It’s so annoying.
I try the handle again. Then the lock. No good.
“Sam…” I say in warning, knowing he knows that I know what he’s doing.
He ignores me. He’s too busy typing his number into Whitney’s phone to be bothered with the prisoner behind him.
My own fault for jumping into the backseat when we left Beemer’s. Then again, it would have been worth sitting next to Sam for the ten-minute drive if that meant I’d have freedom now.
Sweet, sweet freedom.
Huffing out a breath, I cross my arms and sit back. I refuse to demean myself by begging to be let out. Really, this whole thing is childish and I will not be a part of it.
Even if I do stick my tongue out at the back of Sam’s stupid, stubborn, thick head.
He hands Whitney’s phone back to her, then opens his door because, you know, he can and all.
I straighten and lean between the front seats. “Swear to God, Sam, if you leave me locked in here--”
Not so much as looking at me, he shuts the door.
“This is illegal,” I yell but he’s walking around the front of the SUV, not paying me any attention.
Whitney clears her throat but even in the dark, I can see she’s fighting a smile. So glad my being held against my will is funny to her.
“Goodnight, Hadley,” she says when Sam opens her door, like some guy from the 1950s or something. “Thank you for the lovely evening.”
“We saw two girls puke,” I remind her. “Graham dropped his pants to his knees and peed in the middle of the yard, and we walked past a blowjob in progress in the driveway.” Out of the three, Graham’s pasty, flabby butt really was the most disturbing. “You call that a lovely evening?”
“It was nice meeting your not-friends,” she insists. “And I enjoyed talking with you.”
A warm feeling spreads in my chest. She likes me? I don’t know what to do with that.
It doesn’t happen very often. The liking me part.
Not that it’ll last. Once she has some time and space to go over everything, she’ll realize we don’t have much in common and there’s no point in talking to me again. Especially now that she’s met Sam and Kenzie and Tori, people better suited for the whole friendship deal.
People more like her.
Zoe says I don’t get close to people because I’m judgmental. That I have preconceived notions of others based on how I think they’re going to behave, but that’s not true. I’m not judgy.
I’m careful. Smart. And I’m able to read people. Which comes in handy. If you know what to expect from someone, they can’t surprise you.
Can’t hurt you.
I knew Whitney was sweet and polite and assumed that sweetness would be sickening. That politeness boring. I was wrong. She’s fun and funny with a dry sense of humor I can’t help but appreciate.
Great. Just what I need. A girl crush on my new neighbor.
Feeling like an idiot, I slump back only to rear up again when my door opens.
“It’s about time,” I say, but when I get out, Sam is there—right there—blocking my way, one hand on the top of the open door, the other on the side of the SUV. Whitney is waiting at the edge of her yard, her back to us.
I step forward but Sam doesn’t move. I try the right, but he shifts to block me. Eyes narrowed, I go left but it’s no use.
“Excuse me,” I say pointedly.
I can be polite, too.
But I should have just pushed past him because he is not cooperating with me and my manners.
“I’m going to walk Whitney to her door,” he tells me, the first thing he’s said to me directly since my great bathroom escape from the deck over two hours ago.
It’d been nice while it lasted, but my reprieve is over.
“Yeah? Good for you. Very gentlemanly.”
I shift to the right again, planning on just ducking under his arm only to freeze when he edges closer, taking away even more space and any ducking ability.
“Wait for me here, then I’ll walk you to yours.”
He’d always done that, escorted me to my door whenever he brought me home. It was the kind of thing a girl got used to.
Like having him around all the time.
Look how well that worked out for me.
“Not necessary,” I say. “I’ve managed to get myself safely home for the past eleven months. I’ll do it tonight, too.”
“Wait for me here,” he repeats because he is a stubborn, stubborn boy. “We need to talk.”
Oh, no. Not going to happen. After what he said at the party, I’m too confused. As always when it comes to him, I’m too weak.
