Page 72 of Just Friends

I turn off the radio that has been faintly playing Alex’s summer road trip playlist and swipe open the call. “Hey, Mom.”

“Hey, hon,” she says, and from the way she’s slightly out of breath, I know she’s working in the shop, probably restocking the shelves. “How are you feeling?”

I shrug, even though she can’t see me, and tuck my billowing hair behind my ear. “Pretty much back to normal. The dizziness is gone for the most part, and I haven’t felt nauseous in days.”

“Are you sure you’re going to be okay to come down here on Sunday? I don’t know if you should be trying to work in the shop with a concussion.”

“I’m fine, I promise. It’s been a week,” I say. “Plus, the doctor said my symptoms should be completely resolved in ten days, and your surgery is on the ten-day mark.”

She huffs out a breath, and it’s loud in the speaker. “I still don’t like it.”

“Sorry,” I say, the word catching on a laugh. “But it’s your only option. Cam has a bunch of work to do with Wes over the next couple of weeks, and I can take my work anywhere.”

“You’re not even supposed to be on that iPad,” she grumbles, and something clatters in the background.

I sway my hand in the breeze out my open window. “Makes my job a little difficult.”

“I don’t appreciate that sass,” she says, and I can picture her standing in her storeroom perfectly, her free hand on her hip, frizzy locks of hair curling around her head like they do when she gets frustrated and her skin heats.

I have to bite my bottom lip to hold back my smile. “I learned it from you.”

“Well, that’s just not true,” Mom huffs. “Your dad is the sassy one.”

“Dad could never be sassy, even if he tried, and you know it,” I say, and when I glance at Alex, one side of his mouth hitches in a grin, his eyes focused on the road.

“Fine,” Mom says, managing to sound more indignant than a Regency-era mother. “You got it from me. Is that what you wanted to hear?”

A laugh rockets out of me like a bullet, and I can practically hear Mom holding back her own. “Yes, exactly what I wanted,” I tell her. “Now, I’m going to go. We’re almost to the lake house.”

I don’t technically know if this is true, but I can see flashes of deep blue between the large houses lining this street, so we have to be getting close. Through the open windows, the breeze carries in the smells of muddy earth, damp grass, musky water. I can practicallyfeelthe lake, the endless days of summer—damp swimsuits, frizzy hair, grainy sand between toes, and tan lines forming in all the best places.

“Talk to you later, honey,” Mom says. “Have fun this weekend.”

“Talk to you soon.”

When I hang up, Alex flashes me a look, his dark eyes twinkling. “Your mom thinks you’re sassy, huh?”

I wave him off. “Not at all.”

His lips twitch, but he doesn’t say anything else, and I don’t feel the need to either. Not with summer coating our skin as surely as sticky coconut scented sunscreen will later. With my feet propped up on the dash and the breeze from the open windows whipping my hair in every direction, it feels like the middle of a teenage summer romance movie, when things are so perfect it’s almost unimaginable. So good that it hurts to know it won’t ever be this good again.

“We need music,” I say suddenly, a song already playing in my mind. My phone has been hooked up to the Bluetooth all morning, so the song starts playing a moment later.

When Deana Carter starts crooning about the boy working on her grandpa’s farm, Alex groans. “Not this song.”

I crank the song up louder and yell over it. “What’s wrong with this song?”

He flashes me a quick look before turning back to the road. “Nothing, but these arenotthe vibes we’re going for.” Alex holds out his hand, palm up. “Let me pick out a song.”

My fingers brush against his as I hand him the phone.

His lips curl and his eyebrow quirks as I watch him. “No peeking.”

Rolling my eyes, I turn to look out the window. The scenery really is gorgeous, all greens and blues, interspersed with the pops of color from the lake houses. The early summer sun makes everything look golden, bathed in the magic that only long days and sun-kissed skin and sandy toes and saltwater can bring.

The car fills with music again, and the tune is one I immediately recognize. I press my lips together to keep from smiling, because Alex really did choose theperfectsong. Keith Urban singing about long, hot summer days with your feet up on the dashboard.

The chorus starts, and I can’t hold back anymore. When I turn to Alex, belting out the lyrics, he’s already doing the same. We sing along loudly and out of tune, but it feels like one of those core memories that’s imprinted on your soul, the kind that an unrelated sound or smell brings back to the surface with startling clarity.

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