When I Was Yours

by Samantha Towle

  She gets up with a beautiful big smile on her face. “Have a good day at work.”

  “I’ll try to. Love you, Case.” I give her a big squeeze before letting go.

  I head out the door and do the ten-minute walk to the bus stop. I’m only waiting a few minutes before it pulls up, and I jump on to take a seat.

  I pull my sketchpad out of my bag and continue working on a new sketch I’ve had stuck in my head since yesterday.

  Before I know it, the bus is pulling up to my stop. I get off and make my way to the store. Grady is just opening up as I arrive.

  “Morning, Evie Girl,” he says. Opening the door, he lets me through first.

  “Hey, Grady. You want some coffee?”

  “You see? This is why I hired you. Because you know just what people want at the exact right time.”

  “It’s a gift.” I smile at him.

  “Damn good gift to have.” He chuckles. “It’ll take you far in this world.”

  I let out a laugh. “If only that was the truth. I’ll make us that coffee.”

  The day is dragging like hell, and my days never drag here. There’s always something to do. We’re always busy with customers, or we have new stock coming in. The place is always buzzing.

  Today hasn’t been any different. I’ve been nonstop busy, but that hasn’t stopped the clock from slowing down.

  I can only put it down to one thing. I want it to be five p.m.

  At five p.m., I’ll get to go to the beach, and I’ll get to see Adam.

  I’ve turned into one of those girls who go all dreamy-eyed over a boy.

  Do I walk up to his beach house or just go straight to my rock?

  I mean, he’s usually out there when I’m walking along the beach.

  I guess if he’s there, I can go over and say hi.

  And if he’s not, I’ll just go to my rock and wait for him to come over.

  What if he doesn’t come over?

  Oh God, I’ve turned into one of those annoying overanalytical girls.

  To stop myself from going insane, I go into the stockroom and grab a box of T-shirts that’s just been delivered, intending to get them out on the shelves. I hear the shop bell ring as I’ve just lugged the box down from the shelf.

  Grady’s out back with Base, cleaning the boards from the lesson they’ve just done, so I’d better get back out on the shop floor.

  Armed with my box, I walk back into the store and then freeze on the spot.

  Adam.

  He’s here in the Shack.

  He looks so much more imposing here in the shop than he did yesterday. I mean, I knew he was tall, but I feel doll-sized compared to him.

  And he looks even more gorgeous, if that’s possible. He’s wearing a pair of black board shorts, a red T-shirt, and flip-flops.

  He even has nice feet. And I don’t like feet, especially men’s feet. They’re usually all hairy and gross.

  But Adam? Well, he has nice feet. They’re all tan and sexy and not too hairy.

  Oh God.

  I lift my eyes back up his body to his face, my eyes meeting with his.

  There’s a sexy smile on his lips.

  He totally knows I was checking him out. And you know what? I don’t even care that I got caught.

  He’s hot. It should be illegal not to stare at the man.

  I grin at him, and that smile of his deepens.

  And I melt into a puddle of goo.

  “You need a hand with that?” He nods at the box weighing my arms down.

  “Um, sure.”

  He comes over, and I get a whiff of him. He smells like the ocean and sunscreen.

  His hand brushes my arm as he takes the box from me, and I have to control the shiver it elicits in me.

  “Where do you want it?”

  “On the counter is fine. Thanks.”

  I watch him walk over to the counter before putting the box down.

  He’s here. I can’t believe he’s here.

  Did he come here to see me?

  I doubt it. I never told him I worked here.

  But then he would have seen the logo on my shirt, if he were paying attention. And I get the impression that not much escapes Adam.

  But I can’t see why he’d come here to see me, as he would have known I would be going to the beach later.

  “So, what brings you to Grady’s?” I ask as he walks back over to me.

  “You.”

  Me? Me! My insides do a little happy dance.

  “Me?” My voice has gone slightly high-pitched.

  “Yeah.” He moves closer. So close, I have to tilt my head back to look up at him. “Also, I was out, getting a frame.”

