the F word, letting out a long, pleasant sigh instead. “I think we did a good job. She’ll be happy.”
“Yeah, me too,” Tyler said, pausing. “You know, I am a little disappointed they didn’t have ‘Like a G6’ on there. I mean, come on — that would have made Morgan happy.”
I gasped, eyes shooting open wide as a laugh found my chest. “Oh, my God ,” I said, shaking my head at a grinning Tyler. “I forgot about that song! Oh man, we loved that one. We used to pretend to make music videos for it, remember that?”
“That one and ‘Billionaire’ by Travie McCoy.”
I gasped again. “You’re taking me back to the summer after my freshman year real hard right now.”
“That was a fun summer,” he said, shaking his head as his eyes found the water again. “We were just kids, you know? We stayed up too late, slept in too late, wasted our days away doing absolutely nothing.”
“It was pretty perfect,” I agreed, and silence fell between us, a gust of wind rushing in another cloud that shielded us from the sun.
And that’s when I remembered.
I snapped my fingers, jolting enough to make Tyler look at me with a quirked brow.
“Oh, just you wait,” I said, thumbing through my phone for the playlist I’d made my senior year and transferred to every new phone since then.
When I hit play, Gym Class Heroes started playing, and Tyler laughed — a wholehearted, belly-deep laugh that had his head tilting back, eyes closing as he faced the sky.
“Wow,” he said before he looked at me again. “What is this?”
I showed him my phone screen.
“WK+1’s Epic Playlist,” he read, and then he took the phone from my hand, thumbing through the list. “This is like every song we were obsessed with from 2010 to 2013.”
“I made it senior year,” I said. “Remember? We played it at our prom pre-party.”
“ Your prom pre-party,” Tyler corrected.
“Hey, you came, too!”
“Only because you and Morgan forced me.” He shook his head. “Do you know how embarrassing that was? To be in college and going to a senior prom?”
I shoved his arm. “Oh, shut up. You loved it.”
He shook his head, eyeing the playlist one more time before he handed it back to me. “I do remember your dress,” he said softly, his eyes meeting mine for a brief moment before he tore them away. “You looked like a grown up that night.”
“As opposed to your little sister’s annoying friend?”
“As opposed to my friend who I didn’t realize had boobs,” he challenged, arching an eyebrow at me as he ogled the aforementioned boobs unabashedly.
My jaw hinged open, and I swatted at him before covering my chest to the tune of his chuckle. Morgan’s words played in my head.
I knew he had a crush on you, he had for years, but…
After a moment, I leaned back on my hands again, watching him.
And the longer I did, the more my heart raced in my chest, sweat beading at my hairline even though clouds had completely covered the sun now.
“Morgan told me.”
The words were out of my mouth before I could consider not saying them, and they hung between us for a long moment before Tyler turned his head, his eyes meeting mine.
“She told me about what happened that day after my mom left.” I swallowed. “About how you told her. About us.”
I watched a stiff swallow bob in Tyler’s throat, but he never shifted his gaze.
“I understand,” I said after a minute, sighing as I looked over the water — which wasn’t mirror-like anymore, now that the wind and clouds had rolled in — and then looking back at him.
“I wish she wouldn’t have spoken for me, that she would have let you and I work it out, but I understand why she said what she did.
” I paused. “And I understand why you said what you did, too. Why you told me…”
My voice faded, because I didn’t have to say it. He knew what he’d said to me just as well as I did.
The word mistake flittered through me like a cold chill.
Tyler watched me with eyes full of pain, his eyebrows hitched together, throat tight. But he didn’t say a word.
He didn’t have to.
I could see it — how he was sorry, how he didn’t mean to hurt me.
And now, I couldn’t believe I hadn’t seen it all along.
“She wants us to be friends,” I added after a minute, smiling a little as I nudged his shoulder with mine. “What do you think of that?”
Tyler let out a breath, slow and easy, like he’d been holding it. The corner of his mouth hitched up. “I think I want that, too.”
“Yeah?”
He nodded, and something sharp ripped through my chest, but I subdued the urge to reach for it and digest it and figure it out.
“Me, too,” I said softly.
Tyler’s smile widened, and I smiled in return — just as a bolt of lightning struck overhead, immediately followed by a deep rumble of thunder that shook the entire dock.
Tyler and I exchanged worried glances, and then we were both up on our feet.
“Damn New Hampshire summer storms,” I cursed, tossing everything into my bag and throwing it over my shoulder as Tyler grabbed our towels. “How can it be perfectly sunshiney one minute, and then hailing the next?”
“You sound like such a Cali girl right now,” he teased, but I didn’t have time to smack him or flick him off before another crack of lightning and thunder hit overhead, and then, in the distance, the soft sound of rain in the trees.
“Fuck,” I whispered, and Tyler and I looked at each other once more before we took off sprinting toward the old house.