Taming Chloe Summers (Grover Beach Team #7) (19 page)

Peach?

Strawberry?

Taupe would fit my tee, but I’m not in the mood for taupe. In fact, none of these colors really attract my interest, so eventually I reach for the last bottle in the line and paint my toenails and fingernails clear tonight.

It only takes a minute for the varnish to dry. A strange feeling overcomes me when I lift my hands and examine them in the fading light. They haven’t been color-free for a single day in the past six months. I also haven’t put on makeup after my shower half an hour ago. For one, because I plan to call it an early night, leave a weird day behind, and start over with a fresh mind tomorrow. And two, for the same reason as the polish—I just couldn’t pick a shade of lip gloss that would have made me happy.

Natural as can be, I pad into the cabin to put the bottles away, but when I glance at my pillow, it doesn’t hold an ounce of interest either. It’s far too early to go to sleep, and not only because I share this cabin with an Owl.

Strolling aimlessly, I wander back outside, where a carefree ruckus has been rocking the area for over an hour. The entire Tiger group and most of Julie’s kids are playing Pictionary on the porch of the Owl cabin. “Come over and join us!” my roomie calls out, beckoning me with a waving hand the moment she sees me reappear through the door. “We’re short one player.”

“Nah, thanks!” I shake my head. Drawing random things won’t lift my mood tonight.

Five minutes later, I’m bored shitless as I watch the sun slide behind the roof of the Tiger cabin. Maybe a little walk will help. Too lazy to even go inside again and put on a pair of sandals, I saunter down the steps barefoot and wander off toward the lake. It’s almost dark when I get there, but still light enough to make out a lonesome guy sitting on the dock.

My, my… Seems someone else is a little thoughtful tonight, too. Although Justin doesn’t turn his head, I know his eyes are following me as I amble around the lake.

At the first step onto the dock, I hesitate and draw in a deep breath. Three particular components of the evening—the warm wood under my bare feet, the frogs giving a croaky concert in the distance, and a mild summer breeze wafting around my naked arms—bring back memories of a very special night. When the old, familiar tingle in my stomach fades, I slowly walk toward the end of the dock and sit down.

Minutes tick away in which neither of us says a word. Just watching the moonlight illuminating the water like crystal seems to be enough for both of us. A group of fireflies dances in the night sky, and here and there the bubble of a surfacing trout can be heard.

“You missed dinner,” I eventually break the silence in a soft voice.

Justin grips the edge of the wood and leans forward to stare at the water beneath our dangling feet. “I wasn’t hungry.”

Neither was I, but I went to the dining hall anyway. Wanting to see him. After we returned to camp this afternoon, he barely gave me time to get off his motorbike and hand him the helmet and jacket before he disappeared from the parking lot. “You also didn’t give me a chance to say thanks this afternoon.”

“For the ride? There’s no need to. I’m here to help out with anything that concerns the kids.”

“No. Not for the ride,” I say quietly. Intrigue fills his gaze as he tilts his head toward me. A strand of dirty-blond hair falls into his left eye, one I refuse to skim aside for him. Instead, I clarify, “For the
J. Andrews Sour
. That was really nice of you.”

The edges of his lips lift into a smile. “You’re welcome.”

“Seeing that you’re actually quite a nice boy,” I joke as I stretch my arms in the air and flex my spine, “I wonder why you don’t have a girlfriend.”

“You only figured that out
today
?” he mocks me with waggling eyebrows.

“That you can be sweet?”

“Mm-hm.”

“Well…maybe I’ve known for a while.” Scrunching up my nose, I grin. “But anyway, why don’t you have a girlfriend?”

He shrugs and counters, “Why don’t
you
have a boyfriend?”

“Hmm. I guess the right guy just hasn’t been around yet.”

“See? Same for me.” He pauses, and then his low, melodious chuckle fills the humid air. “Minus your myriad one-night stands, that is.”

“Har, har.” I shove him hard against his biceps, and he sways to the side, laughing. His unzipped hoodie slides off his left shoulder. When he straightens again, he adjusts it and shoves up the sleeves to his elbows, still bearing an amused expression.

His taunt probably serves me right, though. He can’t know the truth, after all. Lifting my feet onto the dock and wrapping my arms around my legs, I ask, “Do you want to know a secret?”

His sharp eyes scrutinize me. “Not if it means I have to tell you one of mine in return.”

What? He’s got secrets? Boy, would I love to hear them! I giggle. “No, silly. You don’t have to tell me anything.”

“Okay. Then shoot.” He drags his feet up, too, and shifts to face me, cross-legged. “I’m dying to know.”

All right, here goes… “I haven’t slept with half as many guys in high school as you might think.” This is something that not even Lesley or Kirsten know. Brinna does, but up until this very minute, Justin would have been the last person on earth I’d have told. I have no idea what’s made me spill now. Maybe it’s a bit of bad conscience for how I messed up our friendship so long ago. Or maybe it’s just the flashbacks that haunt me as I sit here in the dark with him.

Justin shifts his mouth to one side, contemplating this bit of information, then his forehead crinkles into a speculative frown. “How many do
you
think
I
think there were?”

At his wording, I burst out in another round of giggles. “Well, I
know
that many people thought it was in the in the mid-twenties.”

His tight smile reveals that I’m dead on target about his guess, too. “And the truth is?” he asks.

“The truth is…” I inhale deeply and stand up. Two seconds later, Justin follows suit, searching my face as he waits for an answer. “There were some, but not that many, by far.”

Confusion and a little bit of incredulity mar his face. I didn’t expect anything less.

“Okay,
now
you do have to explain,” he insists.

Talking works better for me when I walk, so, with my hands shoved into my pockets, I wander back toward the shore with Justin at my side. Off the dock, we take a turn to the right and leisurely stroll on. “Well, you do know the first guy I slept with,” I start with a tease, though I keep my chin low and my gaze on the ground.