  “A frame?”

  “Mmhmm. For the picture you drew for me.”

  A swarm of butterflies start having a disco party in my stomach.

  “You know, you should really let me pay you for it.”

  “You like it?”

  He stares at me for a long moment, so long that my mouth dries, and those butterflies flitter up my throat.

  “Yeah, I do. I like it a lot.”

  Holy God. I’m so done for.

  The sound of Grady’s and Base’s voices coming from the back room snaps me out of it.

  They both come to a stop when they see Adam and me. Maybe we’re standing closer than a customer and shop assistant should be.

  No maybe about it, we are.

  I take a small step back.

  “Hey, man,” Grady says to him.

  “Hey.” Adam gives him a nod.

  “Our Evie Girl taking care of you?”

  “Oh, yeah.” Adam’s eyes come back to me. “She’s looking after me just fine.”

  I’m pretty sure my whole body is on fire. With lust. For him.

  Dear God…

  “So…” I clear my cluttered throat. “What are you looking for today?”

  “An answer to my question.”

  “Which question?”

  He bridges that gap I just put between us and lowers his voice slightly as he says, “I asked you out yesterday, and you said you’d let me know today. I’m here to get my yes, so I can finally take you out on that date.”

  Sweet baby Jesus.

  I’m well aware that Grady and Base are still here, probably being a pair of nosy parkers and listening in.

  “And what if I was going to say no?”

  “Then, I’d keep asking until you changed your mind.”

  That makes me smile. “Okay,” I say.

  “Okay?”

  “Yes.” I smile. “I’ll go out with you.”

  “Now?”

  I let out a laugh. “I can’t go out with you now. I’m working. But I get off at five—”

  “She’s finished for the day.” Grady comes over, handing my bag to me.

  “What?” I turn to him, taking the bag being pushed at me.

  He has this huge grin on his face. “I think you deserve some time off.”

  “But, Grady, the money. I need—”

  “It’s covered, Evie. Just go out and be seventeen. Have some fun.”

  I stare at him for a moment. “Okay. Thank you,” I say tentatively. “But I will make up the hours.”

  He chuckles at me, shaking his head, as I start to move away, Adam with me.

  “See ya, Base.” I wave at him.

  “Later, Evie.”

  I follow Adam through the store and out the door he holds open for me.

  “So, you’re seventeen?” Adam says the second we’re outside.

  “I am. Is that a problem?” I never considered how old he was. I mean, he’s clearly older than me. Well, he looks older.

  “Not at all.”

  “How old are you?” I ask him.

  “Eighteen. I turn nineteen in September.”

  “I’m a March baby.”

  “I’ll have to remember that.”

  He smiles at me, and I feel a fluttering in my chest.

  He comes to a stop by a re
ally fancy-looking Mercedes. It’s a really nice car.

  “Is this yours?” I ask, impressed.

  “Mmhmm.”

  He unlocks the car and pulls the handle on the door. And it opens up. And when I say up, I mean, it literally lifts up, not opening like a conventional car door.

  “Wow,” I say, my eyes wide.

  “Yeah. It’s kinda cool, I guess.”

  It’s more than cool. “So, you like cars?”

  He shrugs. “I guess. Yeah, they’re okay. My parents bought it for me on my eighteenth birthday.”

  “Well, they must really like you—a lot.” I give a teasing smile.

  “Not really.” He looks away, not before giving me a tight smile.

  His body language screams tense, and I really wish I hadn’t said anything.

  But, now, I think I see the reason for that loneliness I first saw in him.

  Absent rich parents maybe?

  But that car must have cost a fortune. That’s some serious money. I got that he was wealthy. Most people in Malibu are. And the beach house he’s staying in wouldn’t have been cheap. But the kind of money this sort of car would go for is so beyond out of my league that I wouldn’t know what to do with it even if I had it.

  And it serves to remind me of just how poor I am.

