And it felt pretty amazing, really.
It was almost too easy to be with Jack. After all those years pining over the wrong guy, being with the right guy was effortless. It was fun. It was everything it should be.
It was, dare I say it… destiny.
Amy laughed when I said it. Jack, on the other hand, was in complete agreement. He seemed to take it for granted that he and I had been fated to meet and fall in love.
Who would have known that Jack was such a romantic?
Actually, anyone who listened to his lyrics could probably figure that one out. That super swoony ballad about unrequited love? Yeah, that one was all about me. Not that I’m bragging or anything but… my boyfriend writes me love songs.
Boyfriend. My boyfriend. I was still getting used to it but I kind of hoped I never stopped getting this rush of bliss whenever I thought about him, or us, or the fact that fate had found us.
Jack held my hand as we walked toward the club where the dinner-dance was being held. I was bittersweet about this week coming to an end. This past week had been blissful—a honeymoon of sorts. I mean, how many couples got to start off their relationship on a beach vacation surrounded by friends?
Not that we’d spent much friend time, we’d kind of been in a world of our own, spending every day and every night together. Jack moved into my room, but we continued to take things slow. I’d just had my first kiss, for God’s sake, I was so not one to rush.
Jack was sweet about waiting. He seemed content with kiss training, as he’d come call it, and sleeping in his arms was my new favorite pastime. It was going to be hard to go back to reality once this week was over.
But we still had tonight.
Jack squeezed my hand. “You ready for this?”
I nodded, giving him a smile. I didn’t want to mope about this week being over, I just wanted to enjoy the rest of our time. We had all summer ahead of us. Actually, we had the rest of our lives ahead of us. Tonight was only the beginning.
That thought made my smile feel much more genuine and Jack stopped walking beside me. “Have I told you how beautiful you look tonight?”
I felt the now familiar heat in my cheeks under his penetrating gaze. I don’t know if I’d ever get used to his intensity, and I kind of hoped I never did. I loved the way he looked at me, especially now when I was wearing something so totally me. My pale pink dress was flowy and soft, my hair down around my shoulders like normal. There was nothing rock star goddess about this outfit, but that didn’t matter, not to Jack. He liked me. All of me. The real me.
He saw me.
Yeah, I know I keep harping on that, but for someone who’d been largely invisible for so long, it felt pretty amazing to be seen.
“I think you might have mentioned it,” I teased. Like the true romantic he was, Jack was quite liberal with his compliments. Not that I was complaining.
He was also quite liberal with the teasing. Becoming his girlfriend hadn’t stopped him from his tendency to mock and tease, but these days I knew better than to take it for anything other than what it was. Besides, there was always so much love in his eyes, it was hard to get annoyed. I took one look at him with that little smirk and my heart melted on the spot.
Also, I tended to give as good as I got, so there was that.
“Ready for our last night?” he asked, dropping a kiss on my lips that made me want to skip this stupid dinner-dance and head back to the house.
But there’d be plenty of time for that.
“No,” I said with a sigh, my arms wrapping around his neck to hold him close for just a little while longer. “But I am ready to start the next chapter.”
His grin took my breath away. “New York, here we come.”
I laughed. “Easy, tiger. We’ve got a whole summer to get through first.”
He grew serious. I’d started to realize that he only grew serious about two topics—music and me. And when the conversation involved both me and his music? Look out.
“Good,” he said. “We’re going to need this summer to work on the new songs.”
Oh yeah… we’d been writing songs together this week too. You know, when we weren’t practicing kisses or hanging out on the beach with friends.
You see, we had a plan. Sort of. Jack had been planning to take a year off like Mattie had done. He’d been thinking he’d spend it in Philadelphia, but turns out New York held a whole new appeal for him now that his girlfriend would be going to school there. If he won the contest we’d auditioned for he’d get to work with a music publisher and hopefully jump start his songwriting career. But with or without that contract, Jack would write songs. With me. Because, cheesy as it might sound, the two of us made some pretty amazing music together.
A group of giggling seniors walked past us interrupting the moment and Jack released me with a sigh. Holding out his hand, he grinned down at me. “What do you say, lay lady lay? Will you stay with me tonight?”
I smiled up at my cheesy, romantic, insanely loveable boyfriend and his ridiculous tendency to quote lyrics around me. My heart skipped a beat as the perfection of this night washed over me. It was the perfect culmination of the perfect week. And the best part was, there was so much more perfection to come. I took his hand and squeezed. Would I stay with him? “Always.”
Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed it, reviews are greatly appreciated! Did you miss the first book in the series? If so, you can find it here: Senior Week Fling.
Turn the page for a free sample of the next book in the Summer Love series, Senior Week Kiss.
Cat has one week to win back her ex, but it only takes one day with a beach town bad boy to learn that all her well-laid plans are nothing compared to a passionate kiss.
Senior Week Kiss
When I mentioned the Virgin Mary was also the same moment I realized that my frustrating conversation with the British hottie behind the hotel counter had gone completely off the rails.
