Page 4 of Saving Barrette

I know what you’re thinking. That I should, in fact, go up to him. I should tell him I’m sorry for his loss or ask him why he never kept in touch. I should maybe ask him how he liked Ohio and if he still plays football. I don’t because I know the answers. Instead, I play the bitch card and act like his presence here doesn’t faze me.

But I’m a girl and rather predictable at times, and the idea that Cadence thinks I should go over there sends a shock through me. A horrified snort bursts out of me and I slap my hand over my mouth at the same time as beer spits from my nose. It burns. I choke and it’s like I’ve been waterboarded with beer. It’s awful.

Cadence rubs my back, laughs at me and guess who is staring at me now because you know damn well he heard me choke? Yep. Asa. And he steps in my direction as if he’s going to come closer, but then Roman says something to him and draws his attention back to him.

Fuck you, Roman.

That’s when Remy, our friend and Roman’s twin sister, practically jumps on top of my shoulders to see him. “Girl, check it out. Asa’s back!” Remy yells in my ear while she holds the red plastic cup in her hand to her lips and crawls on my back. I lose my footing with her spider monkey climb and end up falling to my knees, her drink spilling down my back.

Still trying to catch my breath from inhaling beer, I jump up at the shock of the ice-cold beer down my white tank top. “Remy!” I screech, my arms straight out, and heart pounding.

I stand there shocked for a moment before I realize that one, I’m wearing a white, soaked tank top with one of those lace halter tops we think are bras but really aren’t.

And two, everyone is staring at me. Either from my scream or the fact that my nipples are saying hello.

“I’m so sorry!” Remy says, her eyes wide. “Let me go get you a shirt.”

“Don’t bother,” I hiss, turning to leave. I didn’t want to be here in the first place and now that Asa’s here, I definitely don’t want to be.

“B, don’t go!” Cadence yells after me and grabs hold of my hand in passing. “We just graduated. We need to celebrate.” She forces me to turn and look up at her. It’s not hard. I’m barely five foot two and she’s damn near six feet tall.

Tears sting my eyes the moment I look up at her. I’m a crier. Mad, sad, frustrated, happy, all my emotions end in crying for me. It’s quite possibly the worst fault to have if you ask me. I’d rather turn green like the Hulk than wear my emotions on my sleeves.

So naturally, tears surface with my frustration and embarrassment that I’m wearing Remy’s beer. My muscles tense, and I pull at the front of my shirt to keep it from sticking to my chest. “I’m not leaving.” My gaze darts to the side of Cadence toward the bonfire. Smoke fills the air, guys whistling at me in the distance. One yells, “Take it off, B!”

Cadence flips them off. “Shut the fuck up!”

I close my eyes and fight off the need to punch the fucker in the face who just yelled. I don’t know him, but he’s standing next to Roman, so I assume he’s one of the football jocks and just as annoying as the rest of them.

Despite the lack of visibility with the fading sun, I knowhe’swatching me. It’s his glare I’m not expecting. Is he glaring at me? What the hell did I do wrong?

The teenage girl in me glares back. “I’m going to look for a new shirt,” I tell Cadence and Remy. Realizing I need a minute, they don’t follow me. I didn’t drive here, so I don’t have my car to search through and I have absolutely no clue where I’m going to get a shirt from. Cadence probably has something in her car I can wear.

I walk up the beach, through the twists and turns of the trail that cuts through the woods leading to the house overlooking Budd Inlet. Throngs of people line the deck and there’s no way I’m going up there to Remy’s room to look for a shirt. I keep walking up the driveway to Cadence’s car hoping there’s a shirt in there I can wear.

You know, something told me not to come tonight and I should have listened to that little voice in my head. But I didn’t.Stupid. So stupid.

Each step becomes more aggravated than the next, and before I know it, I’m stomping up the driveway with such force it hurts my knees.

I can’t believe I came here.

“Hey, B?” comes from behind me, and the sounds of heavy footsteps follow.

Hey, B?Everyone calls me B and it never fazes me. But when it’s said byhim, it’s so unbelievably sexy. The sound entices, teases, and leaves my heart waiting for the storm.

I don’t need to turn around to know who it is. His voice. It shouldn’t make me feel this way, so familiar, so distinct, but it does. It’s as if I’ve been waiting four years to hear it, and I have been.

At first, I don’t turn around. I refuse to. I’m afraid to. But I have to because it’shim.

Are you ready to meet him? Are you ready to have those syrup eyes draw you in and his sharp tongue turn you on? I wasn’t when I met him at nine years old. I’m still not, even after all this time.

So I turn slowly, unwillingly. I don’t want to face him because I know the effect my heart will have, the reaction reflecting on my cheeks, the one he sparks so easily in me. He branded me with his love so long ago only to rip it away. Why should I turn around? I don’t owe him anything.

Curiosity, that’s why. I want to know why it was so easy for him to cut me out of his life like I didn’t exist at all. I want to know why I wasn’t good enough to sleep with, yet Heather Randal was. Yep. First girl he slept with was Heather Randal. The biggest slut around, and he, as Roman puts it, “tapped that” two days before he left.

Why her and not me?

So yeah, curiosity. That’s why I turn around. At first, I don’t meet his eyes. I think I’m afraid to, but when I finally do, his expression is unreadable. He doesn’t say anything. For the length of a heartbeat, I let myself believe time hasn’t changed anything. There’s a long pause, our gazes locking for a moment. Mine pale blue, his golden.

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