Page 45 of Hot Girl Summer

The silence between us is comfortable. Danny makes me feel safe. There’s never any rush to speak, or move. With him, I no longer feel like I have to hide behind Summer. I can just be.

“How do you feel?” I ask.

“Like a new man.” He rises from the floor. “Now that I’m cured...” he says, walking back to the raised platform and grabbing his guitar from the stand.

“...Are you ready for your private show, Miss DeLuca? I figured since we missed the encore on Saturday, you deserve to have your own.”

He lifts the strap over his head and proceeds to tune the telecaster by ear. Slow hands begin to play, instantly transporting me back to the night of the gig. His breath in my hair, the beach, his car, his sexy but subtle Riviera fragrance. I can smell it now. Our almost kiss...

Long fingers move with grace along the fretboard, and my heart threatens to burst through my chest at the sound of his voice breaking through the instrumental. Fine lines deepen around his eyes as he closes them, a surrender to emotion with every brush of the metal. This is the sexiest and most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. To see him come undone to the music, to completely surrender, it undoes me as well.

With each repetition a new and subtle variation is born. His eyes remain closed, creating the perfect opportunity to study his face, and I swear I can almost see the music coursing through the veins of his exposed forearms, the way those little muscles flex every time he changes chords drives me wild. In twenty seconds, I’ve become the girl who goes gaga over musicians.

My scalp tingles, slowly spreading to my spine, legs, arms. The span of my fingers, the tips of my toes, and the warmth flooding my body sends me into a blissful, almost meditative state. He’s my own tailor-made ASMR experience.

Gaze softened, I press a palm between my legs, rocking my hips against it to relieve the building pressure. I imagine myself in his hands. Deft fingers sliding across my neck, moving down my body, tracing my curves with slow hands and a delicate, yet confident, touch.

Heavy-lidded, I visualise the roughness of his palms on bare, soft skin, swaying back and forth to the easy rhythm in an attempt to dull the ache between my legs. I want to draw out this feeling for as long as possible until the song is over and beyond. I want his eyes on every inch of my body, his mouth on mine, and his hands pressed between my thighs.

Music and breath thunder in my ears as Danny plays harder. Tipping my head back, I close my eyes, letting my senses take me on a journey. Every movement he makes, every chord change, every slight alteration in pitch and tone sends my pulse racing as subtle wisps of citrus and white florals perfume the air. I rock harder against my palm, a crescendo carrying me to the edge as my toes curl, my body jerks and I cry out.

My voice echoes into the open space, cutting through silence and shaking me into reality. The ringing pressure in my ears doesn’t subside, nor does my struggle for a full inhale. Opening my eyes, I regain focus. Danny’s gaze is dark, like a deep, mossy amber, compared to his usual honeyed-olive hue, and his expression completely unreadable. One thing is certain, we are both utterly speechless.

I will him to say something. I would take anything over this unbearable silence. I count my in-breaths while I wait for him to speak, but I soon realise he isn’t going to. My phone chimes, pulling me away from the most awkward and confusing moment of my life.

“Um...I should get that.”

I scramble for my backpack, dropping my phone on the floor as soon as I pick it up. Danny has his back to me, hands in his pockets. When I check the missed call, his hands are in his hair. Calling April back would be my get-out-of-shame-jail-free card, but I can’t leave the studio with this hanging in the air.

Again, I wait for him to speak, but I’m too afraid to look at him. In my peripheral, I can hear him moving around, and I figure that he’s either just as embarrassed as I am, or he’s completely mortified, and has no idea how to tell me to leave without being rude.

After moments of silence, I accept defeat on the assumption that his silence is his form of rejection. Without a word, I braid my hair and fasten it, then buckle on my helmet. I’ve already made myself seem desperate, I may as well add to the humiliation by looking like a complete dork as well as some kind of nympho.

Danny has made it pretty clear—he doesn’t want me, regardless of the earlier signs to the contrary. My heart races even harder than before at the realisation, because I actually care about the way he perceives me. I’ve never had to deal with unrequited feelings before, but I’m starting to realise that I like him, and I have no idea what to say or how to feel.

It takes two attempts of trying to simultaneously hold the door open and drag my sorry ass along with my bike outside before he rushes to hold it for me, and my common goal to save face proves futile the moment he holds my gaze.

“Sophia.”

“I have to go,” I say.

My name hangs heavy in the air, and I refuse to give him the time or traction to voice a rejection. Eyes on the ground, I mount my bike, and don’t look back.

Chapter Twelve

Canwetalkaboutwhat happened?

After spending the longest forty minutes of my life cycling home, Danny's is the last name I want to see flash across my screen. I ignore the message and return April’s call.

“Hey, so I found out the reason why Ryan has been MIA.” April says. “He’s back with Chrissy. Hold on, I’m putting you on speaker.”

A pause, followed by a slight rustling.

“So, anyway, Stefan sent me this cryptic message earlier. I called him, and he must have been in some sort of drug-induced haze, he said that Chrissy knows everything. She knows I was the one he cheated with. That isn’t even the best bit. When I called Ryan, he said he can’t be friends with us anymore, that one of Chrissy’s terms was to, and I quote, cut us off.”

“Are you fucking serious right now?”

“He wants to tell you himself, so don’t tell him I said anything,”

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