Page 24 of Those Summer Nights (Sweet Cravings 2)

I grabbed my bag and he draped my towel over his shoulder. We made our way back up to the boardwalk. We were both silent. I began to wonder if he was thinking about me the same way I was thinking about him. It was complicated. Maybe it was too complicated. We turned off the boards onto a quiet sidewalk. My place was only a block away and before I knew it, we were there.

"That's me." I stopped and pointed down a driveway.

"It's so close to the beach. You're really lucky."

Unlucky circumstances had brought me here. But I felt so lucky tonight. I smiled at him.

"What time do you want to go shopping tomorrow?" he asked.

"Do you want to go after lunch? Maybe around one?"

"Sure, I'll pick you up then." He stood there for a second, looking at me. He put his hands in his pockets. "Okay then. Goodnight, Jellyfish Girl."

"Wait." I reached out and grabbed his arm.

He stepped back toward me. It looked like he wanted to kiss me. Maybe he wanted me to make the first move. We had both basically agreed that we couldn't date. He was being respectful, but I wished he’d cut it out.

It took all my willpower to not stand on my tiptoes and run my hands through his wet, shaggy hair. I realized I was awkwardly staring at him. "What's your name? I'm tired of referring to you as my lifeguard." Shit! "I mean the lifeguard. The. Not mine. You're not mine. I know that people say that in an endearing way sometimes, but that is not at all what I meant. Because I didn't mean to say it at all. Besides...I mean...you can't own people. I definitely just refer to you as the lifeguard. Like the lifeguard for all the people at the beach. And sometimes hot lifeguard when I’m talking about you with Kristen." Why am I still talking? “Not that I talk about you a lot. Or at all.” Shut your face, Mila!

He smiled down at me. "So you think I'm your lifeguard, huh?"

"No. It was just a classic case of the word farts." Word farts? What the fuck am I saying? I bit my lip.

"I kind of like that you refer to me as your lifeguard." He shrugged his shoulders. "You can just keep calling me that."

"But..."

He took my towel off his shoulder and draped it behind my neck. My heartbeat quickened. I thought he was going to pull me in for a kiss. But instead, he dropped the ends of the towel.

"I'll see you tomorrow, Jellyfish Girl," he said and walked away.

I’m in so much trouble.

Chapter 7

Friday

There were butterflies in my stomach as I unlocked my door. I knew I shouldn’t have them, but I couldn’t help it. And even though we were supposed to just be friends, I didn’t even want them to disappear. I wasn’t even sure I could get rid of them if I wanted to.

He liked when I called him my lifeguard. It felt like that meant he liked all my idiosyncrasies. That he liked me just the way I was. The butterflies started flapping around even more. I smiled to myself as I pushed the door open. Tonight was just what I needed.

The door slammed into something hard on the other side.

“Ow! Son of a bitch!” Kristen fell with a thud and sprawled out on the floor, blocking my way in. “Why did you hit me?”

“Were you spying on me?”

“Don’t flip this around. I think you broke my whole body.”

I tried not to laugh as I helped her to her feet. “That’s what you get for spying.”

“I wasn’t spying.”

I just stared at her.

“It just so happened that I was looking through the peephole at the exact same time you and douche bag dick wad were standing there.”

“And who’s the stalker now?”

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