Chapter 18 #2
I can’t help but join in her merriment. “Yes! She was so pissed, but she couldn’t stop herself from belting out the chorus when it came on. But how could she not? ‘Pour Some Sugar on Me’ is a song you must sing to, even if you don’t like rock classics like Kalani.”
The clearing comes into view, and I park near some other cars. I recognize Jay’s a few spots over.
We step out, and Emi meets my eyes over the car’s roof. “God, when did we stop doing that? Having nights where we just drive around pointlessly with the windows down and the music loud?”
When Kalani started dating Emmett.
It’s on the tip of my tongue, but I can’t say it. Instead, I say, “I miss it. I miss girl time.”
Emi gives me a small, sad smile. “Me too.”
Maybe Emi gets it. Maybe I should say something. This could be my chance. We’re alone and reminiscing, and now is when I can say that we should have more days like this, just me and her and Kalani hanging out and goofing off, at least before we start school in September.
Just as I take a breath to gather the courage, a deep voice calls out, “Oakwoods?”
I turn to find Caleb standing at Jay’s car with a bag full of drinks dangling from his hands. “What are you doing here?”
Emi and I shut our car doors and close the distance between us and Caleb. He gives us a once-over.
“I’m here for Jay,” I say with as much confidence as I can. I brace myself for him to tell me off, to tell me Jay doesn’t want to talk to me after I was so rude to him, to tell me I wasn’t invited here, to call me Pukey McBarfface or some other mean name going around about me.
But he doesn’t.
Caleb raises an eyebrow and says, “Well, come on then. At least you’re dressed appropriately this time.
” He pauses and eyes Emi, who’s wearing designer black leather shorts, a black bodysuit with at least six chunky silver necklaces of varying lengths, and ankle-high platform boots.
“Or at least one of you is. What is it with you Oakwoods kids? Only one of you at a time is allowed to wear a swimsuit or something?”
“Yup, they make us sign a contract and everything.” Emi grins, lightly shoving Caleb as we walk through the trail to the opening. “We’re also not allowed to stir our drinks counterclockwise, talk to caterpillars, or wear the color yellow on days containing the letter E.”
Caleb rolls his eyes, but his lips pull up at the corner as we exit the tree line.
Jasmine and Maddie are sitting on a log talking to Ralph, who, surprise surprise, is wearing an unbuttoned shirt with a pattern straight from a 1980s bowling alley carpet.
However, the look suits him. Maybe his weird pattern choices are growing on me, because the Carina from a few weeks ago would’ve wished he’d throw that shirt over the cliff and never retrieve it.
There are other people scattered around the area, and a few more down below splashing around in the water.
Some people I recognize, others I don’t, but I’m not focused on anyone else right now.
I’m focused on Jay, who has his back to me, laughing with some other people I’ve never seen before.
He’s wearing baby-pink swim shorts, and if I weren’t so determined right now, I’d want to laugh at that fact.
Of course he’s wearing pink swim shorts.
“Hey, Carina! Emi!” Ralph calls, noticing our arrival.
He stands and waves at us, and now everyone’s glancing our way.
Even Jay, whose eyes are trained directly on me, his stare so intense it would normally make me second-guess my decision to come here, but not today.
Today, I’m here on a mission, and I’m not leaving until Jay and I are friends again.
Emi must notice the determined look on my face because she says, “We’ll be over there,” grabs Caleb by his wrist, and pulls him toward Ralph, Jasmine, and Maddie.
I stand there, still staring at Jay, the breeze rustling my hair and the heat kissing my skin.
I don’t even notice if people are pointing or laughing or whispering about me.
If Jay’s heard the rumors and seen the video and memes, then others from his school must have too.
But I don’t care. I’m too busy being pissed off at Jay, at myself, at us not being on speaking terms.
With our eyes locked, what feels like forever passes before Jay breathes deeply and slowly strides over to me with all the confidence, all the self-assuredness he’s always possessed.
I don’t look away from him the entire time as he makes his agonizingly slow way toward me, not wanting to lose our little staring contest.
When he’s standing directly in front of me, I have no words. The sheer size of him is intimidating, but paired with his undeniable good looks, the hard line of his mouth, his distractingly shirtless body, and the knowledge that he’s pissed at me, everything I came here to say flies out of my head.
He’s the first to break the silence. “What are you doing here?”
I clear my throat, swallowing the nerves. “You were ignoring me. So I came to you.”
“Why aren’t you at work?” he asks.
“Called in sick. Why aren’t you coaching?”
“Field maintenance. They canceled everyone’s practices.”
“Hmm.”
We say nothing else, just stand there as people laugh and play music and jump off the cliff around us.
“Well, great talk,” Jay huffs, stepping back from me. “I guess I’ll see you around—”
“Wait, Jay!” I rush forward to make up for the distance he’s put between us.
When he stops and gives me his full attention again, I continue.
“I’m sorry for accusing you of being the one to start the rumors.
That wasn’t right of me, but in my defense I was having a shitty day and you were the only person besides my best friends who knew about it.
Rumors are usually spread from some kind of truth, so people had to have heard it from somewhere. ”
He opens his mouth, and I already know what’s coming, so I interrupt him.
“I know, I know. That’s a shitty apology.
But the truth is I know it wasn’t you. You’ve helped me out more times than I can count, and you came straight to me to see if I was okay when everything went to shit.
Kalani didn’t even do that, and neither did Emmett. ”
He crosses his arms against his broad chest, a sneer on his face. “Right. Your best friend and her boyfriend that you’re in love with.”
I let out a humorless laugh. “I’m not in love with Emmett.”
He raises a disbelieving eyebrow.
