“What you need is some inspiration.”
His plush, soft lips caught my attention and my stomach quivered. I could definitely get some inspiration from them. When Ashton caught me looking his eyes lit up with a wicked gleam. He bent lower until his lips were almost touching mine and tilted his head to one side. My breath caught, anticipation thrumming in my veins. Oh, yes. Hello, inspiration!
“Let’s go to the beach,” he whispered.
I blinked in surprise. That was so not what I’d expected.
“Huh?”
He pulled slowly away, laughter dancing in his eyes. “It’s a nice day. Let’s get out of here and go down to the beach for a while. You could use some fresh air, some ocean breezes. Watch the sun on the waves and clear your head. You’re getting in your own way.”
I blinked again and tried to get my brain unstuck from neutral while my lips positively ached for his. The boy was such a tease. Although I probably deserved it, what with my constant waffling about our relationship.
“Sure. Why not?” I certainly wasn’t accomplishing anything sitting in my room and staring at my stupid picture.
“Mom!” I called as we got to the front door. “I’m going out with Ashton.”
“Okay, hon. Have a good time.”
I reached for my keys, but Ashton stopped me with a hand on my arm. “I’ll drive,” he said. “We have a better chance of getting there in one piece.”
“Hey! I’m a good driver!”
He rolled his eyes. “Yeah. But since this isn’t a NASCAR race, I’ll drive.”
Everyone is a critic. I grumbled, but let him lead the way out to his car. So I liked to drive a little fast sometimes, so what? I had places to be, and who wants to waste time sitting in a car?
We didn’t say much on the way to the beach, and when we parked by his house I could see that the sand was mostly empty. It was too late in the year for many tourists, and the locals were at home eating dinner and getting ready for their Friday night. That suited me, because it provided the calm solitude I needed to get my head straight.
October in south Texas meant it was still warm out, but there was a nice breeze off the Gulf that kept it from being too muggy. Ashton took my hand and we went together out to the edge of the water, where I kicked off my sandals so we could walk along the surf. As the blood temperature water surged around my feet, I let my toes sink into the sand. Tension oozed out of me and I felt my shoulders loosening up. This was exactly what I’d needed. Trust Ashton to know.
If only his parents could accept me. Other than that he was perfect. It wasn’t fair. Delaney had Walker. Molly had Quinn. Why couldn’t I find someone perfect for me like that, someone I could trust, someone I could give my heart to without being afraid? Ashton was wonderful, but he came with those issues and baggage from before that I couldn’t seem to overlook.
Of course I wasn’t the only one having relationship issues. Poor Allison hadn’t gone out with anyone since homecoming. She was too hung up on Seth to notice other guys.
“Do you know Seth Gray?” I asked.
“Not well. We hung out for a while in middle school, but we kind of went our separate ways when we got to high school. Why?”
“Allison. She’s been crushing on him since our freshman year when he delivered a pizza to us at Delaney’s.”
“Wow. I knew she liked him, but that’s...”
“Sweet?” I filled in.
“I was going to say obsessive.”
“It’s not like she stalks him or anything. Although she did join the same gym he goes to. And she orders pizza a lot.”
Dark eyes regarded me from beneath uplifted eyebrows. “You were saying?”
“Okay, maybe it’s a tiny bit obsessive.”
Ashton heaved a put upon sigh. “You’re going to play matchmaker again, aren’t you?”
“I’m going to try,” I said with a smile. “She’s the only one of us who doesn’t have someone. I don’t want her to feel alone and left out.”
“The only one?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.
I squeezed his hand and shot him a sidelong glance. “I’ve got a great friend. That’s enough for me.”
Ashton frowned and shook his head. “Is it?”
“It has to be. So what about Allison and Seth?”
“What about them?”
“Ashton!”
He sighed again. “Shouldn’t you leave it up to them?”
“I am! I’m just going to... Nudge them a little.”
“You’re playing with fire messing with peoples’ lives.”
I grinned up at him. “It’s what I do.”
“All right,” he grudged. “I’ll see if I can plant a hint with Seth.”
“Good. Then I’ll go to work on Allison. She won’t say a word to him, even when he delivers pizza. They’ll never get anywhere if I can’t shake her out of that.”
Ashton grunted, but gave up arguing. Maybe this was my answer. If I couldn’t have what I wanted, perhaps making sure my friends were all happy would make me happy.
On Saturday we’d all agreed to meet at Walker’s for movie night. It had become a regular thing we did once or twice a month where we hung out at his pool for a while before watching movies until early in the morning, then the guys would crash at Walker’s while the rest of us spent the night at either Delaney’s or Molly’s. Ashton gave me a ride, and we were the last to show up and found the others all lounging out by the pool.
“Hey, guys,” Walker said. “Make yourselves at home.”
Molly waved. “There are Cokes and Mountain Dews in the mini fridge.”
Ashton grimaced. “How can you drink that stuff?”
“A big guy like you can’t handle a little caffeine and sugar?” Molly asked.
“Yeah, but I’d rather it didn’t taste like antifreeze.”
“Just because you have no taste...”
