Page 23 of Crazy for this Girl

“Well?” I press, turning the top of my body with my hips to show it off and extending my arms to be extra. “What do you think?”

“I think you’re crazy,” he mutters, then points behind him. “Go burn it.”

I pretend mock shock at his words and hold a hand to my chest. “Cal, no. I love this shirt.”

He shakes his head, plucking another piece of pizza out of his side of the box as he dangles his feet over the edge of my family’s dock. Pepperoni and bacon on his side. Pepperoni and green peppers on mine.

“I’m deleting all those songs off your iPod,” Cal promises as he shoves his piece of pie in his mouth. “They’re bringing you over to mainstream punk”—he shakes his head mid-chew—“and I can’t have that.”

“Maybe I like mainstream rock-pop.” I shrug, plopping down next to him. “There’s nothing wrong with that.”

Cal stares me down as though he’s watching me have a mini breakdown and losing my entire mind before his eyes.

Except he shows no empathy that I might be, looking at me as if he’s about to save me right now by helping me strike a match to my amazing shirt.

“If you’re going to continue to be my best friend,” he says sternly through another bite of his pizza. “I insist you take it off.”

I perk a brow for several reasons because I’m definitely not going to do it here, and he’s being overdramatic like I knew he would be, and—yeah, I did it on purpose, but he’ll get over it.

“No can do, buddy.” I swing my legs back and forth. “Shirt stays on.”

“Laynee, what kinda friend would I be if I let you walk around with that on?” Something flicks on in his brain then, and his eyes widen like he’s seen the answer to how Earth was created. “My God…have you worn that at home?”

Oh, my Lord…

“Yes...”

His palm comes up to slap his cheek before dramatically running it down the side of his face, as if in excruciating pain by the band on my shirt. He should’ve signed up for drama class. “Laynee, pleaseeee.”

A chuckle bubbles in my chest, and I can’t help it.

When Cal is adamant about something, he clearly doesn’t give up. Last year, I didn’t want to try pineapple on pizza. He harassed me for two weeks before I gave in and still didn’t care for it just to get him off my back. The time I told him I wasn’t down for a water balloon fight because he found some in Jonah’s room, he filled them up for the next day and pelted me with them in greeting on my porch.

However, when Cal hears me enjoying his agony, he drops his pizza and leans over the box. I can smell his Abercrombie and Fitch cologne (I saw it on his dresser a few days ago), and I try not to inhale deeply like a weirdo loser.

This isn’t how our relationship works.

We don’t smell each other like animals. We don’t look at each other longingly sometimes for a few extra seconds and wonder what it would be like to kiss them.

We also don’t wonder what kind of effect we’d have on him if I wore the royal blue bikini I packed at the bottom of my suitcase that Hannah convinced me to buy before coming here.

That, and she told me that wearing a one-piece makes me look like a ten-year-old child. She even grabbed one with sunflowers draped on it to drive home her point. I didn’t realize I fell so far in life to not have seen it for myself prior to that.

It was a dark moment for me.

Tack on that reality of my current situation with Cal, and well…I don’t have the guts—period.

“I’m hoping that you don’t think your height is going to intimidate me.” I pluck a piece of pizza up to drive in my point. “I know girls on my volleyball team that are taller than you.”

“But not as petty as me, though, Tone Deaf.” His tone dips, sounding older and precarious as a little chill runs up my spine.

“What do you—” He shoves me, sending me tumbling forward with a squeal and splashing gracelessly into the lake in his feeble attempt to drown the band on my shirt since I won’t burn them to death.

The water isn’t deep here, so I’m able to get to my feet quickly, but a huge splash collides with my face when I surface, alluding that I’m not alone now.

I could’ve hit my head off the edge, the idiot, but all I hear is Cal’s laugh filling my ears from behind me, and I turn around, narrowing a glower on him.

That, and I lost my pizza.

---