Page 23 of Secrets at Seaside
“I agree.” Sky waved her wet fingernails in the air. “When I fall in love, likereallyfall in love, I’m going to wait to have sex.”
Jenna threw her head back and laughed, loud and hearty.
“You have no idea what you’ll do, Sky.” Jenna put her foot up on her chair and began painting her toenails. “I know Petey’s your brother and you probably don’t want to hear this, but there is no way I could have waited any longer to be in his arms. Love is like this amazing, all-consuming force that sneaks up on you and steals all those brain cells that make you think rationally and replaces them with emotions so powerful that you’re impotent to change their course.”
“I gotta say, I totally agree,” Leanna said. “But I also agree with Sky’s idea. I mean, I couldn’t have resisted my feelings for Kurt, but I think there’s some value in waiting to have sex.”
Bella patted Sky’s foot. “You’re trying to tell me that you haven’t slept with Blue?” She laughed.
“Seriously?” Sky slapped her hands on the table. “You ask me that all the time. No. No. And no, again. I told you we’re just really good friends.”
“Hey, you’re the one who sleeps at his place,” Bella said.
“We’re friends. We watch movies and hang out,” Sky explained.
“Either you’re a very good liar, missy, or you’re full of it.” Bella pointed at Sky. “Either way, fifty bucks says when you either fess up about Blue or find the man who is your forever love, there is no way you’ll be able to hold back from the big bang.”
Amy arched a brow. “Thebig bang, Bella? Can’t it be a little more romantic, like thebig love, orlovingly naughty?”
“Your sweetness is showing, sugar,” Bella said.
Amy was deflecting, as she had done for years. She wanted to pull her closest friends around her like a shield and share the secret that had nearly killed her in college. The secret she’d been denying existed for fourteen years. The secret that, if she hadn’t buried it deeper than the earth’s core, she wouldn’t have survived.
She’d lost Tony’s child.
Our child.
She should have told Tony that summer afternoon instead of agreeing to go surfing first. She shouldn’t have wanted one last time to feel that high of the waves with him behind her, watching her, being proud of what she could do. She’d loved sharing in the one thing that brought him freedom from the confines of his father’s overbearing nature that summer, and she’d just wanted one more moment of it before telling him she was pregnant. She knew he’d never let her surf if he’d known.
She’d been so afraid that someone would get wind of their relationship and that they’d had sex that summer, and then her father would have… Gosh, to this day she had no idea what he would have done. If she hadn’t lost the baby, they’d have told him, wouldn’t they? How would he have reacted? She hadn’t thought of that since the night she lost the baby. She’d always been the light of his life, hislittle girl. She’d never stepped over his carefully outlined boundaries or breached his confidence and trust…until that summer, when she couldn’t hold back. Denying her feelings for Tony would have killed her. And now, as she looked into the eyes of the women who had been there for as long as she could remember, her betrayal of their trust hit her like the wave that had taken her under so long ago.
Jenna clapped her hands. “I’ve got it! Thedeep impact! Or…or…” Her eyes lit up. “In Tony’s case, thebig wave.”
“Well, he does surf on an ocean. How about thebig O?” Leanna laughed.
“Oh, oh, oh! Surfer words! I’ve got this. I surfed when I was a teenager.” Sky waved her hands in the air. “Pumping the pipe! Banging the barrel?Or how aboutriding the bomb?”
Amy wasn’t laughing. Listening to them reference sex and surfing brought her back in time. Would she ever get past it completely? She remembered the panic attacks she’d succumbed to when she’d gone to Brown after that fateful summer. She’d barely saved her grades and learned to overcome them with the help of a counselor. But shehadovercome them, and she was strong enough to push away those memories now and enjoy her friends, who were doing what they always did, keeping things real. If only they knew how real things had become that summer.
Banging the barrel?“You guys, stop,” Amy pleaded. “This isTonywe’re talking about.”
“Exactly.” Bella raised her brows. “Ready to fess up?”
“We kissed, okay? One toe-curling, earth-shattering kiss that left me unable to even say goodbye when he left.” She exhaled loudly, relieved to get their kiss off her chest.
“Wow.” Bella sat back and smiled.
“Toe curling? A toe-curling kiss?” Sky twisted the ends of her hair around her finger. “See? You didn’t even need sex.”
Leanna touched Amy’s knee. “Does that mean that you’re not moving?”
“Honestly? I don’t know what it means. He said I deserve a better man than him.”
“A better man than a walking Adonis? Right.” Jenna laughed. “Like they’re a dime a dozen. What’s got into him? Oh, I know. No lovin’, that’ll do it.”
“While I totally get what Jenna’s saying…” Sky smiled at Jenna. “Talking is where it’s at. Your relationship gets much deeper by talking. But,” she waggled her brows, “there’s lots offunto be had after you’re done.”
Amy held her hands up in surrender. “I’m so sorry I said anything. We aren’t like that.”Not that I don’t want to be. “We’re in the talking stage. Part of me thinks he kissed me just because I wanted him to so badly, but it didn’t feel like that kind of kiss.”
