Authors: Jasmine Carolina
She pulled two bowls out of the cabinet, placing them on the counter and separating the strawberries and pouring crema over them.
“No, I haven’t seen my room yet,” I said. “I was too busy getting acquainted with Rory.” I said his name with reverence, sighing as I recalled our brief, but slightly flirtatious conversation.
“Yeah, Rory’s a cutie,” she agreed. “But I think you’ll prefer his brother Callum. Cal’s a sweetheart, honestly.”
“Is Cal as hot as Rory?” I asked.
“Hotter, if you can imagine.”
I giggled, accepting the bowl of strawberries with cream, taking a bite of the Mexican delicacy. I closed my eyes and moaned softly.
I was a foodie. For someone with such a small frame, it was normally a shock to other people when I told them how much I ate and how little I exercised. The only thing that even remotely qualified as exercise was how much I loved to swim, and even then, I only did it for leisure, rather than for sport.
“This is
really
good, Nic,” I complimented. “What are the plans for today?”
Nickayla sat down across from me, taking a bite of her own snack. I waited for her to swallow what she’d eaten. “Just relaxing, honestly,” she answered. “Colin’s going to go take care of some things at his grandfather’s office, and we get to just chill for the day. I was thinking we could take a swim in the pool and then go play in the arcade downstairs.”
At that, I arched my eyebrow at her.
Arcade?
What kind of money did these people have? The house was one of the most extravagant houses that I’d ever seen, they had people driving them everywhere, and they had an arcade downstairs?
It was more luxury than I was used to.
“They have an arcade?” I asked, completely baffled.
Nickayla nodded, getting up to pour herself something to drink. She opened the refrigerator and pulled out a pitcher of tea. “Sweet tea?” she asked, holding it up for me to see.
When I responded with a curt nod of my own, she replied to my earlier question while she poured each of us glasses of tea with a lemon wedge on the side. “From what Colin said, it was a birthday gift to him and Keaton from their grandfather the year that he turned ten. He’d wanted to make sure that his only grandsons enjoyed themselves every time that they came to visit. There’s even a treadmill down there so that I can hop on and work off all the calories I’ll be consuming on this trip.”
I giggled, nudging her softly with my knee under the table as she sat back down.
“I’m sure you and Colin can think of other ways to work off those calories,” I said with a wink.
My best friend simply shook her head and laughed, blushing at my response. She was the shy one, the one who would never talk to a boy unless I shoved her in his direction, the one to whom talks of sex were either embarrassing or meant to be had in private, and the one who’d been with her boyfriend six months and she’d
barely
allowed him to get to second base.
Of course, I envied the fact that she got one of the few boys at our high school that didn’t care much for sex, while the boy I unwisely gave my heart to would fuck anything with a heartbeat and a vagina.
“Colin and I aren’t doing…
that…
yet,” Nic said with a shy smile.
I laughed loudly, nearly choking on my sweet tea.
“’That’? What are you, five? Why can’t you just say you’re not having sex yet?” I asked with a laugh. “And honestly, what are you waiting for? I’m sure that he wants to jump your bones nearly twice as much as you want to jump his, so why are you testing the boy’s patience?”
She laughed, knowing that I was playing with her. Nickayla had been through a terrible ordeal over a year ago, and since then, all talks, mentions, and innuendos to sex were pretty much prohibited. She had started to open up again, but she was the kind of person that one word in the wrong direction would make her shut down completely.
“I’m waiting for the right time. I’m not ready yet, and Colin respects that,” she said quietly. Her lips quirked up into a satisfied smile, raising an eyebrow at me as I took a sip of my beverage. “Besides, he takes
really
long showers.”
That time, I
did
choke on my sweet tea. I began coughing uncontrollably and tried to ignore the fact that I thought there was tea up my nose. I was laughing and coughing and coughing and laughing and I couldn’t stop.
“Well,” I began—honestly curious—in between coughs as I struggled to catch my breath, “is that before or after you guys make out for two hours straight?”
She sat up triumphantly and pulled her cup up to her mouth, taking a long sip of the drink before she responded. “After.” She smirked to herself, then looked up at me through her long dark lashes. “And trust me, I make it a point to test his self-restraint every chance I get.”
“Yes!” I shouted, throwing my hands up in the air and giggling with my best friend, who by then was beet red. “You, Nickayla Quinn, are not half as innocent as I thought!”
I fist bumped her, getting up and taking my bowl to the sink. I was still laughing as I made my way out of the kitchen and toward the stairs.
“Where are you going?” Nic asked, her head popping up around the doorframe as she looked up at me.
“I’m changing into my bikini,” I informed her. “Didn’t you say you wanted to go for a swim?”
She nodded, then she followed me up the stairs. As I ascended them, I took in all the photos that lined the wall with every step that I took. It wasn’t lost on me that the Westwick family—much like the Quinn family—was a family that loved each other and cherished each other. All the photos were of family gatherings and birthday parties and Colin and his siblings playing with their cousins. It was quite a sight to see, especially when I didn’t come from a family like that myself.
Nic and I split up when we reached the top of the stairs. She went to her and Colin’s bedroom, and I went to mine, pleased to find that my bags were still intact and sitting atop my bed. It would have honestly pissed me off if someone had unpacked my things for me.
I rummaged through the smaller suitcase, stopping only when I found my two piece swimsuit: it was a black bikini top with red and black floral bottoms that went perfectly together. I grabbed my jean shorts and my paddle brush, brushing my hair out before I changed into my swimsuit.
I examined myself in the mirror, noting, only for a moment, that I honestly looked amazing. It made me wonder and question what it was about me that was pretty much unlovable in Brody’s eyes.