Ashton brushed his lips against my cheek, sending little shivers down my spine. “Oh, I think I’ve got excellent taste.”
The others laughed so hard that I blushed, but I didn’t push him away. I knew I should have, but I didn’t.
“It’s about time,” Walker said. “Who won the pool?”
“Me!” Allison said. “It was me. I was closest at eighteen months.”
I stared at them. “A bet? You guys had a bet on us?”
Delaney grinned back at me. “Yep. I still can’t believe you two held out for so long. My money was on six months.”
“A year,” Walker said, lifting his Coke can in a toast. “I was beginning to think there was something wrong with you.”
“Nine months,” Quinn chimed in.
Molly shrugged. “I’m new to this, but I said two years. You really are slow.”
I shook my head in bemusement. “I do not believe you people.”
“Pay up, guys,” Allison crowed.
Grumbling, Walker went inside and returned with an envelope which he dropped into Allison’s lap.
“Fine,” I said. “New pool.”
Delaney perked up. “What kind of bet?”
“Well, Allison is the only one of us who is still single.”
All eyes turned to our unattached friend, whose jaw dropped.
“So how long until she has a boyfriend?” Delaney mused. “That works.”
“I’m in,” Quinn said.
“Me, too,” Walker and Molly said together.
Allison hooted with laughter. “You are all going to be waiting a long, long time for that to happen.”
Ashton put his lips to my ear. “Dani,” he whispered in a warning tone.
I batted my eyes at him innocently. “What? It’s just a little bet. So who’s in? Walker can hold the money again.”
There was a clamor from all sides until Delaney held up a hand. “Wait. Let me get some paper and write it down.”
As she scampered inside Allison made a show of counting the money in her envelope. “I’m telling you, you guys are wasting your tim
e.”
“Oh, I don’t think so,” I told her. “I have a feeling about this.”
A few minutes later the bets had been recorded. Delaney held up the paper.
“That’s everyone?”
“Wait,” Allison said. “I want in on this.”
Molly sat up. “You can’t bet on yourself!”
“Why not?”
“Because the bet’s about you.”
Quinn nudged her. “Oh, let her play, too.”
“But...”
Delaney cut her off. “It’ll make it more interesting. So what’s your bet, Allie?”
“Never.”
“You can’t do that,” I said.
“I told you that you’d be waiting a long time to collect.”
I turned to Delaney. “But that’s not fair.”
Allison threw up her hands. “Oh, all right. Make it by graduation.”
“You’re going to lose,” I told her.
“Oh, I don’t think so,” she said to mock me, and stuck out her tongue.
I stuck out my tongue right back at her. “We’ll see. Write it down, Laney.”
As we went inside the house I was more determined than ever that Allison and Seth were going to happen. I snuggled up next to Ashton on the couch, two puzzle pieces fitted together at last. When the movie started he curled one arm possessively around me and I felt warm and safe, wanted. It was perfect. I was back where I belonged. We were going to make this work.
That feeling lasted a whole hour until his phone dinged with a text. He pulled it up and frowned.
“It’s Mom,” he muttered. “Kelly came by the house looking for me. Mom thought I was out with her.”
“Oh, no.”
He sat up and began texting furiously, while my heart tied itself in knots. I could tell she was giving him grief, and fresh but familiar guilt sat like a cold weight in my stomach. This was just like before, just like the old days.
Finally he put his phone down and sighed. “I convinced her I was at Walker’s just hanging out with the guys.”
I swallowed past a lump in my throat. “So you lied to her.”
“Well, technically I just neglected to mention the part where you were here, too.”
Something in his voice made me doubt him. “Ash...”
His head fell against the back of the couch and he stared up at the ceiling. “I promised her that you weren’t here.”
I blinked away tears. Already the lies had started. I’d known better than to think it would work. Why did I have to be so stupid about him?
“I don’t want to do this again. I can’t do it. I just can’t. You can only lie to them for so long before you get caught, Ash, and then it blows up.”
“I know.”
“I think I need to go.”
“Dani, please don’t do this.”
“It isn’t going to work. When I’m with you I forget that. So I need to go, and I think we need to spend some time apart so I can get my head straight about this. I’m sorry, Ash, I really am. But going on like this isn’t fair to either of us.”
He stared at me, refusing to answer. I could see the hurt and anger in his eyes, but there was nothing I could do about it. He wasn’t mine, wouldn’t ever be again, and I just had to get over him once and for all. Somehow.
Chapter Six
Halloween has always been my favorite holiday. Of course everyone loves Christmas, and I enjoy stuffing myself on turkey during Thanksgiving as much as the next girl, but Halloween speaks to the artist in me. I can give free rein to my creative side with practically no limits on what my imagination is allowed to conjure. Absolutely anything goes, from the princess phase I went through as a little girl to the zombie and vampire fascination my friends and I went through in middle school to the more sophisticated ideas I pursued as I grew older and started high school.
Best of all I could lose myself in a hundred different projects at school and at home so I didn’t think about Ashton. Or at least not much. Avoiding him was the name of the game—no calls or texts, no walking to class with him, and maintaining a polite distance at lunchtime. While I could tell my friends were all concerned, they knew the situation well enough to leave matters alone. Mostly.
