Page 21 of Be Your Anything
I rest a hand across my chest for just a minute once they’ve left, a stupid grin on my face. There are all these new things I’m getting to experience now with Hannah in my life, and this one was a good one.
I head back into the living room, pressing the remote that lifts up the shades that block out some of the aggressive afternoon sun.
With a few hours still left before sunset, my mood having been lifted by both my memory of Lennon and my interaction with Hannah, I decide to skip the surf session.
It’ll be the first day in the past four months that I haven’t gotten in some time in the water, but my attention is elsewhere. When it’s just you and Mother Nature, distraction is a recipe for disaster.
I dig my phone out of my pocket and scroll through it, looking for the name I know will make this night even better.
It only rings once before she answers.
“Hey,” she says, her voice slightly breathless.
“What are you up to tonight?”
There’s a pause. “I’m supposed to finish up some work for the fundraiser. I was going to order some Chinese and spend my evening here. Why?”
Alright, so inviting Lennon over for some hot sex isn’t in the cards.
Dammit.
My mind quickly recalculates.
“Want some company?”
Lennon laughs. “You sure you wanna waste your evening in my office while I shuffle through cookie samples from local bakeries?”
“Have youeverknown me to turn down sugar?”
“Good point.”
“How about I grab the Chinese and you set up a second plate so I can be your guest judge?”
I can hear her smile through the phone. “Sounds perfect.”
After we end the call, I feel a little thrill of excitement that I haven’t felt in a long while.
Most of the ‘hanging out’ I’ve done recently with Lennon has been with groups of friends, because when we’re alone, our clothes have this nasty habit of falling off pretty quickly.
But that doesn’t mean I don’twantto hang out with her.
She’s my friend Lennon.
Mygoodfriend Lennon.
The girl who lived next door to me growing up.
Who planned a funeral when my goldfish died in third grade.
Who helped me feel more confident before my first big surf competition when I was terrified of embarrassing myself.
She was a girl I was crazy about for a long time, only moving on from her when I realized it would probably never happen. Somewhere along the line, we stopped being justfriends, people who chat and chill and do fun stuff together.
I didn’t realize until this moment—as I’m preparing to grab dinner and judge sugar cookies with the Lennon I’ve known since the day we moved in next door and she declared I was her new best friend—just how much I miss it.
Everything with our friendship has been so sex-focused since she moved back home that I forget about our past, about how important she was to me for so long, the days when I’d wake up with her on my mind.
I jog upstairs to my room, crank the shower on, and then rummage through my closet and pull out the green Henley Lennon always comments on along with a pair of relaxed jeans.
