Page 7 of Crazy for this Girl

“Hey, did you want to go ride on my father’s jet ski?” I hear Janelle ask, and I know it’s directed at Cal, not me, because they’d never invite me to anything but grab them sunscreen and treat me like the help.

“Laynee and I were just about to go eat,” Cal says flatly. “Maybe another time.”

“Oh, but you have to come,” Jessica coos in that annoying rise of her voice. More like an entitled whine, if you ask me. “Daddy won’t let me drive one alone.”

“And for good reason,” I mutter under my breath. Last year, Jessica almost ran a bunch of kids over because she drove the jet ski into the swimming area.

“It’ll only take ten minutes,” Janelle offers, using her go-to weapon of peer pressure. “Laynee can wait, can’t you, girl?”

“Nah,” Cal claims with a shake of his head. “I’m—”

“Go ahead,” I tell him, glancing up from the water, smiling sweetly at him. Then through my teeth, I say, “Or they’ll never leave.”

Hint: Please go so we can get this over with.

He knits his brows, and I don’t know if it’s because I put him in a weird position of him really not wanting to do this, or if he’s just being polite. “You sure?”

“Absolutely.” Freaking not.

“Awesome,” Janelle quips when Jessica squeals her excitement, almost piercing my eardrums.

Cal gets to his feet, then surprises me when he bends over to whisper in my ear. His warm breath brushes over a part of my body that I didn’t know was so sensitive, and I force back a shiver. “I’ll be right back. Don’t eat without me.”

“Get out of here,” I grumble back, rolling my eyes because, again, with the food.

I hear them pad off, but not before I hear the snobby comment of Janelle’s behind me that makes me want to trip her. “Thanks for the new summer fling, hermit.”

I glare at the water as an alternative to my first thought as she practically skips away

Honestly, this isn’t a big deal.

I may have spent most of my time—all of my time—with Cal over the last three weeks and dodged conversations with Mom about boys in general. Still, I’ve spent previous summers by myself with no problem. I’m able to keep myself occupied. And if Cal wants to spend the summer with the Luther twins, it’s fine by me.

A female giggle mixed with a scream sounds in front of me some time later, and I locate Cal on a green jet ski with Jessica latched to the back of him like a baby koala. She’s tightly holding onto him as he zips around the lake and lifts an arm to wave at me.

I wave back.

My thoughts drift to Cal Harper beginning to be a problem…as a twinge of jealousy courses through me.

A really cute and somewhat smart problem.

“Laynee, seriously—” Cal pulls out the other side of my headphones that we’re sharing and hits me with an exasperated look at my music selection—“I like you and all, but your tunes are trash.”

My brows clash together because he really doesn’t know what he’s talking about. If anything, I take tremendous pride in what I listen to because it’s not the norm of my age group, which includes boy bands and mainstream pop music.

I hit him with a look that clearly states he’s a nut job. “How can you go wrong with the oldies?”

“When we’re in the early 2000s,” he quips easily. “No one listens to that crap anymore. You’re listening to outdated dance moves like the twist and telling a girl named Susie to wake up.” He promptly puts the headphone back in his right ear and clicks the next button on my white iPod. The Spice Girls’ 2 Become 1 comes on, and Cal hits me with a full-on glare.

I might be the victim of his weak and non-intimidating disapproval of my songs, but it’s not the thing that I can’t help being fully fixated on.

With us sharing my headphones, we’re extremely close to each other. I can smell his sweat from the heat of the day and the spicy scent of his deodorant. When he looks over at me, sometimes I find his green eyes dropping for seconds at a time down to my lips. The gesture makes my stomach flip, and my cheeks burn with embarrassment and something else I can’t find an adjective for.

Not only that, but when he was done earlier from driving Jessica around the lake for a few minutes, he immediately returned to me. I honestly thought he would hang out with the twins for the rest of the day, but he surprised me, then declared that he was still hungry and still wanted that pizza.

Meant to Live by Switchfoot plays next on our shared headphones, and Cal signals his approval with a thumbs up. “Okay, now it’s getting a tad bit better.”

“I’ll write these songs down for you if you’re getting jealous,” I concede teasingly. “Not everyone can be a genius at knowing a good song when they hear one.”

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