“Actually, I’m really tired.” To prove it, I fake a yawn so wide my jaw cracks. “And I have to watch Taylor in the morning, so I’d better get to bed. We’ll talk tomorrow. Or next week. Or, you know, never.”
With only the faint glow from inside the car and the moon and stars overhead, it’s hard to see him clearly, but I swear there’s a glint in his eyes. Like instead of refusing him, I’ve issued some sort of challenge.
One he’s more than glad to accept.
He straightens and even drops the hand to my right. A clear sign he’s letting me go. Granting me this minor victory.
“Don’t run,” he murmurs, because as I’ve noted, he knows me way, way too well. “If you do,” he continues in that same soft tone, “I’ll come after you.”
It’s another promise, a vow, like the one he’d made earlier.
I’m going to do whatever it takes to get you back.
Or maybe it’s his own version of a challenge.
Whatever it is, it leaves me uneasy, my face hot, my knees trembling, while he turns and walks away.
I want to believe he’s bluffing. But just the slight possibility of it, of him knocking on my door and possibly waking Devyn and Taylor all so he and I can have a late-night chat, keeps me glued to my spot.
I shut the car door, then lean against it as I watch Sam and Whitney go up the steps to her porch, his hand lightly touching the small of her back. Laughing at something Sam says, Whitney unlocks the door. She turns, leans against it and smiles up at him.
A lump forms in my throat. I swallow but it remains, hard and constricting. They’re all smiles and laughs and easy postures, neither in a hurry to leave the other’s company. I try to read their lips but it’s too dark and they’re too far away and I have no idea how to do it anyway. Whitney’s probably thanking Sam for the ride, which will prompt Sam to thank her in return for thanking him. Or else they’re bidding each other a good night, a restful, happy-dreams-only sleep and for tomorrow a cheery wake-up call and good hair day.
Just say goodbye already so we can all move on with our lives.
Sam leans in closer, nods at something Whitney says, and I realize I have both palms flat against the door behind me.
Realize my vision has taken on a definite green tint.
Which is stupid. I’m not jealous. I wanted Sam and Whitney to hit it off. I just hadn’t realized they’d do it like freaking gangbusters.
No surprise. They have so much in common. Though we haven’t even started our senior year in high school, they’re both already thinking of the future. On the way home, they talked nonstop about the lists they’d made of colleges they want to apply to. Lists they’d both broken into three tiers: Dream Schools, Doable Schools and Safe Schools.
It was like they were made for each other.
Even their plans for the future match up. Sam wants to follow in his parents’ footsteps and become a doctor, possibly a surgeon. Whitney is going to study elementary education at whatever fabulous, hard-to-get-into, far-away-from-here, expensive college she attends.
Of course her dream is to educate the children of the world. Teaching is, after all, the noblest of professions.
I mean, not quite as noble as performing life-saving surgery, but pretty darn close.
And me? My greatest wish, my secret dream is to one day own a bakery, where I
can sell my homemade cookies, cakes and donuts to the masses.
Just doing my part to add to America’s growing obesity and diabetes rates!
One of these things is definitely not like the others.
I don’t get why Sam wanted so badly to be my friend when we were kids. Why he’s doing this now, acting like he wants me back in his life. He’s the one who walked away.
Now he doesn’t want to let me go?
It’s messed up. And not fair.
Whitney finally goes inside, shutting the door behind her, and I push away from the car, debating whether or not to dart across the street.
I’ll come after you.
Wonder if that’s what I want. To see if he really would chase me.
But Sam is heading my way, as if he had no doubt I’d be here, right where he left me, waiting with bated breath until he returned.
But when he gets closer, I see his shoulders are tense, his expression wary. Nervous.
I’m not the only one out of sorts. Not the only one confused. I might not even be the only one who’s scared.
And instead of finding comfort in that fact, it makes everything that much worse.
“You waited,” he says when he reaches me.
