Page 18 of Crazy for this Girl

Three months until we get to see each other again.

I think I’m going to lose it.

Impatiently waiting,

Cal

P.S. I have nothing cool to say here but that I miss you.

“Laynee!” It’s been almost nine months, and I still would know his voice anywhere. My heart triple-times when I glance up to find Cal jogging across the green grass that Dad has been complaining he has to cut, and up the stairs to our creaky wooden porch.

I’m not even fully out of my rocking chair, spending way too much time quickly studying how different he looks, when his brawny arms circle around my shoulders and tightly wrap me into a bear hug.

Holy crap.

My cheek presses into his hard chest smelling like woodsy pine, and I immediately like the new scent from last year. A sudden lightness forms in my gut as I feel his face nestle into my thick blonde hair, and he suddenly hums in contentment as if he’s waited forever to do this.

I have, too.

Being away from him for so long has definitely made me appreciate our friendship more. He’s the only person that I have in my life that’s—well, him. His passion for good music and life. The way he sounds like my dad sometimes when he tells me to justtake it easyandeverything is going to work out just fine.I rely on his positivity because I can’t always muster it up on my own.

High school is cliquey. I haven’t really found my “group” of people since none of them went to private school with me. I’m not really hardcore into sports, even though I play one, and kids are just way too concerned about how they look toward other people that it takes away from them being themselves.

On the other hand, Cal is like an old soul in a young body with a big mouth and the slowness of a senior citizen with the way he gets things.

Boy bands, for instance. The guy still hasn’t gotten his act together with the Backstreet Boys, and don’t get me started with how he said Britney Spears was hot but couldn’t name one of her songs.

All I know right now is that I’m super stoked beyond words that I get to spend the summer with my best friend again.

“I missed you, Tone Deaf.” My body is already melting in his hold as I hug him back, closing my eyes because I’ve imagined and harped on the exact same thought since we parted ways and went back home to our boring lives.

His letters are the first thing I look for when I get home from school. Every boy that tries to become my friend unfortunately gets compared to the one who has me held tightly in his arms and doesn’t seem to want to let go.

“You’re taller,” I reply, because admitting that I miss him too makes me feel too vulnerable and weird. Especially when I’ve been obsessively counting down the days until we see each other again in a notebook at home. How I’ve brought loads of songs with me on my iPod for him to listen to. (And I bought them the legal way.)

“That’s what happens when you get older.” He pulls away from me and looks right down into my eyes, but the splay of his fingers along my back don’t move. I’ve noticed the specks of dark green in his eyes before, but being this close up, I’ll memorize them this time. And the teenage boy in front of me isn’t the same boy I left almost a year ago. “You’re still short.”

“We call it fun-sized,” I object with a proud little lift of my chin.

He raises his brows. “Who’s we?”

“Hannah and I.” He drops his hands but doesn’t lose the space between us. The air only gets hotter and my breathing hollower, but I don’t move.

Just having him within my space again makes me feel more at home than I’ve ever been. And, unfortunately for me, Cal is cuter than when I left him.

It’s not going to be another summer of this crap again, Laynee, is it? Relax.

“You need to eat your vegetables.”

I shrug dismissively because that’s never going to happen. “You need to learn math.”

Cal smirks arrogantly. “I’ll never need it.”

“One plus one is…”

He gives me a playful shove, his smile only growing more attractive on his face. “Why do I need to know it when I got you?”

“Switzerland, remember?” He wraps his arm around my shoulders and tucks me into the comfortable crook of his body. Unfortunately, my immediate thought is if Mom is looking out the window and how this will look in her eyes. How later she’ll grill me on it, observing that he’s much older, taller... attractive.

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