Chapter 6Hailey
CHAPTER 6
HAILEY
The smell of fried food assaults me as I step out of my car into the parking lot of the park across from the boardwalk. It’s where I told my date I would meet him so that I could have a few minutes to talk to him prior to throwing him into the chaos I know my friends can be.
My stomach swims with nerves. Not because the date makes me nervous—I couldn’t care less about this guy, even if he is the cutest one my mom has set me up with. It’s not going to go anywhere. I’m using him. Which was a total knee jerk reaction on my part after Nate made the confession yesterday that Luke was going to be at the party tonight. I realized that I couldn’t go through with this without coming clean to my date.
Carter. His name is Carter. I should probably keep that in mind if I’m planning on introducing him to everyone today.
Wrapping my arms around myself, I lean a hip against my car, staring across the street at the boardwalk. It’s mostly closed right now, given it’s only February. A couple of the restaurants run all year round, explaining the delicious scent in the air. The rides and concessions are open on weekends, but besides that, the park is closed through the week until May when school lets out and the weather starts getting really nice again.
This is where I’ve met each blind date my mom has set me up on. There are always people milling about, especially in the park and near the restaurants across from it, making it feel safe. Whether it is, I’m not sure. But I haven’t been kidnapped from this parking lot yet.
I’m hoping tonight keeps that streak going.
I can imagine this area in the height of summer just by standing here. Bright lights, blaring music, the sound of teenagers screaming as they get the thrill of riding a number of rides. The whoosh of the rollercoaster, the hydraulics of the Double Drop, the whir of the Ocean Motion.
My eyes close and I inhale deeply, smelling the churros from my memory. My absolute favorite. The boardwalk comes to life in the picture of my imagination, the warm wind of a summer night caressing my cheek. There’s an arm around my waist, a hand at my hip, the crinkling of paper as someone beside me finishes their own churro and leans over to try and take a bite of mine.
Breathing in sharply, my eyes snap open, my stomach flipping with what I’d equate to excitement, but can’t be. Green-blue eyes swim in my vision even with my eyes open, two dimples popping out at me.
Luke.
Damn him. Invading my mind, my memories. I’ve worked so hard to keep him out for ten years, but of course being here would bring things back up. Across from the place we fell in love all those years ago, and with him back in town.
I’m an idiot. Why did I agree to meet my date here, of all places? Why have I always chosen this place?
There’s no time for me to contemplate the question as a vehicle pulls up next to me, grabbing my attention. It isn’t the red truck that Carter sent me a picture of, but a silver Jeep that looks an awful lot like the new addition at the fire station when we’re on shift.
But it can’t be.
Except…
No.
Doing a double take of the man behind the wheel, my eyes widen—first in horror, and then anger. What the hell is he doing here?
It’s got to be a figment of my imagination. My memories pulling up what they think I want to see. There’s no way Luke is climbing out of his vehicle right now, dimples popping as he smiles at me, green-blue eyes dancing with mirth. Even ten years later I can’t decide on an official color.
Panic grips me. My date is going to show up at any moment.
“You need to leave!” I tell him as he rounds the front of his Jeep. Taking a step towards him, I shoo him back in the other direction with my hands. “Go away! I’m meeting someone and I don’t need you here when he shows up.”
“Yeah, I know,” Luke says, ignoring my waving hands. He stops near the front of his vehicle, leaving a couple of feet between us. “Your blind date.”
Balling my hands into fists, my first thought goes to Quinn. “I’m going to kill her. She told you?”
“Who?” Perplexed, his head tilts to the side. Then it must dawn on him because he shakes his head. “Quinn? No. She has no idea I’m here.”
“Then what the hell are you doing here?”
“Funny story.” Those stupid dimples pop a little more as his grin ratchets up a notch. “I’m your date.”
I take a step back, though it’s not voluntary. It’s like the words physically pushed me backwards. Shaking my head, I try to wrap my brain around what he said. “No, you’re not. Carter. Carter is my date. He drives a red truck and has a beard and lots of tattoos and is definitely not you. You are…”
Looking him up and down, my tongue sweeps across my lips without permission. Fitted black jeans, a tad distressed around the knees, with a white t-shirt under an open button down that’s black with white stripes crisscrossing through its entirety.
It’s the first time I’m seeing him in street clothes in ten years, and he’s just as hot now as he was back then. Damn it.
“I’m what?” he asks, and I’d swear his voice dropped an octave.
Shaking any improper thoughts from my head, my eyes meet his again, my hands balling at my sides again. “You are not Carter.”
Luke clears his throat, as if he also needed to be pulled back to the present moment. “Right. Carter. You recall my cousin from ten years ago?”
“You do not get to bring the past up—wait,” I cut myself off, his words registering. I take another step back from him, my forehead scrunching. “What did you say?”
