Dedicated to @intheclouds99 for the beautiful cover on the side! And if you're looking for something to listen to while you read, check out Cher Lloyd's "Love Me For Me" (video on the side). I listened to it non-stop while I was writing this chapter.
Thank you for the votes and feedback on the last chapter and the many before! I've read all of your comments and messages. Thank you all so much for your support. I love you guys!
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Chapter Eighteen
Jamie Vandeviere
I took off my flip-flops and sunk my toes into the white, warm sand Adam took my hand after rolling up the legs of his jeans, and he seemed momentarily stunned when I announced I'd race him to the water and abruptly broke into a run. Nevertheless, he caught up to me in no time with his long, quick strides and lifted my feet off the ground by encircling an arm around my waist. He set me back down when the waves came upon us and I screamed when the cold water splashed all over my legs. Served me right for challenging an athlete who could outrun me probably even at his worst day.
The Annual Roseville Beach Party was a pretty big event in our town and it started at around five in the afternoon, which was when families with younger kids would come chat with their neighbors and barbeque on the beach. I used to come to this thing with my parents when I was younger, before my dad started his teaching job and became swamped with his research papers. By around eight p.m. most of the adults and the children had left the beach. The teenagers and college kids, on the other hand, were just arriving, ready to take over the beach with kegs and loud, Hip Hop music.
I got to the beach around the same time Bryce and Roger did and found Adam waiting for me in the parking lot. They hadn't even been on the beach for five seconds and they were already hitting on all the pretty college girls within sight which, I guess, was kind of a bummer for the high school girls who were eyeing them from the sides, wishing the jocks would suddenly spark an interest in them. Even though the jocks were somewhat hyperactive and insane, the girls at Roseville High seemed to find them attractive. If you overlooked their childishness and stuff, I guess they were, appearance-wise.
But obviously not as attractive as Luke, I thought to myself when all those girls shifted their gaze to him the moment he appeared on the beach with Aimee, the two of them stylishly dressed and looking as if they were about to do a photoshoot.
My eyes locked with Luke's briefly when he spotted me standing by the water with Adam. I waved at him, mustering a smile, and he grinned at me in response, the autumn wind playing with his blond brownish hair.
Today was Friday, which marked the fourth day since Aimee asked Luke out. The sight of them standing together got me into thinking about how she gushed all about the details of their first date to me Tuesday at school, saying how much fun she and Luke had and how she was positive she really liked him. Luke, on the other hand, didn't say a thing about their date to me. In fact, if I hadn't "casually" inquired about it the next day with a text, I was certain he would never bring it up. And his response back then was brief and disappointing. It took him an hour to get back to me even though the reply only consisting of three words: It was fine. He is such a... guy.
Luke seemed well-acquainted with the biggest group of college guys on the beach. When he walked past them with Aimee in tow, the college boys fist-bumped him and some greeted him with so much enthusiasm that you would have thought Luke was a part of their group. One of the guys, whom I assumed was pretty wasted judging by how unsteady his steps were, said something to Aimee and instantly she blushed and buried her face in Luke's arm. The rest of the guys roared with laughter when Luke shook his head.
I pressed my lips into a tight line when Summer emerged all of a sudden, looking exceptionally radiant with her golden hair blowing wildly in the wind. Her white halter dress was practically transparent, clinging to every curve on her body and revealing the set of black bikinis that she had underneath. Beside her, Candace and Amanda were chatting with some guys I'd never seen, the two of them looking pretty gorgeous themselves in blue and brown backless dresses.
Luke scowled when Summer said something to Aimee, flashing her pearl-white teeth at her like the two of them were great friends. It didn’t come as a surprise to me since Summer had been trying to get Aimee on her side all week. It was obvious that she purposely did it to strike a nerve with me, inviting Aimee to go shopping with her or to one of her slumber parties. She would do it right in front of me after flashing her obnoxious trademark smirk, and there were so many times that I wanted to pull her hair for it. The good thing was Aimee made it pretty clear that she had no interest in befriending Summer because of what she did to Luke, which made me like Aimee even more.
“Jamester! Adam!”
I peeled my eyes off Luke, Summer and Aimee and laughed when I spotted Seth approaching us with Clara looking extremely annoyed beside him. Seth was still trying to make up for cheating off Clara’s test so when he learned that Clara didn’t have a car and he only lived a block away from her, he jumped at the opportunity to give her a ride to the beach party. Clara reluctantly accepted his offer, after Lucy and I spent five hours persuading her to take him up on it. "When someone offers, you take!" is Lucy's philosophy.
“Jamester? Really, Seth?” I scrunched my nose and he shrugged with a silly grin.
“He drives like a maniac.” Clara darted a glower to Seth. “It’s amazing I made it here in one piece.”
“Oh, lighten up, girly,” Seth chortled, which irked Clara even more since he seemed amused by her discomfort. “You were in good hands. Right, man?” He smacked Adam’s chest with the back of his hand, and when Adam didn’t respond right away, he hissed, “Dude! Back me up here!”
“No comment,” Adam mumbled with a chuckle.
Seth jabbed Adam in the stomach with his elbow then hastily took off to where a group of college girls were sitting at, almost slamming into Lucy who had just arrived at the beach and was on her way over to us. Seth, Bryce, and Roger are like machines when it comes down to flirting with girls- they never grow tired of it.
When Aimee started towing Luke over with a wide smile on her face, her silky blond hair bouncing delicately on her shoulders as she moved, I felt my whole body grow rigid. Luke didn't seem to share her enthusiasm though. In fact, his face was completely deadpan as he approached us.