“Okay, I was. And I wish I wasn’t because then all of this could’ve been avoided.
But I’m not in love with him anymore—not even a small crush.
Nothing. He’s still my friend, but I’ve finally taken the rose-tinted glasses off and realized he’s not the person for me. I feel nothing romantic toward him.”
Some of the tension leaves Jay’s shoulders. “You sound like you mean that.”
“I do.”
Emmett is great and nice and a good person, but compared to Jay—compared to anyone, really—he’s a little boring, at least for my tastes.
Everything Emmett does are things any friend would do for me, things Kalani and Emi have done for me in the past too, and I always thought it was because he had feelings for me before he started dating Kalani.
But looking back, he never had feelings for me, he was just being a friend.
And while he’s a great person, he doesn’t push me or encourage me to be my true self and live to my full potential and speak my mind. Not like Jay.
“At least you’re finally being honest,” Jay says.
Honest. Speaking my mind. Jay’s always pushing me to do that, and if that’s what he wants me to do to break through this icy exterior he’s giving me, then that’s what I’ll do.
“You want honest? Fine. You tell me that I think I’m better than everyone and that I’m entitled—hell, you even call me Princess to drive that point home.
But that’s not who I am. You have a lot to say about what’s wrong with me, but how about you?
You’re an asshole, Jay. Sorry, it’s the truth.
” He opens his mouth to speak, but I continue.
“But you’re also not. You’ve been honest with me through everything, bluntly honest, and that’s probably contributing to your assholeness.
But you took one look at me and formed an opinion.
You’re the one who thought you weren’t good enough for me, and you decided I thought that too.
But we both know that’s not true. I don’t think I’m too good for you; if anything, you’re too good for me. ”
His face says he doesn’t believe me, so I push on.
“You’re what I wish I could be. You don’t shy away from confrontation, and you always speak your mind.
You would’ve told Emmett how you felt about him when you realized you had a crush on him way back in ninth grade.
You would’ve had a conversation with Kalani when they started dating so there wouldn’t be awkwardness surrounding you all the time.
You would’ve applied to art school, you would’ve told your friends you didn’t want to be set up on dates and that you missed one-on-one time, and you definitely would’ve told Arthur it wasn’t going to work instead of trying to crawl out a bathroom window. ”
The corner of his mouth tilts up just the tiniest bit. “You’ve never had a problem being straightforward and honest with me. You’ve never had a problem telling me off or telling me what you really wanted, even if it took you a little time to do it.”
He’s right. I didn’t even tell off sunglasses-at-night Chad until Jay was standing with me. “There’s just something about you. Maybe your abrasiveness is infectious.” The truth is I trust Jay. I feel safe with him.
“Or maybe,” he says, closing all the space between us, “you know you can be yourself with me.”
He’s standing so close the heat emitting off his naked torso scorches my skin. It takes all my self-control to not reach out and touch him—his abs, his muscled chest, his broad shoulders, his defined biceps. I force my gaze to remain above his neck and my hands to stay by my sides.
“Like I’ve told you before,” he continues, “you just need to practice being straightforward with people and telling them what you really want.” His eyes pierce straight to my soul, every bit as intense as the day I met him. “So tell me, Carina, what do you really want?”
My heart beats loudly in my ears. What do I want? I know exactly what that is. I knew it from the second I entered the clearing and Jay spotted me. And judging from the way Jay’s looking at me right now, he knows it too, and he feels the same way.
“You.”
That’s all the confirmation Jay needs.
He grabs me and pulls me to him with an urgency that takes my breath away, pressing his lips to mine. They’re soft and demanding, and as he deepens the kiss, he pulls me in closer, as if he can’t stand being apart from me for a second longer.
It takes me by surprise how instantly I feel that electrifying spark between us, and I melt against him.
The heat of his skin is searing, and the hand running down my back sends shivers down my spine.
I can feel him everywhere, feel the steady beat of his heart against my chest, feel the smooth ridges of his broad shoulders as I run my hands along them to his back.
The kiss is like nothing I’ve ever felt before but everything I expected a kiss from Jay would be: fiery, explosive, passionate, confident, and filled with a hunger that leaves me feeling both dizzy and alive.
It makes me wonder why I spent all that time arguing with him and denying my feelings when we could’ve been doing this.
“You drive me crazy, Princess, you know that?” Jay breathes against my lips. “Since the first moment I spotted you, I knew you’d be trouble. You got under my skin and stayed there.”
That was right here, at the cliffs, but the way we acted toward each other was the complete opposite of what we’re doing right now.
In fact, that Carina vowed to never see him again, and yet here I am, craving his touch and reveling in the way he’s looking down at me like he wants me and would destroy anything that got in his way.
“It was the red thong, wasn’t it?” I joke as I smile up at him. “It’s okay, you can admit it. It’s a really good pair of underwear; it would stay in anyone’s mind long after.”
He barks out a surprised laugh, shaking his head at me as he pushes my hair out of my face, his hand lingering on my jaw.
“Maybe. Or it could’ve just been its owner, who continuously tried to get herself thrown off the edge of the cliff. Speaking of . . .”
He fakes like he’s going to pick me up bridal style like he did that day to throw me over, and I squeal and jerk away. “Don’t you dare!”
He laughs, pulling me back to him. “I’d never.”
He places a sweet, gentle kiss on my lips that lingers and leaves me gazing up at him starry-eyed when he pulls away.
“Stay awhile,” Jay demands, his thumb tracing a line down my jaw and over my swollen bottom lip.
I know he means for me to stay here physically at the cliff with him, but the way his eyes are burning with a mixture of tenderness and possessiveness, I can’t help but feel there’s an underlying meaning. And I like it.
“I think I will.”