The annoying clerk blinked at me slowly. His expression never altered from that supremely bored look he’d been giving me from the moment I’d first stumbled into the lobby, dripping wet from the rain. That was hours ago. Since then I’d been to eight other hotels and motels and every bed & breakfast in the area, and now I was back.
And this guy was just as unhelpful now as he was the first time around.
“Are you telling me you’re a virgin?” he asked.
I could feel a blush explode across my face. “No, of course not,” I stammered, even though I knew very well that was exactly the reaction he was trying to get out of me, the jerk. Whatever happened to hospitality and good manners?
Neither were to be found in Wildwood, New Jersey, apparently.
I took a deep breath and tried again, clasping my hands neatly in front of me on the counter as though we were having a pleasant conversation and not the most irritating interaction of my life. “I said the Virgin Mary. As in, I’m stranded without a place to stay and—”
“Are you pregnant?”
I frowned at this guy with his bland expression that I just knew was hiding amusement at my expense. He’d been purposefully obtuse and ridiculously unhelpful ever since he’d first informed me that the Sunrise Inn didn’t have a room for me, even though I’d reserved one.
“No, of course I’m not pregnant,” I said. “But—”
“I know for a fact that we’re not in Bethlehem,” he said in that condescending accent of his. “So really, this isn’t at all like a biblical tale.” I couldn’t be certain but I thought I saw a flash of amusement in those dark brown eyes.
I hated him, I decided. I didn’t hate many people but I hated this guy with a fiery passion because he was so clearly enjoying this. I was having the worst day of my life and this wannabe Sid Vicious was getting a kick out of it. What was he even doing here anyway? The Sunrise Inn was a nice hotel. A respectable hotel. It was the best in the area…I should know as I’d been the one to do the research on rates and availability in this beach town befor
e proposing this place as our Senior Week destination to the rest of the committee.
Out of all the available hotels, I’d chosen this one for me and my friends because it was the nicest. Why on earth had they hired a delinquent? With his wild black hair and the tattoos running up his arm and under the short sleeves of the white uniformed button down, he looked more like the lead singer of some punk band than the face of a five-star hotel.
I was so frustrated I was ready to scream. Why had I even brought up the Virgin Mary in the first place? I didn’t know. It had been a stretch, to say the least, and a clear indicator of how insane this guy was making me. “I was just trying to say that I need help and—” I cut myself off with a wave of my arms that nearly sent the candy dish filled with peppermints flying. “You know what, never mind.” I leaned forward to better read his nametag. “Jax, is it?”
He stared at me, unimpressed by my ingratiating tone.
“Jax, what I’ve been trying to tell you is that there’s been a misunderstanding.”
“I see.”
“I know for a fact that I have a reservation,” I said, for quite possibly the tenth time.
He consulted the computer screen. “Under the name Catherine Vaughn, yes?”
“Yes.” I let out a loud exhale. We’d been over this so many times, I didn’t know why I bothered to try again.
That’s not true, I did know. I was desperate, plain and simple. It was late, it was raining, and I was alone in a strange town. All my own fault, of course, but knowing that didn’t make it any better. If anything, it made everything way worse.
This idiocy was all my fault. This is what I got for acting on impulse for once. If I’d stuck to the plan, none of this would be happening. I would be safe and warm under my down comforter at home.
I should have just followed the plan. I always had a plan, and for this exact reason. I was supposed to drive down for Senior Week with my two best friends two days from now. But then I’d gotten impatient. I’d finished my final exams before them and as the organizer for the week, there were so many loose ends to finalize. Why not get a head start while my friends took their last exams?
In a fit of crazy, I’d followed that thought all the way here. To my doom.
I stared at the profile of the hotel concierge from hell and groaned softly.
I was an idiot.
He tapped a key on the keyboard, which I was fairly certain did nothing except keep the screen saver from popping up and ruining his ruse that he was actually trying to help me. “Yes,” he said slowly. “I see your name here.”
I knew what was coming and it took everything in me not to scream when he turned to face me with that bored look and said, “For Wednesday.”
Wednesday. Which was two days from now. Which was when we were originally supposed to arrive.
“Yes, I know.” I took a deep breath and allowed myself a moment to marvel at the fact that I had not strangled him yet. “But what I’ve been trying to tell you is that I called earlier today and I spoke to someone—”
“Any idea who?”
I swallowed down an irritated curse. If I knew the helpful guy’s name I would have told him by now. But I’d called the hotel early this morning before I’d realized that my day would go straight to hell in a handbasket so it hadn’t occurred to me to take note of the guy’s name. “No,” I said simply. “I’m not sure who I spoke to. But he was very helpful—”
“I’m sure he was,” my bored British guy said. He didn’t look much older than me, and certainly not old enough to be wearing that condescending, world-weary, jaded expression.
“He assured me that I could extend our reservation to today,” I finished.
He stared at me for a moment, those dark eyes making me squirm. “Yes, well. According to the computer, your reservation starts Wednesday.”
He continued before I could scream. “And all of our rooms are booked for tonight.”
Tears were starting to prick at the back of my eyes. It was the same response I’d gotten at every other hotel, bed & breakfast, and run-down motel in a twenty-mile radius.
