Page 15 of Begin Again
When she returns, she sits in the empty chair next to me. My heart flips like it always does when she’s close to me. “Can I have my book now?”
Emily throws her hands up in the air. Lainy laughs—her and her brother are quiet additions to the group. Both of them seem to like observing more than talking.
“What?” Annie asks her. “Everyone has to have a turn before it’s my turn again, why can’t I read?”
“Because we’re hanging out,” Emily responds as she stands and grabs a bowling ball. “We should talk and have fun and live a little in the real world.”
“Not giving you your book, not yet,” I tell Annie, and she rolls her eyes like she’s mad at me, but I see her smirking.
“Yeah,” Noah says. “You ladies should tell us which guys you want to date next year and we can tell you if they’re any good or not.”
My stomach sinks. Noah has always been a bit of a romantic, he loves the idea of love. He and Emily really should go out, because she seems to be the same as him.
“Yeah right,” Annie says and I notice her whole face is pink. “Like I would tell you who I like.”
Emily comes back from bowling a strike.
“So there is someone,” Noah says. “Do we know him?”
Annie brings her fingers to her lips and locks it like she has a key. “Nope. Not gonna happen.”
Lainy looks between Annie and I before getting up to bowl. My stomach swirls. Does Annie like someone? Does she likeme? Could it mean she’s going to change her rules about dating and romance? These questions rattle my brain for the rest of our game.
After we finish bowling, we head over to the mini arcade and play a few games. Noah loses every single one that he plays and Annie only wins two tickets. I end up with a motherload.
“Come on,” I say to Annie. Emily is on the phone with her mom. “Let’s go pick out a prize.”
She holds up her two tickets. “I’m pretty sure this won’t get me anything.”
I hold up my stack. “My treat then.” She tucks a loose piece of hair behind her ear and I expect her to refuse because I know she knows thanks to Noah that ‘I like Emily’ but she follows me.
“Pick anything you want,” I say as we look at the display case. I watch as her eye catches on a fake gold ring with a sun etched into it. She turns away from the case.
“Surprise me,” she says before reaching her hand to my back pocket and swiping her book. “I’ll be over there.”
I watch, frozen, as Annie returns to our table and opens up her book.
“I’ll take that ring, please,” I say to the kid behind the counter. He doesn’t reply before handing it over.
I walk slowly over to Annie, playing with the ring in my fingers. I assume it’s probably against some rule for a guy to give a girl who is supposed to only be a friend a ring, but I don’t care.
I hold it up in front of her nose. “Here, sunshine.”
She grins up at me as she takes the flimsy ring from my hand, our fingers brushing in the process. “Thanks, Sam,” she says quietly, as she slips it onto her thumb, the only finger the ring fits.
I want to say something clever, but Emily comes over. “My mom is throwing a fit about how I need to come home and clean my room, so can we head back now?”
“Sure,” Annie says. I’m sure she’s not in the slightest disappointed that she gets to go home and get back to reading. “Noah, let's go.”
We’re all fairly quiet on the way back. I drop Emily off first, then Lainy and her brother, before pulling my truck into my driveway.
“See you later?” Noah asks as he hops out.
“Sure, man,” I say.
“See you,” Annie says quietly. “And thanks for the ring.”
She slides out of the truck without another word.
