Page 7 of Sweet Heat at Bayside
“Wait,” Serena said. “How much are they?”
Chloe gave her aget seriousglare. “Serena, you have more money than you’ll ever need. You can afford nice clothes for your classy new job.”
“I don’t want to dip too much into my savings. How much is the blouse?” She’d been tucking away four hundred dollars a month since she’d started working full-time after college, with very few exceptions. She figured she couldn’t miss what she didn’t have, and she was right. She’d never missed the hundreds of dollars she stowed away in her bank account, and now she had a nice nest egg. Before the job in Boston, she’d dreamed of buying the cottage she was renting. She loved living around the corner from the beach, even if she had to trek through the woods to get to it. But dipping into her savings made her nervous. She’d allotted one month of her usual savings for new clothes, and if she was careful, she could build a whole wardrobe around it.
“Twenty-eight dollars,” Chloe said. “And you’re trying it on.”
“And the skirt?” she asked tentatively.
“Same,” Emery said. “We know how thrifty you are, but comeon. They’re beautiful, and you need to look the part in Boston. What size? Six?”
“Eight,” Serena said. “I’ve got curves, woman.”
“Curves Drake has noticed alotsince I moved here,” Emery pointed out. “He seemed really upset at breakfast Monday, and even this morning he was edgy. Now that you’re leaving town, I think you should fess up about your tryst with him. That man issopossessive of you—don’t tell me you’ve never slept with him.”
Serena rolled her eyes. “Would you please get off the Drake train?”
“Hey!” Mira covered her ears. “I don’t want to hear this!”
Serena pulled Mira’s hands down and said, “You’d be the first person I’d tell, even if you didn’t want to hear it. I told you about the duet, remember?”
Desiree and Emery exchanged a curious glance as they all moved to another group of clothing racks.
“The dreaded duet,” Chloe said. “Please don’t bring that up. She was a mess for weeks.”
“I was not!”It was months.She focused on the professional-looking cap-sleeved dress in front of her.
Chloe sidled up to Serena and said, “I wanted tokillhim.”
“Whatare you talking about?” Emery demanded. “Whatduet? The guys had a band as teenagers, right? Did you sing in it?”
“No. It was just stupid kid stuff.”Like the way I used to listen to them practice, pretending I wasn’t counting the number of times Drake glanced my way.“Drake and the guys had entered their band in the beach talent show, and I asked Drake to do a duet with me.” Even now, when Drake played the guitar, Serena was thrown right back to those early years. There was always a moment of reflection, a longing for what she’d missed out on, and then the sting of rejection would hit, bringing her firmly back to the present.
“Those beach talent shows were thebestfor meeting guys from other towns,” Chloe pointed out. “You were so swoony over Drake back then, and he was so full of himself. I wanted to choke the life out of him after he ditched you.”
“Heditchedyou?” Desiree’s eyes widened. “I can’t even imagine him hurting you on purpose.”
“He was just being a teenager,” Serena said, as if it were no big deal, although back then it had been a very big deal. She chose a black dress from the rack and moved to another display. The girls moved with her.
“A week before the talent show, there was this…moment,” Serena admitted.
“A take-me-babymoment.” Emery waggled her brows.
“Emery, please…” Mira pleaded.
Serena sighed. “No. We were singing outside one night, just the two of us, rehearsing for the duet. We were singing ‘You’re the One That I Want’ fromGrease, and I was foolishly crushing on him, like holding my breath every time he looked at me. I saved for months to buy those fake leather pants and heels so I could look like Olivia Newton-John in the movie.”
“It was painful to watch her lusting after my brother,” Mira said with an empathetic expression. “I love him, but teenage boys are just…”
“Horny jerks?” Emery suggested. “I’ve got three brothers. Trust me, I have heard it all.”
“They’re justunaware,” Mira said diplomatically. “Drake was more serious than most boys, but when it came to girls…” She shook her head.
“Luckily, that swoony, stupid crush didn’t last long,” Serena said.At least not in a way anyone else could see.Secretly, it had taken far too long before she could even imagine being with any other boy. She’d faked moving on for Mira’s sake, and eventually shehadmoved on.Mostly anyway.But it hadn’t been quick or easy. “You know that feeling when your insides are churning and you can feel your blood heating up inside your veins? In that moment, under the stars, I remember feeling like I couldn’t breathe or hold on to a single thought. Like my whole body was on overdrive.”
“Ilovethat feeling,” Emery said.
“Yeah, well, I’ve never felt it for anyone except him.” Serena’s thoughts lingered on those memories. The excitement and nervousness that had made her entire body tremble felt as real and present as the hangers in her hand.
