Page 37 of Secrets at Seaside
“I bet he was a little proud, too,” Jenna said.
Leanna swatted her leg.
“What?” Jenna asked. “Come on. He’s a guy. Of course he’d be proud. Was he your first, Ames?”
“First and only.” Amy drew in another jagged breath, glad her tears had stopped. “So you guys really don’t hate me for keeping it from you for all this time?” She cringed inside while waiting for their answer.
“Of course not,” Leanna said.
“We love you, but I do feel bad that we weren’t there for you,” Jenna added. “We would have been there to make sure you were okay. Maybe we could have eased the pain and you wouldn’t have had to carry the secret for so long.”
“I have to admit it bothers me that you didn’t trust us enough to help you through such a terrible time, but I get it. Your dad was so overprotective, and we weren’t exactly careful of our dialogue back then. But we could never hate you for that, Ames. I hope you know that you don’t have to face things like this alone. We’re no longer teenagers with loud mouths. We’re adults with loud mouths.” Bella smiled, and Amy knew it was an effort to ease her discomfort.
Bella glanced out the window. “But I still can’t figure out how you guys pulled off a secret relationship, and how we didn’t notice.”
Amy smiled, thinking about how they’d snuck around that summer and how exciting it had been. “The first time we kissed was after a bonfire at Cahoon Hollow. You guys were all hanging out on the beach, and I had gone for a walk by the dunes. You know how if you walk close to the dunes, it’s really dark?”
“Mm-hmm,” Bella answered.
“Well, that’s where we were. Tony caught up to me. I don’t know what I was thinking that night, but it wasn’t that Tony and I would end up in a relationship. Especially a secret one. But when he was with me, just the two of us, he looked at me and…Gosh. It felt like this huge moment, you know? People say there are times when the earth stands still, but for me the earth didn’t even exist. Nothing existed but us. His eyes were all dark and sexy, and I remember he was standing so close that our bare toes were touching. I got tingly all over just thinking about if he meant for our feet to touch or not. Gosh, I was so young and naive, but then again, I think I still get those same types of thoughts about him touching me sometimes. A lot, actually. Anyway, then I blurted out that I wanted to kiss him.”
“You did not,” Jenna said.
“I did. I have no idea how I got that brave. I told him I’d loved him since I was six, which was totally true.”
“Oh my gosh, Amy. What did he say?” Leanna smiled. “I’m trying to remember Tony at twenty.”
“He was sweet, confident, and so handsome.” Amy sighed, feeling like she was eighteen and swooning all over again. “He behaved. He was afraid to kiss me because of my father, not that he didn’t want to. I think we went back and forth a little about if we should or shouldn’t, and boy did I want to. You know how at that age everything is magnified? I felt like if he didn’t kiss me I was going to die, because then what? Would he go back to Jamie and laugh about it?”
“He never would have done that. He respected you too much, even back then,” Leanna assured her.
“Yeah, but at that age, who knew, right?” Years of repressed tension rolled off as Amy confessed to her friends. “Anyway, we kissed, and let me tell you, we didnotwant to stop.” She glanced at Jenna. “But someone came around collecting rocks. Ahem…”
“Yeah, that would be me. Sorry, Ames. Didn’t mean to lip-block you.”
Amy laughed. “That’s okay. We stole time together when we could. After everyone was asleep, we’d sneak out. He had a sleeping bag he stowed in the woods by the pool and we’d go there.”
“In the woods?” Jenna asked. “That’s so romantic.”
“Yeah, and we made out under the pier in P-town. Behind the ice-cream shop by Nauset. Behind the bathrooms at Cahoon Hollow.” Amy smiled as the memories rolled in. “He was everything to me.”
Leanna leaned closer. “He still is, Amy. He’s always been your everything.”
“Your everything brought you a little something for breakfast.”
They turned at the sound of Tony’s deep voice. His skin glistened with sweat from his run. He lifted his hands, in which he held a jar of Luscious Leanna’s Sweet Treats jam and a box of croissants. Enough for all of them.
He caught Amy’s eye, and she held her breath. He’d heard her say he was her everything, and she still had an inkling of worry that maybe she’d made last night bigger in her mind than he might have thought it was. Tony’s lips curved up, his eyes warmed, and Amy knew that everything was going to be okay.
“Are you okay?” His voice was just above a whisper.
Amy nodded. “Yeah.”
“I knocked, but you guys must not have heard me.” He came into the room, his eyes gliding over the others.
Amy wondered what he saw. Did he see the same love and commitment from her friends that she did? Did he see the emotional discontent of the last half hour? Or did he just see women crawling across the bed and reaching into the Chocolate Sparrow box?
“I like this newboyfriendTony,” Jenna said. “He brings breakfast and delivers it in sexy shorts.”