Quietly, he chuckles. “Obviously.”

“Right. And, after you, I didn’t want to sleep with another guy for a really long time.”

“And when you say
really long
, we’re talking…eight…ten weeks?”

Yeah, that was about the first time after my night with Justin that I concealed the truth about a date gone bad. Of course, he would have heard the gossip about it. A deep sigh expands my chest. “More like a year and a half.”

Even without looking up, I sense how his head snaps to my side and feel him scrutinizing me in confusion. “What about Jake Abrams, Stan Whitfield, Harry Jonson, Marcus Kavannor…?”

Impressed that he remembers their names, I meet his gaze. “Wow. You kept track of who I dated?” And even in the right order.

“For a while, anyway,” he confesses sheepishly, fixing his gaze on the path before us again.

To hear that warms my heart. And also stings a little. “I guess Jake Abrams started it all. We went out a couple times. On our third date, he wanted more. And I didn’t.” A nonchalant shrug rolls off my shoulders. “My handprint on his face is what his hassling earned him that night. But the dude was a little pissed, and his pride was thoroughly broken. He couldn’t let the truth slip out, of course, so he told his friends the following day that he banged”—rolling my eyes, I make air quotes with my fingers—“the chick until she screamed his name.”

Justin’s incredulous voice cuts through the dark. “And you never set that straight?”

“When I first heard about it, I was hurt. And shocked. Ready to cut off his balls.” Today I can laugh about it, but back then it nearly destroyed me. “I planned to expose his lie in front of all his friends, but that morning, something strange happened. All of a sudden, I was getting a whole lot more attention than ever before.”

“And here I thought you were getting enough of that just by running with Lesley’s pack,” he replies in a somewhat snide voice.

I cut him a fleeting sideways glance. “Things changed so much after I met her.”

Justin tucks his hands into the pockets of his jeans and tilts his face skyward. “Yeah. I know…” A weak laugh escapes him. “I don’t remember you being a liar in the time
before
Lesley.”

Though it sounds casual, his comment stings. I know it’s much, much,
much
too late for an apology. But I have to try anyway. “At the end of that summer, Lesley dragged me into the woods and told me what it would take to become a real member of her clique. She dared me to spread a lie about you, of all people.”

Justin bites his lip, seeming to drift off into the land of his own memories for a moment. Then he asks with a hard edge to his voice, “Did she tell you why me in particular?”

She never did. Justin and I had kept our dating secret and met at night throughout summer. No one knew about us. “Les made picking your name sound random,” I tell him, “but I think she’d found out about us. Maybe she followed me one day and saw us, I don’t know.” If I’ve learned one thing about her since we’ve become friends, it’s that she has eyes and ears everywhere. “Perhaps she was just pissed I didn’t confide in her in the first place.” When Justin remains silent for an uncomfortably long moment, I continue, “Everything was so exciting with her and Kirsten, and I was afraid to get dumped by them if I refused to do what she demanded.”

“So you chose a side.”

“So I chose a side…” My voice is low and edged with remorse.

“Was it her idea or yours to tell everyone at the end of the summer that I was a creepy stalker who tried to get into your pants?”

Hers. “Does it still matter?”

He snorts. “Probably not.”

Choosing Lesley wasn’t the worst decision of my life, because she’s become a true friend over the years and, once Brinna was accepted too, the four of us were an inseparable group all through high school. We did unforgettable things and have tons of stories to tell.

I only wish there’d been another way.

Justin steers us toward the playground, where he sits down on the roped edge of a giant circle swing. On good days, this thing is packed with ten kids or more. Alone in it, Justin looks lost, like a single grape on a huge plate. His gaze travels up my body as I stand in front of him and stops when it reaches my eyes. “Thank you,” he says then with candid vigor.

“What for?”

“For finally being honest with me.”

I expel a long breath and settle down beside him, reclining on the net inside the rope circle. Who would have thought the swing was actually this cozy? Almost like a hammock. Hands laced on my stomach, I study the thousand stars in the sky.

Moments later, Justin makes himself comfortable beside me, propped up on one elbow and gazing down at me. “How does the story about your dates and the pretend sex go on?”

Ooh, someone’s curious. “There isn’t much more to tell, really. When the guys heard from Jake that I was an easy lay, they came running to my door.” I start to sway my dangling legs to get the swing gently rocking. “Suddenly, I was at the top of the list of hot chicks and everybody wanted to go out with me. It didn’t make me change my mind, though. So when they didn’t get what they thought was part of the deal, their pride was too hurt to tell the truth. You know, none of them wanted to be the first to swing and miss with me, so each of them spread their own story. And I just never refuted them.” Only moving my eyes, I cut Justin a meaningful glance. “It took quite a while for me to get over you and start to
really
date other guys again. By that time, you hated me, and we hadn’t spoken in over a year.”

He gives me a long, scrutinizing look.

“Penny for your thoughts?” I ask with a helpless smile.

To my disappointment, he slowly shakes his head. Then he startles me by taking my hand and lifting it into the moonlight. With his thumb, he gently brushes over my nails. “No fancy polish? That’s new.”

Subtle subject change, Andrews.
I laugh. “Yeah. Strange, isn’t it?”

“No. I’ve never liked painted nails on a girl. You’re a lot prettier this way.” He puts my hand back on my stomach, then rolls onto his back and angles one arm behind his head. For minutes on end, we’re enveloped by complete silence. From a position like this, with a stunning view of the universe, it’s easy to feel apart from the world and leave all the tiny troubles that follow us around every day far behind. I can finally take a real deep breath and feel totally free.

“It’s getting late. Do you want to go back?” Justin asks a little while later, his voice soft and comforting.