That week I was helping Delaney and Molly decorate their yards in anticipation of the holiday. Halloween was a huge deal in their neighborhood, with each family striving to outdo the decorations of their neighbors. I’d helped Laney pull together a Nightmare before Christmas theme, which suited the house she lived in perfectly since it still looked like a candidate for a ghost hunting reality show despite all the work her dad had done to it. Once we finished there we headed over to Molly’s place to set up the horror video game props we’d spent the last two weeks designing.
“So you’re coming over to help hand out candy, right?” Molly asked.
“Sure. We don’t get many trick-or-treaters in my neighborhood.”
“Cool.”
Delaney glanced up from the fake spider webs she was placing in the bushes in front of the porch. “Are you coming to Quinn’s party with us after?”
I shared a look of commiseration with Molly. With her social anxiety the last place she wanted to be was at a party. “I don’t think it’s a good idea for me to go, Laney.”
Her pretty face twisted into a pout. “Oh, come on. You don’t want to miss it.”
“Ashton’s going to be there,” I reminded her.
“Everyone is going to be there. It’ll be so packed you probably won’t even see him.”
“That isn’t how my luck works.”
“But it’s the last party,” she insisted. “Quinn and Walker are graduating, and next year they’ll both be off at college. We’ll never all be together for this again.”
Unfortunately she had a point. And since everyone tended to scatter during Thanksgiving and Christmas, and during spring break while everyone else was out partying and having fun I had to stay and help out with Dad’s store on the beach, this might really be the last holiday party where we were all together as a group.
“Come on, Dani,” Molly chimed in. “If I have to go, so do you.”
Delaney batted her eyes at me. “It’ll be fun. And there will be other guys there besides Ashton.”
“Like Dylan!” Molly said.
I groaned. Ever since Dylan had asked me for that homework assignment in the cafeteria my friends had been giving me grief over him.
“Dylan is just a study buddy. He’s never made a single move.”
“Just because he hasn’t doesn’t mean that he won’t,” Molly said. “And he doesn’t look at you like a study buddy. He looks like he wants to see what your tonsils taste like.”
Delaney burst out laughing. “Molly!”
“Well, he does. It’s the same way that Quinn looks at me before he pounces.” She closed her eyes with a little shiver. “I think you ought to let him. You might decide you like it.”
“I’m still working through all this stuff with Ashton,” I told her. “I don’t need to be in a relationship with anyone else right now.”
“Who said anything about a relationship?” Delaney asked. Just throw the poor boy a bone and give him a smooching session he won’t ever forget.”
I snorted. “With all the girls he makes out with, that would take some doing.”
Molly’s expression grew thoughtful. “He isn’t, though. I asked Quinn about him.”
“You did what?”
“I was just looking out for you. You’re my friend and he’s obviously into you. Anyway, Quinn said he’d settled down this year. He’s only been out with a couple of different girls. Quinn thinks all the messing around last year was just the guy acting out and compensating for not being able to play sports anymore. Now he’s behaving himself. His grades are up and he made the honor roll last nine weeks.”
That made me feel guilty about my comment. Dylan had been a star athlete before his accident, and that loss must have been a major disappointment to him. Wh
o could blame him for going a little crazy after?
“Well, I’m still not interested in giving him a pity make out.”
Delaney smirked. “Maybe he’d be taking pity on you.”
“Hey!”
“Admit it. It’s been so long that you’ve probably forgotten how.”
I wrinkled my nose at her. “You’re not wrong. Fine, I’ll go. But there will be no making out.”
Molly broke into a fit of evil laughter. “Oh, you say that now. But with a little Halloween magic who knows what might happen?”
It was going to take a lot of magic to make anything like that happen. But still, I wondered about Dylan. If he was as interested as all my friends seemed to think, why hadn’t he done or said anything? We talked and texted a fair bit and had studied together a few times, but he’d never made any attempt to push the boundaries. I shook my head, bemused. Why was I even worrying about it? It wasn’t like I wanted him to do anything, did I? Ashton was the one I wanted, the one who held my heart, even if I couldn’t have him. Right?
The last home football game of the year was that Friday night, and Quinn’s party on Saturday served as a combination Halloween gathering and victory celebration for our defeat of a rival high school. Quinn lived in a sprawling ranch house in one of the town’s nicer neighborhoods, about as far as you could get from my own home. His parents hosted the party every year on the condition that anyone who drank had to spend the night. Most of the football team was already there, rowdy in their exuberance after this latest victory. Their attitude quickly spread to everyone else, and Quinn and Walker stayed busy keeping protective eyes on Delaney and Molly. Left on our own, Allison and I hung out by the front door to hand out candy to the last straggling trick-or-treaters.
Quinn showed up after about an hour to check on us. “You two okay?”
I grinned at him. “I’d be more worried about your house than us.”
“It’ll be fine. If anyone starts getting too carried away I’ve got Walker and Ashton to sit on them before they get out of hand.”
“We’re good, Quinn,” Allison told him. “Most of the kids have given up for the night anyway. We’re mainly just talking. You can get back to your party.”
Just Friends Page 4