I shrug. “You asked me to.”
It’s the wrong thing to say because it’s not just me stating the obvious, it’s not just the truth. It’s the real reason I waited. The reason I went to the party.
Because I’m too curious about what he has to say.
Because I’m an idiot who can’t tell him no.
He knows it, too. His mouth kicks up in a shy, adorable grin and my scalp tingles, my stomach tumbling in the very best way.
Stupid handsome boys and their stupid adorable grins. They make a girl forget why she’s not supposed to get all tingly and tumbly. They make a girl forget why she’s supposed to be smart and stay as far away from them as possible.
“Thank you for waiting,” he whispers, then he steps closer and my breath locks in my chest. I don’t move, not even when he’s so close I can feel his body heat, can smell the lingering scent of campfire smoke clinging to his clothes. Not even when he lifts his hand, his fingers trembling, and lightly touches my cheek. “I missed you. Christ, Hadley, I missed you so much.”
I freeze, my body wanting to lean into his touch. My heart leaping at his words.
Oh, this was such a mistake. Going to the party, waiting for him now. I need to go before he says something else I don’t want to hear. Something that will make the resolve I’ve built up over the past eleven months weaken even further.
I have to go before he does or says something that will push me into admitting how much I missed him, too.
But I can’t give him those words, that truth. He already has too much of what’s mine. He knows too much about me, knows me, better than anyone. My likes and dislikes. My hopes and dreams. My doubts and fears.
He knows. And he walked away.
He doesn’t get to have my secrets, too.
I turn and walk away, make it halfway across the empty street before he catches up to me. We’ve done this a hundred times, maybe even a thousand, walked side by side in the dark toward my trailer, the porch light guiding us. But it’s different now. New. We’re quiet when before we were always talking and joking and making plans for the next day. There’s a space between us, a physical distance I do my best to maintain so there’s no brushing of arms. Things between us have changed. I need to remember that. I need to accept it.
But it’s hard to remember when the air is warm and thick with the scent of an oncoming rainstorm, reminding me of so many other summer nights with Sam. It’s even harder to accept when there are so many other things that are the same. The way he walks, the steady sound of his breathing. How he follows me up the sidewalk and then the steps, big and protective behind me. How he leans his shoulder against the side of the trailer, hands in his pockets, watching over me while I dig out my key.
Sam. My friend.
Last summer I thought it would always be like this. That it would be Sam and Hadley. Hadley and Sam. Forever.
Now I can’t imagine it ever being that way again.
My hands are unsteady. So unsteady I can’t get my stupid key into the stupid lock.
A growl of frustration rises in my throat but I hold it back. Not that it matters. Sam, the super observant, notices I’m being a complete doofus who can’t even unlock her own door. He takes the key from my hand and steps forward. I stare at his broad back, his wide shoulders, while he unlocks my door, the click of it loud in the silence.
He turns, gives me my key back, then stands there. Broad chest, wide shoulders and immovable body.
I curl my fingers around the key, the edges biting into my palm. “This new habit you picked up in LA of blocking my way is extremely irritating.”
“If I don’t block your way, you’ll run. And I want to talk to you.”
My chest burns and there’s a roaring sound in my head, echoing in my ears, that makes it hard to think. Makes it impossible to keep my mouth shut.
“It’s always what you want,” I say, my words quiet but heated. “And that’s not fair. I worked with you today, I went to the party with you, I waited for you but I can’t…I can’t do any more. Not tonight. It’s my turn to get what I want.”
To my everlasting horror, my voice cracks. My eyes sting. Because I’m tired. And frustrated. And angry. Because I spent the night surrounded by people who haven’t spoken to me in almost a year. Because the past two days have drained me emotionally.
And because Sam Constable is back, once again pushing me for more.
“Shit,” he breathes, shoving a hand through his hair. He exhales and lowers his hand, fisting it by his side. “You’re right. It’s your turn. What do you want, Hadley?”