He’d never told me that he loved me. He never was rendered speechless at the sight of me like Colin nearly always was with Nickayla. He never went out of his way to make me feel special, but for some reason, I always went back to him because I craved the things that he so obviously lacked.
I hated him for treating me like shit and acting like he wanted so much more from and with me. I hated him for pretending to be someone that he wasn’t. I hated him for fooling me not once, not twice, but time and time again into falling in love with him. I hated him for leaving me the way he did, twice as broken and twice as fragile as before.
Even more than that, I hated that I fell for him every single time, and I hated that even though I knew it was inevitable, I never saw it coming when he hurt me.
I wanted more from him than he would ever be able to give me, and that was the problem.
I damn sure wasn’t going to put up with it anymore.
Chapter Two
After swimming for a couple hours, Nic and I took to the small general store in search of ingredients for dinner. Callum’s family was over, Colin got home over an hour ago, and Colin’s best friend Jamie Victor was coming over with his girlfriend—us girls wanted to make an impression, so naturally we’d decided to do what we did best.
We’d bought ingredients to make salmon and chicken with lemon white rice and asparagus. Nic was going to make her favorite: cookie dough brownies, and Cal’s wife Amanda was going to bring us her favorite white wine.
Amanda was sweet, and her sons, Caleb, Rhys, and Julian were absolutely adorable.
Amanda, Nickayla, and I were in the kitchen cooking with Jamie’s girlfriend, Addison, while the guys took to the arcade downstairs with the kids.
I had to admit, it was unnerving to be around all those women, so happy in their relationships while I was the only single one—the only miserable one.
Amanda couldn’t stop gushing about the fact that she and Cal were going to try for another baby—a girl this time—and Addison was going on and on about she and Jamie going to New York after graduation. Nic was being Nic, overly enthusiastic about the fact that within a few years—God-willing—she’d be married and living in this beautiful house with Colin.
And me…well, I played the supportive friend, reacting to their happy news and pretending that it didn’t make me feel like an absolute piece of shit because if Brody hadn’t dumped me, I’d probably be just as happy as they were.
I continued to cook, seasoning the salmon as best as I knew how before putting it in the oven. Amanda popped the cork off the bottle of wine, pulling fluted glasses out of the cabinet.
“Michele, would you like some wine?” she asked, holding a flute out to me.
I nodded, accepting it even though I was only eighteen. “Yes, please,” I said. “I
totally
need to unwind.”
I sipped the wine delicately, hopping up on the kitchen counter and crossing my legs. Everyone else was given a glass of wine, but Nic, always the innocent one, dumped hers into the skillet that she was browning the chicken in. I rolled my eyes at her and she shrugged when she caught me doing so.
“What?” she said, innocently. “I promised my mom I wouldn’t do anything bad while I was out here.”
“Yeah, because half a glass of white wine is going to get you arrested,” I scoffed. I downed the rest of my glass, and Amanda wordlessly refilled it for me. I raised it up to her in a toasted thanks, taking another sip. “I didn’t have to promise Cecilia anything, because she gives me much stronger alcohol than this when she’s going through shit.”
Addison laughed, working on the rice while Amanda steamed the asparagus.
Amanda was a tall, leggy brunette with grey-blue eyes, and Addison was a voluptuous blonde of average height—either way, they made Nic and I look like we were little people.
Addison was about to get started on a salad, but she flipped her head down and twisted her hair into a bun. When she stood up, she went to work pulling apart romaine lettuce.
“So, Michele, what are your plans for after high school?” Addy asked curiously.
I looked to Nic, totally panicked, because I hadn’t counted on them asking me what I was doing, especially since I was the only one without a boyfriend. Honestly, I hadn’t factored being single into my post-graduation plans.
“Michie’s here for the summer to explore other opportunities,” Nic intercepted in an expert save. “She doesn’t want to stay in Harlow for college, so she’s here to find out if she could see herself living here. She
is
my best friend after all, and we’ve been talking about going to college together since before we started junior high.”
I grinned at her, softening my gaze in an unspoken “thank you” as I took another sip of my wine.
“Yeah, I’m actually going to look for a job while I’m here,” I said. “I feel terrible that Colin landed only a few hours ago and he went straight to work, and Kales here starts her internship on Monday. I don’t want to be the only bum without a job this summer, so if you ladies know of anywhere that’s hiring, feel free to let me know about them.”
Amanda laughed, chancing a glance at Addison. Addy wasn’t from Big Springs originally. She was from Chapel Hill, and she was only in Big Springs to visit with her aunt—which gave her an excuse to visit Jamie.
“Addy knows all about that, don’t you?” Amanda asked, nudging her with her shoulder as they worked side-by-side on dinner. “She’s looking for a job, too—although it’s not like she’d even know where to look, what with her having been here three weeks and never setting foot out of Jamie’s house until tonight.”
Amanda put the glass lid on top of the pot that her rice was cooking in, then looked up at me. “If you want a Big Springs native’s advice, I’d say start looking in the square. Most people who live here get out of here the minute the sun starts shining too bright, so all of the positions that are normally filled by regulars are completely open right now. I’d hop on it as soon as possible, though, because the few people who
do
come to this place for summer have been out looking since like, yesterday.”
I nodded, thankful for the advice.
“Hell, if you put it that way, Big Springs is a lot more like Harlow than I thought,” I joked. “Everyone who lives there is just
dying
to get out and people who don’t live there are visiting like it’s Orlando or something.” I giggled. “Thanks for the advice, though, Amanda. I’ll definitely get on that first thing tomorrow.”
“No problem,” she replied, a smile on her face.