“My cousin. Carter. The one I was visiting when I met you. The reason I fell for you, if you recall.” His eyes twinkle with mischief, and I’m taken right back to the moment he’s talking about.
It happened not long after a football nearly hit my best friend, Cindi, in the face. Would have, if I hadn’t caught it. I threw it back to the one who missed the ball in the first place, and the two men—boys, really, eighteen years old at the time—resumed their game. But the one I threw the ball to, he never stopped looking at me, and it was only five or ten minutes later that he was asking for a long pass, which sent him running straight for Cindi and me.
He leapt into the air with the agility of an athlete, landing in the sand a foot away from me, football tucked safely against his body. His eyes met mine and he said, “Would you look at that? I fell for you.”
I point a finger at him, my lip curling with the anger roiling in my veins. “You do not get to bring that up.
“Hails—”
“You don’t get to call me that,” I tell him vehemently.
The corner of his lip turns up, and I know he’s fighting a smile. Innocently, he asks, “Freckles?”
My stomach swoops, as though I’m on the Double Drop, the ride that’s always terrified me, that only Luke could get me to go on. I hate it. The ride, the swoop, the way he conjures old memories for me. The nickname he gave me the first day we met because he loved the freckles I’ve detested every day since he broke my heart. I hate it all.
Frustration has my eyes prickling. My voice is barely more than a whisper when I say, “Don’t call me that.”
Turning to my car, I grab the handle to yank the door open, but a hand against it stops it from moving. I look to my left and find Luke right there, closer than he’s been since the first day on shift when he spilled coffee on me. Emotions I can’t begin to decipher swim in his eyes. I hate him for looking at me like that when he’s the reason my heart shattered all those years ago.
“Carter realized who you were when he saw your picture,” Luke says, and it takes a moment for me to come back from the past and follow that he’s talking about the present. The blind date. “I only found out this morning when he asked me to meet him for breakfast.”
My eyes narrow at him. “And you thought it would be a good idea to commandeer my date?”
“What? No.” He shakes his head. “He thought it would be a good idea if I took over for him when he realized it was you.”
“Oh,” I say, nodding in sudden understanding, turning to face him with my arms crossed. “And you went along with it. Because you know just how much I want you around me.”
Luke laughs, lifting his hand to run through his hair. More like over his hair, though. It’s not long enough for much else. Still, it looks better than the first day buzz cut he had. “Actually, I told him you’d have my balls for it.”
I open my mouth to protest, but then stop short, giving a huff to cover an unexpected laugh. After a beat, I say, “Well, at least we can agree on that much.” Then I blink, my arms dropping from my chest as I realize what that must sound like. “Not that I want your balls. The opposite. I want nothing to do with them.”
“Relax,” he chuckles. “I get it.”
Relief washes over me as an awkward silence settles over us. I’m still trying to connect all the little pieces from the last five minutes and how this happened. Had my mother known? Had she and Carter’s mom figured it out somehow?
“When I first got to town, would you believe that’s the first place I went?” Luke asks, and I follow his gaze across the road to the boardwalk. “It was a weekend a few weeks ago. The place was just like it used to be. You remember that?—”
“Stop,” I cut him off with a shake of my head, and his attention comes back to me. “The only way any of this works is if neither of us talks about the past. I don’t want to live in it. I don’t want to rehash it. I want nothing to do with it.”
“Hailey—”
“No, Luke. I don’t want to hear it.” My eyes are like ice, refusing to break contact with his. I let that cold rage slide down over my body, encompassing me, embracing it. “This is my line in the sand, and I’m not willing to cross it.”
He takes a small step towards me, like he’s about to cross that invisible line. “Hailey, please?—”
“I hate you,” I interrupt him, my words as cold as the bottom of the ocean on the other side of the boardwalk. “But for the sake of my family, and of the house I love, I will set that hate aside and deal with you. Now let me go.”
His hand, still on my door, slides down the window until it falls away and he shoves both hands in his pockets, no longer meeting my eyes. Taking a step back, he inhales deeply, and I know resignation is setting in. Or at least what I hope is resignation.
“Have fun at the party,” I tell him before opening my car door and sliding in.
A second later, I’m pulling out of my spot, headed for the road, but I pause at the mouth of the parking lot and glance in my rearview mirror. I know I shouldn’t. I know I should just leave. Walk away like he did all those years ago. But I can’t.
I half expect him to be watching me drive away, but he surprises me when I find him staring across the road at the Boardwalk. Haunted. Like some part of him had always carried a glimmer of hope that one day we would find each other again, and I just squashed all those dreams.
My chest squeezes painfully, like it has many times since the day I found out he no longer wanted me. Like it or not, Luke Reyes will always have a piece of my heart. Having him back in my life means I need to do whatever is necessary to stop the ache threatening to consume me.
Because if I don’t, I’m terrified of what might happen.