Page 12 of The Summer You Found Me

Maybe you should get a job like the rest of the world.

Naughty Vixens it is. Should I wear a red bra to the audition or will it clash with my hair?

I’m pretty sure it’s not your hair they’ll be looking at.

I snort. What a perfectlyBeckresponse.

Are you okay?

I start to tell him I’m fine, but then I delete the words. I wrote him for a reason, and it wasn’t because I felt like lying to one more person.

I’m struggling a little today.

I stare at my phone, waiting for his reply, and my stomach sinks when none arrives. He’s getting ready for their busiest time at the bar, sure, but it’s not like I asked him to come hold my hand. He could at least have said“hang in there”or“you’ve got this.”

Whatever. I knew I should have kept it to myself.

I open my laptop and shut it. I turn on the TV and flip through the channels, embarrassed and pissed off and too fidgety to remain still. I start watching some documentary about life in the trenches during World War I. It looks pretty fucking miserable, sleeping in a foot of muddy ice water, being eaten alive by lice, but at least they had company.

A roar in the distance makes my spine go straight. It sounds like a motorcycle, and it can’t be Beck, not at this time of day, but it’s coming closer and then stops outside the house, followed by thethump, thump, thumpof boots on the stairs.

The door flies open and Beck stands there in all his oversized glory, helmet tucked under one massive bicep.

Beck came home.He came homefor me.

My jaw falls open. “You didn’t need to leave work. I wasn’t gonna use.”

He runs a hand through his hair. It doesn’t look as casual as I’m sure he intends it to. “Lawrence is managing. There’s no band tonight, so it’ll be slow.”

I sigh. He’s lying. His bar is never slow. “Still. You didn’t have to come home for me. I feel guilty for texting you now.”

His eyes glint, and the corner of his mouth tips up. “Oh, you’re going to make it up to me.”

My mind immediately goes somewhere it should not. I imagine him stalking toward me, pushing me to my knees, telling me in no uncertain terms what he wants me to do as he tugs at his belt and unzips his jeans.

“What did you have in mind?” I’m breathless. And guilty. But more breathless.

He grins. “Game of Thrones. You and I are the only people alive who haven’t seen it.”

He crosses the room and flops onto the other end of the couch, holding his hand out for the remote, shaking his head at the black-and-white footage currently on the screen. “So, let me get this straight: you’re depressed, so you put on a documentary about World War One to cheer you up?”

I grin. “Evil queen and all that. It was this or a doc about nine-eleven. I couldn’t decide.”

A rumbling laugh escapes his chest while he types the show title into the search bar. “So, how are you struggling?”

I shrug. “I’m just bored. Other people are going to yoga or hanging at the beach. I feel like I don’t have a life.”

It’s not the whole truth, but I can’t exactly admit to cyberstalking Lucie and the girl she’s gotten fired.

“Youdon’thave a life,” he replies. “You should get one. Problem solved.”

I kick him. “You’re so helpful. Just like a therapist. But, you know,mean.”

“I’m serious. Why are you hanging out here all day? Go to yoga. Go to the beach. I’d kill for a fucking day at the beach.”

Beck surfs, and surfs well. All the guys do, though it seemed different for Beck, as if it satisfied some need he has that few other things did. Who might he have become if his mom hadn’t died? If he could have chosen a future for himself?

“It’s not that simple,” I reply. I wait for him to challenge me, and it’s a relief when he doesn’t.

---