“Fine.” I chuckled at how ridiculous she was being and held up my hands. “You can wear a pair of my sweats if you think you can surf in them.”
Allie climbed out of my car, seeming satisfied with my answer, and I took a deep breath of her scent as she pushed past me. I didn’t know what I was thinking. Allie brought up too many memories. She was the past, and that’s where I should have kept her. Even the smell of her felt far too much like coming home.
A home I hadn’t had in a very long time.
I closed the passenger side door and forced myself to snap out of it. Everything I was doing with her right now was for a reason. None of it mattered, not really, and none of it was real.
I either let Eli use her for their damn bet and mind my business, or I had to man the fuck up and remember what I was doing. Allie wasn’t my friend, and she sure as hell wasn’t anything more. It didn’t matter what I felt or how my body reacted to her.
I wouldn’t fall into this girl’s trap again.
I had been in love with her once, far too obsessed with her than I was even willing to admit, and I had hated her after everything that happened with my parents. And part of me knew that Allie had nothing to do with it.
But another part of me, the part that I clung to, knew that Allie had been moving on from me and our friendship long before that night. She had been the only damn thing I cared about, and she was off on a date with someone else.
It wasn’t fair to her that I was so angry that she was on a date. I had been dating other people too. But that was her choice. I would have been hers if she wanted me. Those other girls had been nothing but a distraction from her.
Because Lucas told me that I looked like a desperate puppy chasing her around all day. I knew he was right, but God, that hurt back then. I was such a damn pussy, and she could have cared less that I was even there.
She hadn’t answered when I called, when I needed her. She ignored me, and I knew that I was far too attached to her.
I told myself that day that I wouldn’t be that way again. I was a teenager, and I was supposed to be having the time of my life. I didn’t have time to chase after girls who had no real interest in me, and I definitely didn’t have time to get my heart broken by them.
“I haven’t been here in forever.” Allie stared up at my house as we walked toward the door.
She hadn’t been here since before everything happened with my parents.
“It’s still the same.” I shrugged off her comment and opened the front door.
She stepped inside and wrung her fingers together while she waited for me. “It does look the same.” She laughed as she looked around. “I don’t know why, but I was expecting it to look completely different.”
Because we’re different.
“Come on.” I waved toward the hallway that led to my room. “Let’s get some clothes before my parents realize we’re here.”
She didn’t say a word. She just followed behind me and stepped inside my room just before I closed the door.
“Now, this looks different.” She moved in a circle around my room, and I watched her. We used to spend so much time in here and in her room, and once upon a time, her being here had felt like the most natural thing.
Now, I felt like I was holding my breath as she took in all of my things.
“I’ve grown up a bit since the last time you were in here.”
“Have you, though?” She bent down and grabbed a comic book from the ground beside my bed. “It doesn’t seem like you’ve grown up too much.”
“That’s probably been down there for years.”
She rolled her eyes. “Oh, yes, because I’m sure it’s been that long since your housekeeper has vacuumed.” She sat down on the edge of my bed and flipped through the comic like it was the most natural thing in the world.
And God, she looked so good. Her long legs were begging me to spread them apart, and what I wouldn’t give to bury my face between them. I would die to have her squirming beneath me and calling out my name.
I pushed off the doorframe and made my way to my dresser before I got any other stupid ideas. I pulled out my swimming trunks before tossing a pair on the bed beside her. Then I fumbled through my t-shirts until I found one that wouldn’t swallow her whole.
“You can change in the bathroom” —I pointed toward my bathroom even though she knew exactly where it was— “and I’ll change out here.”
“Okay.” She laid down the comic on my bedside table and scooped the clothes off my bed. She didn’t look at me as she closed the bathroom door behind her, and I prayed she didn’t hear my head thump against the wall as I tried to get my head on straight.
I shouldn’t have brought her here. I should have just gone, hell, I don’t know, but somewhere else. Anywhere else.
I changed into my shorts, tossing my shirt and jeans into the corner of my room, and sat on the edge of the bed as I waited for her. A snort left my mouth before I could stop it when she finally emerged.
“You look insane.” She held her clothes in her arms, but it was the way my t-shirt hung to her mid-thigh and my shorts were almost to her ankles that had me laughing.
She tugged at my shorts with one hand, holding them up, and shrugged. “They’re a little big.”
“You think?” I climbed off the bed. “Just take off the shorts.”
“Not in your house,” she whispered as if I had just suggested that the two of us fuck on the kitchen counter. “I’ll take them off on the beach, but I’m not running into your parents without pants on.”
“Fine.” I laughed. There was a very slim chance that we would see either of my parents. If they were home, they were usually nowhere to be seen. “Let’s go.”
We walked through my house and out to the garage. I grabbed my surfboard from the rack that lined the wall, then grabbed my old board from behind it and handed it to her.
“I can’t believe you still have this thing.” She ran her hand over the deck where both of our names were engraved into the polished wood.
“I don’t think I could ever get rid of that thing.” I stared at our names before looking back up at her. “It’s seen too much.”
“That it has.” She followed me out of the garage and into the sand.
My house sat right on the beach, and it was the one and only thing I loved about it. I used to escape out our garage door and into the ocean every time my parents would start fighting. I already had a love for surfing before then, but it became a lifeline.
We made our way down to the ocean, Allie trailing behind me as she struggled to keep my shorts up, and I let my feet hit the water before I stopped.
“Okay. Don’t look. I have to get these dang shorts off,” she huffed in frustration.
“I’m not looking,” I lied as I watched her bend down and step out of my shorts. There was still nothing to be seen. Her body was completely covered by my t-shirt, with the exception of her legs.
She stood, her gaze meeting mine, and I smiled. Her cheeks became reddened so quickly, but she simply rolled her eyes. She stepped out into the ocean with my board at her side, and I followed her in.
Neither one of us spoke as we climbed onto our boards and paddled out into the ocean. The waves were relatively calm today, and I could only see a few other people down the beach from where we were.