Even front desk clerks at the seediest of the seediest had given me an apologetic grimace as they’d broken the news that they had no rooms to spare. Every other hotel clerk in this godforsaken town had shown at least a modicum of pity, if not empathy for my plight.
But this guy? The guy whose hotel I had a legitimate reservation for?
Nothing. Nada. Not even an “I’m sorry for the misunderstanding.”
But of course, that would mean acknowledging that there was a misunderstanding—which there was not. I made the call myself. I spoke to that helpful clerk personally.
I had a freakin’ reservation. I wasn’t making it up.
Frustration had me gripping the edge of the shoulder-height counter and swallowing down the tears that threatened to choke me. The first time I’d had this same conversation with my personal concierge from hell, I’d accepted my bad luck with a disappointed sigh and an “all right, thanks for checking” and had left to find an alternative solution.
But now I was back and I was desperate.
And this guy couldn’t care less.
Still, I found myself trying anyway because…well, because apparently desperation made me a glutton for punishment. “But the nice man on the phone this morning said—”
“You probably spoke to Bob,” he said suddenly.
I blinked. This was new. He hadn’t mentioned Bob before. I gripped the edge of the counter tighter as a flicker of hope threatened to come to life. “Okay,” I said eagerly.
“Bob quit at lunchtime,” he finished.
Hope died hard and fast. “What?”
Sid Vicious didn’t seem to notice that he’d crushed my soul. “Yeah, guess he’d had enough of the uppity snobs who were always coming in here making demands and causing a scene.”
His gaze never wavered from mine and I just knew he was referring to me. I stiffened, my tears taking a hiatus as outrage shot through me like a knife. He thought I was an uppity snob? Why? Just because I had a reservation here and wanted what was rightfully mine?
“Look,” I said, leaning over the counter as much as I could. Stupid high counters made for stupid tall people. “It’s not my fault Bob quit, okay? He promised me a room and—”
“And we don’t have one available,” he finished in a flat tone. “I realize I look like a god, but I cannot, in fact, summon an available room into existence merely because you wish it.”
I didn’t know which was more annoying, his cocky tone as he called himself a god—ugh, I hated this guy—or the fact that he was right.
“As I suggested before,” he continued, in that same bored tone. “Perhaps you should try elsewhere.”
I stared at him. Did he really think I’d be back here dealing with him if there were any available rooms in this town? “I did try elsewhere. No one has a room.”
“Well, it is a holiday weekend,” he reminded me politely. Too politely. Man, I really hated him.
“Yes,” I said through clenched teeth. “I know that.” Now. I knew that now. Somehow it had completely slipped my mind that this was the Monday of Memorial Day weekend until I’d arrived and this lovely gentleman had pointed it out.
Multiple times.
Defeat had me slumping over the desk. Or maybe that was exhaustion. It must have been past eleven and I’d been attempting to get a room for hours. I’d spent an entire evening wasting my time.
Jax, a.k.a. the British punk automaton, was still staring at me, his expression utterly devoid of emotion. My guess was he was just waiting for me to start arguing again.
But what was the point? He was right, no amount of talking was going make a room available and I couldn’t handle much more of Jax’s charming personality without bursting into tears. There was no way in hell I’d give him the satisfaction.
So instead I walked back out the front door, ignoring his “have a great night,” which dripped with sarcas
m.
I held my head up high as I walked back out into the rain. I didn’t even try to pull up the hood of my windbreaker. What did it matter? I was already soaked anyways.
As I headed to my car I told myself how fine I was.
I was fine. I was totally fine.
I was smart, resourceful, young, resilient. I could handle one night on my own. My car might be a tiny two-seater, but it would at least be cozy and warm as I stayed out of the rain. I could probably curl up and take a little nap.
Once I got a little sleep I’d feel better. Once I was rested I’d head home and come back with Ashley and Beth on Wednesday. I’d forget this whole night ever happened in the first place.
Yeah, this was helping. A good pep talk always did the trick. One thought cheered me above all others as I reached my car. I’d get Jax in trouble. I grinned down at my wet rat reflection in my car window as I thought about how I’d tell the manager just how obnoxious his nighttime front desk clerk had been.
That’ll show him.
I was almost in a good mood by the time I opened my car door. See? Nice and dry. Once I turned on the heat…
I turned the key in the ignition and nothing happened. That’s when my newfound happiness evaporated like rain on a hot pavement.
What the…?
I tried it again. Nothing. Not even a half-hearted rev that said it was working on it.
Nothing. Nada. The more I turned the key the more my desperation levels rose to panicky proportions. This could not be happening.
But it was and I even had a sneaking suspicion why. Had I remembered to turn off my headlights or the internal lights that I’d turned on to search for my wallet before leaving the car in the parking lot and walking to the last handful of places on my list?
Street parking had been a nightmare so I’d parked in this lot and opted to walk, hence my current wet-rat state. I remembered flipping on all the lights; I remembered keeping the headlights on to see my surroundings.
But in my distress did I remember to turn anything off?
The silent engine told me that no. I had not remembered.
Senior Week Crush Page 14
