Page 54 of Embraced at Seaside
I got tickets to the theater in Wellfleet for tonight since you only teach until six.
She couldn’t imagine Hunter willingly going to a theater. That he would do that for her made her body hum with excitement. She texted a reply.Really? Did someone hold a gun to your head?
His reply came seconds later.No. To my heart.A sigh escaped her lips before she could stop it.Be ready by 7:30. Wear that blue dress I love so much.
“I think I need a rain check for the chunky-dunking.” Jana pressed her lips into a tight line to keep from saying more as she typed a response and sent it off.I see my bossy boy is back.
“Why, and who’s yourbossy boy?” Bella’s voice startled Jana.
She turned her phone over against her leg, panic clawing at her again.
“Oh,bossy boy, I love that,” Amy said. “Tony can be bossy sometimes, and it’s such a turn-on.”
“Pete is always bossy,” Jenna said. “I think it runs in their family.”
Jana’s pulse quickened as Sky’s knowing gaze pierced through her veil of secrecy.
“Bossiness does run in our family.” Sky crossed her arms and sat back in her chair, eyes pinned on Jana, a smile playing on her lips. “It’s hard to avoid, and from what Sawyer tells me, it’s even harder to resist.”
You’re telling me?The wordsit was Hunterwere on the tip of her tongue, but she’d lived within the confines of her self-imposed prison for so long that without thought she was rising to her feet and saying, “I’ve got to go.”
Bella put a firm hand on her shoulder and pushed her back down. “Oh, no you don’t. Spill it, girlfriend.”
Her mind told her to bolt from the deck, save herself from the peer pressure that was about to be unleashed upon her, but the weight of their inquisitive gazes, coupled with the mischievous look in Sky’s eyes, had her pinned in place.
As panic bloomed inside her, dark and petrifying, she thought of Hunter and the look in his eyes as he’d listened to her share her past with him, and she knew she wasn’t being fair. He was working so hard to help her,to set me free, she wanted, needed, to do the same for him. But when she opened her mouth, her words betrayed her.
“There’s nothing to spill.” She’d never felt so low in her life. Lying to her friends was worse than sneaking out of a room that charged by the hour.
Jenna shook her head and looked down at Bea, sleeping soundly in her arms. “That lie was loud enough to wake my precious girl, wasn’t it, Bea?” As if on cue, Bea sighed in her sleep.
“Wait.” Jana pressed her palms to the table as all the girls leaned in closer.
“I’m sorry. I should have told you guys earlier. Hunter and I have been seeing each other.”
“Well, duh,” Jenna said.
Duh?
“Like we didn’t already figure that out?” Amy added. “What do you think we are, amateurs?”
“Shh. Let her talk.” Sky’s smile widened. “And…?”
She felt tears sting her eyes with her confession, and their support only made her that much more emotional. And made her want to share more, to tell them everything.
“And, I don’t know. You guys know me. I suck at dating. I just…I’m afraid something will happen and I’ll hurt him, or he’ll hurt me, and then you guys won’t know how to act around us, and everything will be a mess, and I’ll lose the best friends I’ve had in a long time.” She met their eyes, wondering if her face had turned blue from the exhaustive sentence.
Amy covered Jana’s hand with her own. “You’re one of us now. Friends don’t abandon ship over a man.”
“I knew it the night he drove you home from Undercover, when you were so drunk you could barely walk.” Jenna looked around the table. “Didn’t I tell you guys that when Sky said he was still there the next morning? I mean, really, what guy stays overnight with a girl he’s not sleeping with?”
Bella, Sky, and Amy said “Blue” in unison. Blue was Sky’s closest male friend, and they used to sleep over at each other’s houses all the time, without ever once leaving thefriend zone.
“And the roses. That’s what sealed it for me,” Jessica said.
“The roses threw me for a loop, because come on. Hunter? Flowers? I never thought I’d see the day,” Sky admitted.
“So, Sky, you’re okay with me and Hunter seeing each other?” Jana twisted a lock of her hair, hoping Sky’s smile wasn’t feigned.
