Total pages in book: 91
Estimated words: 84322 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 422(@200wpm)___ 337(@250wpm)___ 281(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 84322 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 422(@200wpm)___ 337(@250wpm)___ 281(@300wpm)
“I’m not scared.”
“Prove it.”
I smiled, closing my eyes again and sinking back onto my palms. “I will. In a little bit though, because I’m enjoying this right now.”
“Suuuure,” Tyler teased.
My smile grew, my stomach doing a little flip with his tease. I could tell he was still tense from our last conversation, but he’d let me drag him out here. And the more we’d gone through the playlist, the more the summer sun had found us through the myriad of clouds throughout the day, the more he’d relaxed.
Maybe it was working.
Maybe I could break down that barrier, after all.
Maybe, we really could be friends.
I ignored the way my stomach did a different kind of flip at the notion of the F word, letting out a long, pleasant sigh instead. “I think we did a good job. She’ll be happy.”
“Yeah, me too,” Tyler said, pausing. “You know, I am a little disappointed they didn’t have ‘Like a G6’ on there. I mean, come on — that would have made Morgan happy.”
I gasped, eyes shooting open wide as a laugh found my chest. “Oh, my God,” I said, shaking my head at a grinning Tyler. “I forgot about that song! Oh man, we loved that one. We used to pretend to make music videos for it, remember that?”
“That one and ‘Billionaire’ by Travie McCoy.”
I gasped again. “You’re taking me back to the summer after my freshman year real hard right now.”
“That was a fun summer,” he said, shaking his head as his eyes found the water again. “We were just kids, you know? We stayed up too late, slept in too late, wasted our days away doing absolutely nothing.”
“It was pretty perfect,” I agreed, and silence fell between us, a gust of wind rushing in another cloud that shielded us from the sun.
And that’s when I remembered.
I snapped my fingers, jolting enough to make Tyler look at me with a quirked brow. “Oh, just you wait,” I said, thumbing through my phone for the playlist I’d made my senior year and transferred to every new phone since then. When I hit play, Gym Class Heroes started playing, and Tyler laughed — a wholehearted, belly-deep laugh that had his head tilting back, eyes closing as he faced the sky.
“Wow,” he said before he looked at me again. “What is this?”
I showed him my phone screen.
“WK+1’s Epic Playlist,” he read, and then he took the phone from my hand, thumbing through the list. “This is like every song we were obsessed with from 2010 to 2013.”
“I made it senior year,” I said. “Remember? We played it at our prom pre-party.”
“Your prom pre-party,” Tyler corrected.
“Hey, you came, too!”
“Only because you and Morgan forced me.” He shook his head. “Do you know how embarrassing that was? To be in college and going to a senior prom?”
I shoved his arm. “Oh, shut up. You loved it.”
He shook his head, eyeing the playlist one more time before he handed it back to me. “I do remember your dress,” he said softly, his eyes meeting mine for a brief moment before he tore them away. “You looked like a grown up that night.”
“As opposed to your little sister’s annoying friend?”
“As opposed to my friend who I didn’t realize had boobs,” he challenged, arching an eyebrow at me as he ogled the aforementioned boobs unabashedly.
My jaw hinged open, and I swatted at him before covering my chest to the tune of his chuckle. Morgan’s words played in my head.
I knew he had a crush on you, he had for years, but…
After a moment, I leaned back on my hands again, watching him.
And the longer I did, the more my heart raced in my chest, sweat beading at my hairline even though clouds had completely covered the sun now.
“Morgan told me.”
The words were out of my mouth before I could consider not saying them, and they hung between us for a long moment before Tyler turned his head, his eyes meeting mine.
“She told me about what happened that day after my mom left.” I swallowed. “About how you told her. About us.”
I watched a stiff swallow bob in Tyler’s throat, but he never shifted his gaze.
“I understand,” I said after a minute, sighing as I looked over the water — which wasn’t mirror-like anymore, now that the wind and clouds had rolled in — and then looking back at him. “I wish she wouldn’t have spoken for me, that she would have let you and I work it out, but I understand why she said what she did.” I paused. “And I understand why you said what you did, too. Why you told me…”
My voice faded, because I didn’t have to say it. He knew what he’d said to me just as well as I did.
The word mistake flittered through me like a cold chill.