So many thoughts whirl through my mind. What I wanted for so many months battles with what I want now, but none of that matters. There’s only one answer I can give.
“I want you to let me go.”
“I don’t think I can.”
His voice is low. Stark in its honesty. He’s taking my words as something more than me going inside to bed. He thinks I want him to let me go forever. For good, this time.
I don’t correct him. No matter how badly I want to.
“You can,” I tell him. “You did it easily enough before.”
He flinches. Nods. And finally, thankfully, steps aside.
I brush past him, open the door and step inside.
“Hadley.”
Shutting my eyes, I stop, my hand still on the doorknob. I stop because hearing him whisper my name in the dark, like a secret, like a prayer, has tears forming again. I stop because even after all this time, I’m still too used to giving Sam everything I have. Everything I am.
His next works are even softer. And rip the breath from my lungs.
“Letting you go wasn’t easy. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done.”
17
I hadn’t seen it coming.
I should have. All the signs were there. The long looks when he thought I wasn’t watching. The way he touched me, a brush of his fingers across the back of my hand or a quick squeeze of my knee. How he held me when we hugged goodbye, his arms tight around my waist, his face against my neck.
Signs? They’d been freaking billboards. And I’d ignored them, choosing instead to believe Sam would never do or say anything to put our friendship at risk.
After Sam moved to LA, I went over and over everything that happened. What led up to it. If I’d been more careful, more proactive, maybe I could have stopped it before it got too far. Then I realized none of that would have changed anything. Delayed it perhaps, but in the end, we were always meant to wind up here.
It was inevitable.
It’d been hot the day everything changed between us for the second time, hence, my whining when Sam and I stopped for lunch about how forcing us to work under such conditions wasn’t just dangerous but possibl
y criminal.
“All I’m saying is that I’m not sure it’s legal.” Sitting on the tailgate of the truck, I finished my bottle of water and reached for another one and set it next to me. I bit into the turkey and provolone sub Sam bought me hoping it’d help improve my mood—ha ha, no such luck, my friend—and spoke around my mouthful. “There are child labor laws against this sort of thing.” I took another bite, waving the sub for emphasis. “This is exactly why workers have unions. So we’re not exploited.”
Sam didn’t answer and I glanced behind me. He’d finished his lunch five minutes ago and now laid back on the truck bed, legs dangling over the tailgate next to mine, hands linked on his steadily falling and rising flat stomach, his face covered with his ball cap.
I poked his thigh, just above his knee. “Are you listening to me?”
“Illegal,” he murmured. “Child labor.” He lifted a fisted hand into the air. “Organize. Fight the power.”
I took another bite, chewed while I glared at him, then swallowed. “Scoff if you must, but I’m trying to save our lives. It’s inhumane, making us work outside in triple-digit-heat--”
“It’s eighty-six degrees.”
I finished the sub and crumpled up the paper it came in, then tossed it at his chest. It hit him and rolled off.
He didn’t move.
I crossed my arms. God. Must be nice to be that relaxed, that at ease with life. Didn’t matter what we were doing, where we were, or who we were with, Sam was laid-back, bright as sunshine and filled with good humor, kindness, and patience all. The. Freaking. Time.
And I, to put it simply, wasn’t.
Sam was way, way too good for me.
Did he have to prove it so often?
Irritated with that thought, I stared at my bare toes—I’d taken my boots and socks off the moment we’d gotten into the truck—and swung my legs back and forth. Remembered the first time Sam and I had talked, really talked, that warm day at his house, us sitting side by side like this at the edge of his pool.
His legs were no longer skinny, but thick with muscles and covered with dark, springy hair. Mine were still slim and ghostly pale compared to his tanned skin. His feet had grown, too, in order, I guess, to match his body, and his size-twelve work boots looked big and rough and extremely masculine next to my narrow feet with their pink, sparkly toenails.
The Art of Holding On Page 11