  Maybe he won’t want to date me when he finds out that we are polar opposites. Or maybe that’s just a really shitty thing for me to think. I’m guessing he knows I don’t swim in his end of the pool, considering I’m spending my summer working at the Shack.

  But poor girl and rich boy? You know what people always think in these scenarios. And I don’t want to be that girl ever. Or quite possibly I’m seriously overthinking this. I mean, we haven’t even been on a date yet.

  “So, you’re kind of rich, huh?” I say quietly.

  He shifts, like he’s uncomfortable, his eyes still not on me, but off in the distance.

  I’m starting to get that being rich isn’t necessarily a good thing for him.

  His hands find the pockets of his shorts. Then, his eyes finally come back to mine. The color in them is so vibrant that it momentarily takes my breath away.

  “I am. Is that a problem?” he asks, taking my words from before and giving them back to me.

  “No.” I shake my head, letting a smile on my lips. “So long as you don’t try to buy me a car or anything,” I joke, trying to lighten the air.

  He chuckles, the tension in him visibly easing. “I’ll try to refrain from doing so.”

  “Good,” I say, slipping into the leather seat. “Because I can’t drive.”

  He shuts my door, and I buckle in. He gets in the driver’s side a few seconds later.

  “So, where are we going?” I ask.

  He puts his seat belt on. “You hungry?” he asks me.

  “Sure. I could eat.”

  He turns the engine on, and the radio comes on in the middle of Don Henley’s “The Boys of Summer.”

  “I love this song,” I tell him. “It reminds me of…summer.”

  He glances at me, and I snort out a laugh, causing him to smile so wide that it’s dazzling.

  “You want the top down?” he asks.

  It takes me a minute to realize that he’s talking about the car. At first, I thought he was asking if I wanted his top down…to which I would have said, Yes, please.

  God, I’m such a pervert.

  Adam must know the direction my brain has taken as he lets out a low chuckle that I feel everywhere. My cheeks start to redden. He presses a button on the dash, and the top goes down, letting the sun in. Then, he pulls out into the street.

  We drive for a while, the conversation flowing freely. We’ve just gotten on the interstate when we get on the subject of surfing. Adam tells me that’s why he’s in Malibu, to surf. Which isn’t surprising. It’s why most people come here.

  “Do you like to surf?” he asks me.

  “I work at a surf shop. It’s the law. I think Grady would sack me if I didn’t like surfing.”

  He laughs. “We should go surfing together.”

  “Today?” I squeak. “It’s a bit late in the day to catch any good waves, and I don’t have my board or any swimwear.”

  “No. I meant, another day.” He looks over at me.

  Heat erupts deep inside me. “Are you asking me out on another date?”

  “Maybe.” His eyes go to the road ahead, but there’s a definite smile touching his lips.

  “Isn’t that a dangerous thing to do?”

  “Dangerous?” His eyes flicker back to mine.

  “Well, we haven’t even had this date. By the end of it, you might decide that you never want to see me again.”

  Another look. “I highly doubt it.”

  “You never know though,” I say. “And you can’t be sure until this date is over. So, at the end of this date, if you decide you want to see me again, then ask me again.”

  His eyes come to mine, holding a second longer this time. “I will.”

  His eyes release me, and I let out the breath I was holding.

  Glancing out the window, I see that we’re getting close to Point Dume.

  Adam indicates a turn and then pulls onto the street, and parks the car. “Do you like pizza?” he asks.

  “I do.”

  “Good.” He climbs out of the car. “Any toppings you don’t like?”

  “Olives and anchovies. But I’m cool with anything else.”

  Stopping, he leans back into the car. “I swear, you are the girl of my dreams.” He gives me a cheeky grin. “Wait here. I’ll be back in five, ten max.”

  The girl of his dreams…holy wow.

  It’s more like twenty minutes before Adam comes back to the car. I would have started to get worried, thinking he’d ditched me, if I hadn’t been sitting in his fancy car.

  “Sorry about that,” he says, sounding a little out of breath, as he gets back into the car, pizza box in hand. “Took longer than I thought.”

