Page 6 of Moonshine Kiss
Blaine was wearing pink-checkered shorts and a turquoise polo with the collar popped. He wore his sunglasses backward on his head. He hadn’t asked me a single question about myself. Instead, he’d told me his entire privileged, entitled life’s story.
But Bowie knew me. Bowie who was staring at me with something like disappointment on his handsome face. Why was he here? Why was he focusing in on me? Did my sudden decision to give up my crush on him throw up some kind of flag?
This wasn’t me. Using one guy to get over another.Ugh. I was going to have to do it the old-fashioned way. By feeling feelings.
I wasn’t really sure how to fall out of love with someone, but I’d figure it out. It probably involved a lot of crying and punching stuff and maybe some ice cream. Sooner or later, Bowie would be nothing but a neighbor to me.
I closed my hands over Blaine’s as they skated ever closer to the underside of my breasts. “I’m gonna go get another beer,” I fibbed. “I’ll see you around.”
“Don’t be long,” he said in a teasing whisper.
I turned away from him, away from Bowie, and made my way through the throng of summer fun-havers.
“Where ya headed, Cass?” Scarlett called after me. She was kicked back on a tailgate, entertaining a handful of eligible summertimer bachelors.
I waved, rather than answering and veered away toward the woods. I needed darkness and solitude.
“What in the hell am I doing?” I cursed myself as I stepped onto the path that skirted the lakefront.
“Interrupting my reading.”
My big sister, June, was perched on a fallen log on the edge of the festivities. She was wearing a headlight and readingThe Wall Street Journal.
“Juney, we didn’t bring your ass to the bonfire so you could treat it like a library,” I reminded her.
She looked up, blinding me with her LED forehead.
“I socialized for exactly ten minutes,” she said.
Scarlett and I dragged June out for forced socializing twice a month when I was home from college. Otherwise my brainiac sister would never leave the comfort and quiet of our parents’ house. It was an unspoken deal, I’d socialize Juney if she’d help me pass my math requirements. Neither one of us enjoyed it, but we both recognized the necessity.
“Exactly ten minutes?” I asked.
“I set a timer,” June said, folding her paper. “Are we leaving?” My usually unemotional sister looked hopeful.
“Soon,” I promised. The desire to party had evaporated. I wanted to go curl up on the couch while June watched SportsCenter and I forgot that I was a lovesick pup.
“How much longer? I’ll set my timer,” June decided.
“Give me five minutes, and we’ll head out.”
Without a word, June pulled out her phone, set a timer, and went back to her newspaper.
I sighed, wondering if June would ever pull herself out of her head long enough to connect with someone. Then I remembered my own situation. Juney was safer in her own head. Her heart would stay intact.
I slunk off down the path into the trees where I could mourn my teenage love and lament my inadequacies in peace. I could smell the lake, hear the night breeze ruffling the leaves above my head. The summer night wrapped me up in it like a humid, buggy hug.
“I need to get over him,” I whispered into the dark.
“Get over who?” Scarlett demanded, scaring the bejeezus out of me.
“How can you sneak up on people in those boots?” I asked, deflecting.
Scarlett looked down at her pretty stitched cowboy boots. With her long hair and tight denim shorts that showed off tan legs, she was every country musician’s wet dream.
“Your mopin’ was drowning everything else out,” she said. “What’s goin’ on? You look like you’re at a funeral, not a party.”
I hadn’t the first clue how to explain to Scarlett what I was feeling. My attraction to her brother was the realest thing I knew, and one moment of standing a little too close, of catching a glimpse of what being with Bowie would be like, and I was scared shitless that I’d never be enough for him.
