A Summer to Remember

chapter 9





The next morning came too soon. My mind and body felt groggy from the lack of sleep and the amount of alcohol consumed over the weekend.

“Wake up, sleepy head! We gotta hit the road.” Lily came in and sat on the bed beside me. “So how was last night?” She looked at me, eager for details.

“It was nice.” I shrugged.

“Nice? Really? That’s all I get?”

“Okay, well, it was great.” Lily’s lips curled into a smile. “Until we got back here and I had three missed calls and a text from Jason.” Her smile dropped just as fast as it formed.

“Dammit! I knew that was going to happen. Steven talked to him yesterday and apparently Cally and him got into some big blow up fight. Surprise, surprise. So then he started asking all kinds of questions about you and how you were doing and all the same stuff he always does.” Lily had never been a big fan of Jason but she put up with him because he was Steven’s brother and my boyfriend.

“Why does he always do this to me?” I could feel my heart starting to waver.

“Um, because you’re hot and he knows you can do better. Duh!” I tried to hide my face but she could see her comment didn’t make me as happy as she thought it would. “You’re not seriously considering getting back together with him, are you?”

“I don’t know.”

“No, Ava! I refuse to let you put yourself through that again! He’s never going to change. Not only that, but what are you thinking? You’ve spent the weekend with this great guy who could give you a fresh start and here you are doing this? You shouldn’t even be entertaining the idea of you and Jason getting back together. I love you and I love Steven, but I’m sorry, Jason is a douche.”

“Lily, I’ve spent four years of my life him.”

“And it’s been the same result every time! You want to spend the next four years doing the same thing?”

“No.” The thing about Jason was that I knew what to expect with him, he was my safety net. But with Adrian, I knew he could walk out of my life as fast as he came in. I just needed some time to think things through.

“Then you need to open your eyes and see what’s going on here.” She had disapproval written all over her face. I knew she wouldn’t stop the lecturing until she felt she had made her point.

“Lily! Ava! Let’s go!” Saved by Steven.

“This isn’t over, just so you know.” She got up off the bed and walked out the door. I started gathering my things and heard a knock on the door behind me. I turned around to see Adrian standing in the doorway.

“You mind if I come in?” Seeing him again was comforting.

“Sure, I’m just getting my things together.” I grabbed a few of my items off the nightstand and shoved them into my bag.

“So I was hauling some stuff downstairs and I heard you telling Lily that it was Jason who texted you last night.” I turned around and stared at him. I was a bit embarrassed and a little pissed off that he was listening in on our conversation. “I wasn’t eavesdropping! I swear. I was just walking by and happened to hear that.” He put his hands on my shoulders.

“Look, I don’t know anything about this guy, but I know you have some history with him. I’m not trying to put you in any sort of awkward situation and I don’t want you to feel that you can’t be honest with me because I told you I like you. I know you’ve dated other people before and so have I. Just because I told you that last night doesn’t mean I was expecting this to go somewhere right away, if at all. It was just something I knew I would regret not saying.”

I sat down on the bed and he joined me. There were a million thoughts running through my head right now and none of them seemed to be making any sense.

“I’m sorry I lied to you. I just got nervous and things were going so great before that and I didn’t want to ruin things. You’re a great guy and I like you, I really do. I’m just a little confused right now, that’s all.”

“I get it.” He put his arm around me and I leaned into him. He smelled amazing.

“Ava! You ready yet or…Oh!” Lily came around the corner and seen us. “Um, we’ll be in the car whenever you’re ready.” I caught a quick glimpse of the smirk on her face before she turned around.

“Well, we better go. We don’t want to keep everyone waiting.” We stood up and I grabbed my bag as we headed for the door.

“Hey, you think maybe you’d want to get dinner or something this week? Maybe tomorrow?” I turned to him and smiled.

“That actually sounds perfect.” We walked downstairs and went outside to join the others. The guys threw the last of the bags and coolers into the cars as we all said our goodbyes.

“Hey, we have an end of the summer party here every year. You guys should come back up,” Brian said as he was getting into Adrian’s truck.

“Sounds like fun! We’d love to. Just let one of us know when it gets closer and we’re in,” Lily answered for the group, without anyone else’s input, of course, which is what she does best.

“So tomorrow’s a plan then?” Adrian came up behind me.

“Yes, it’s a plan.” He leaned down to give me a hug. His touch reminded me of what happened on the beach last night. As he let go, I couldn’t stop myself from putting my hand behind his neck and pulling him in until our lips met. I’m not sure what came over me, but I couldn’t leave after all that had happened between us and pretend like there wasn’t some amazingly intense connection between us. That kiss was all the reassurance I needed to prove there was something there. And I wasn’t going to be able to just let that go. Not even for Jason.