  “You want me to hold that?” I refer to the pizza box.

  “That’d be good. It’d be pretty awkward to drive with.” He smiles.

  I take the box from him, placing it on my lap.

  So, he’s not taking me out for dinner. We’re having take-out pizza.

  I am so down with that.

  He is doing the exact opposite of what I thought he would. And it makes me like him even more.

  “Oh, and I got you this.” He holds out a rose in his left hand, which he was apparently hiding at his side.

  “There was a flower shop next door to the pizzeria,” he explains.

  I can’t speak. I’m staring at it, surprised and overawed. And it is crazy because it’s a damn flower. But it’s a flower…from him.

  “Too cheesy?” He gives me a lopsided grin as he bites the inside of his lower lip, making him look even handsomer.

  Way too handsome for my good.

  I shake my head, staring into his eyes. My heart is going a mile a minute. “Not cheesy at all.” My voice sounds breathless.

  Something ignites in his eyes and it makes my stomach flip.

  I take the rose from him. Pressing it to my nose, I inhale.

  It smells amazing. He’s amazing.

  Adam turns the engine on. We’re back on the road, and a few minutes later, he pulls up into the car park at Point Dume.

  “We’re here.” He turns the engine off and gets out of the car.

  I follow suit. Keeping ahold of my rose, I hook my bag on my shoulder and get out of the car, carrying the pizza box in my hand.

  Adam is opening the trunk. He gets out a blanket and a bag.

  “Here, let me take that.” He takes the pizza from my hand. “You’re not afraid of heights, are you?”

  Smiling, I shake my head. “I spend an hour a day sitting up on a high rock while I sketch.”

  “Good point.”

  We walk up the trail for a short distance, and I follow Adam along until we’re on a grassy c
liff edge, overlooking the Pacific Ocean.

  I can hear the waves washing up against the rocks below.

  Stopping, he puts the blanket down and then the pizza box. Kneeling on the blanket, he opens his bag and pulls out two wine glasses and a bottle of sparkling water.

  “Dinner is served.” He grins up at me.

  And I feel that smile in all parts of my body, my heart especially.

  I kneel down across from him on the blanket. “Do you always carry wine glasses and sparkling water in your car?”

  “Only when I know I’m going on a date with a beautiful girl, and I want to impress her.”

  Beautiful girl.

  Okay, I might have swooned a little.

  “And do you go on dates with beautiful girls often?”

  “First time for me.”

  “Dates or beautiful girls?”

  “A date with a beautiful girl.”

  I let out a little laugh. “Smooth.”

  He winks at me. On any other guy, it would look cheesy. On him, it works.

  “Anyway, how did you know I’d say yes? I could have said no.”

  “But you didn’t.”

  “No, I didn’t.” I smile at him. Then I say, “Why did you wait so long to come over and talk to me?”

  “Honestly, I’m not sure.” His shoulders lift. “I guess, you were so concentrated on your drawing, and I didn’t want to interrupt.”

  “And what changed yesterday?”

  “Max.”

  “Ah, Max. How is he, by the way?”

  “Dead. I killed him for telling you that I’d been watching you sketch.”

  “You need help burying the body?” I say with a straight face.

  “Bonnie and Clyde style?” His eyes smile at me.

  “Totally.” I laugh.

  “Well, thanks for the offer—and good to know that you have my back if I need to dispose of a body—but lucky for Max, I love him like a brother, so he’s still currently breathing.”

  We lapse into silence.

  “It didn’t matter, you know, that Max told me that you were watching,” I say softly. “I already knew. I was…well, I was kind of watching you, too.” Biting my lip, I slide my eyes to him, gauging his response. “Maybe not as much, but I was watching.”

  His eyes lock with mine. “The drawing?”

  “Yeah.” I blush.

  “It’s really beautiful.”

  For a second, I wonder if he’s talking about me again or the picture.

  “I’m glad you like it.” I look away, the moment almost too much for me.