Page 37 of Falling Too Late

“Jon!”

He straightened and looked over his shoulder.

“Hey, Amanda.”

I tensed at seeing her again. She had a bikini on and a white cover tied over her hips. She was tall and slender. Seeing them stand side by side, it was obvious that they were related. They both had the same warm blonde hair and icy blue eyes.Everything was clicking into place now.

Amanda was Jon’s sister.

Amanda and Alex had had something going on between them before I came into his life, and since me, Alex hadn’t been seeing her anymore.

What did that mean?

“I got that stuff for you.” She handed him something. I thought I heard the jingle of keys. “Where’s Alex?” She looked around, her eyes giving me the once over before Jon pointed to the pool where Alex was jumping to spike the ball over the net. Her face lit up, and she untied her skirt.

“Alex!”

Alex turned just in time for her to jump in, splashing him.

I watched the way he laughed, and they both started chatting animatedly.

I hadn’t seen this side of him with her back at the house.

It doesn’t matter. He can see whoever he wants.

“I guess he might still like her,” Jon said. I felt his eyes on me as I watched them. There was a knot in my chest, and I didn’t know what to make of it. Did I disrupt Alex’s life with my problems?

“I heard you lost all your things in the fire.” Jon stood. His movements made me sit up, feeling uncomfortable with the way he towered over me.

“Uh, yeah,” I said as I swung my legs over the side of the lounge chair. “Nothing was salvageable.”

“I got you some things.”

“You what?” I tilted my head up to look at him.

He held his hand out to me. “Come on, I’ll show you.”

I stared at his hand, looking back to Alex, who had hoisted Amanda onto his shoulders, and they were playing chicken with some other people. Taking a deep breath, I took Jon’s hand and let him guide me through the crowd of people and into his home.

The house was like a mansion. All white marble and expensive-looking decorations. Our footsteps echoed as he guided me to the front of the house and off to a room on the side. There were several bags of things. I pulled my hand from his. It felt odd to hold someone else’s hand.

“You got all this for me?”

“Yeah. I took a guess that you were about my sister’s size. You are shorter than her, though.” He shoved his hands in his pockets, shrugging like this was no big deal. I couldn’t remember the last time I had gotten brand-new clothes.

I stared at everything, feeling overwhelmed.

“Look.” He moved to a bag, opening it up and pulling out a floral dress. “My sister has pretty good taste I think, so she picked everything out.” He held the dress up to me. I took it, marveling over the soft fabric.

“Do you like it?” He tilted his head to catch my gaze. “Look, Alex had mentioned my sister was a bit of a brat towards the end of the semester and I talked to her about it. Picking out these clothes is her way of apologizing.” He shrugged a little. “Amanda doesn’t know how to verbally apologize for things. She takes after our dad in that regard.”

“Jon, this is. . . It’s beautiful. . .” I didn’t know what else to say or how to react to this. I didn’t feel like I deserved them. “I just don’t understand why you two would do this?”

Yes, Amanda had been kind of rude that day, and then talkingat school about what she witnessed had sucked, but I hadn’t thought much of it.

“Well, honestly, I noticed you wear Alex’s shirts a lot, and he told me you lost all your stuff in the fire, so I just wanted to do something nice. You have been through a lot and deserve it.”

“Jon, this is too much.”

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