When they got to where we were, Aimee reached for Luke's hand like it was the most natural thing to do. My gaze shifted to Luke's face instinctively and I wondered what he thought of it but his eyes told me nothing.
"This is so cool," Aimee exclaimed. "We didn't have anything like this back in L.A."
"You weren't missing out much," Lucy replied in a bored tone.
Adam extended a fist to Luke for a bump. "Great game last night, Luke. Didn’t get a chance to tell you that yersterday."
Luke grinned at Adam and thanked him. Then the two of them started talking animatedly about the game from last night, inserting a bunch of technical football terms that I would never be able to comprehend. Aimee, on the other hand, seemed to know a great deal about football. As Adam gave a recap of Luke's performance, she lively depicted the way Luke intercepted a pass just before time ran out and how it reminded her of an NFL game that she saw last year. At once, my throat tightened when I caught the impressed look that both Luke and Adam shot her. Being around Aimee was bringing out all my insecurities. I knew I was being obtuse but I couldn’t push away the tinge of envy flaring inside me.
“Cowabunga!”
I shrieked when Bryce appeared out of nowhere and pulled me into a headlock from behind, knocking the breath out of me with the weight of his body. Was he crazy?
“Bryce! You’re crushing her,” Roger chided, falling into step behind him. “She’s turning purple, man.”
“Oops,” Bryce freed my neck before patting me on the head like I was a puppy. “I forget how strong I can be. Sorry, J.” He looked anything but sorry.
Roger rolled his eyes. “More like how stupid you can be.”
Clara and Lucy snickered.
“I thought you guys were busy,” I teased, tilting my head to the group of college girls that they were hitting on earlier.
“We are never too busy to make time for our friends!” Seth exclaimed, sounding almost offended. “Besides, college chicks are so overrated.”
Luke laughed and shook his head at his friends. “You guys got spurned, didn’t you?”
An appalled gasp escaped from Bryce. “With these charms and looks? No way, man.”
“They kept asking if you were available and whether you and Aimee were exclusive,” Roger grunted to Luke. “Girls’ nosiness doesn’t get better with age, does it?”
“Thanks,” Lucy, Clara, and I said sarcastically in perfect synchronization.
Realizing what he had just said, Roger scratched the back of his head and smiled at us, looking sheepish. “I didn’t mean it like that, ladies. You girls are the cool ones.”
“It’s fine,” Lucy waved him off. “I admit I’m a nosy person. I mean, better to be nosy than clueless, right?”
Adam chuckled at Lucy’s remark and I saw the side of Lucy’s neck turn red from embarrassment.
“Okay! It ain’t a beach party without beach volleyball!” Bryce announced abruptly, scanning all of us with a glitter of excitement in his eyes.
Exchanging an uneasy look with Lucy and Clara, I leaned into Adam and murmured, “Any idea what Bryce has in mind? By beach volleyball, he does mean beach volleyball, right?”
Adam shrugged. “It’s Bryce. Who knows what he’s thinking?”
Yeah, good point there.
Bryce called A.J. and Jack over and the group of college guys that Luke was talking to earlier asked if they could join us. They were three years above us and said they had also attended Roseville High but I don’t recall seeing any of them in the halls when I was a freshman. I wanted to sit out- actually, I begged Bryce to let me sit out- because bad things always happened to me when I played sports. I either got hurt or I hurt someone else. Summer was a living proof to that. Unfortunately, Bryce refused to take no for an answer. He threatened to nag me with his jokes every period for the rest of the school year if I didn’t play, leaving me with no choice but to succumb to his demand. He could be quite devious when he wanted to be.
Bryce randomly spilt us into two teams and I tried my best to stay out of my teammates’ way, ducking every time the ball flew in my general direction. With Seth, Lucy, Luke and some guy I didn’t know on the opposing team playing like pros, “Team Bryce”, as Bryce had called us, didn’t stand a chance.
“I demand a rematch later,” Bryce announced sulkily at the end of the game, when the other team rejoiced over their victory. “We had Jamie so that wasn’t a fair game.”
“Hey!” I smacked him hard on the shoulder, mortified that he was blaming all this on me in front of all these people. “I’m right here, you know. And for the record, I told you I was bad at this. You forced me to play.”
“I thought you were being modest!” Bryce retorted, releasing a snort of laughter. From the corner of my eye I caught a glimpse of Luke suppressing a smile.
Roger loudly declared that he needed a drink and was immediately met with a chorus of agreement. Aimee, who was also on Team Bryce, gracefully skipped to Luke with a brilliant smile on her face, murmuring something funny into Luke’s ear to make him laugh. The sight of Luke and Aimee together was still something I needed to get used to. I kept getting this hunch that the closer they got, the more distant Luke would be from me.
You cannot honestly expect everything to be the same. He’s with Aimee now. And he’s still your friend.
I should be happy with that.
***
The sound of the ocean was like a soothing lullaby, tranquilizing me as the breeze fanned the nape of my neck. I shut my eyes and sighed happily, feeling the sand brushing against my feet. It had been so long since I’d stepped onto a beach and I didn’t realize how much I’d missed it until the moment I felt the sand between my toes.
Adam and the others had resumed playing volleyball upon Bryce’s insistence and were joined by Summer, Candace and Amanda, who up until that point had been happily engaged in a conversation with a group of good-looking guys who seemed to be at least five years older than us. I was more than happy to sit that one out. I mean, being around Summer when she had a ball in her hand? No, thank you. After all, I wouldn’t put it past her to hit me in the face with it just to get back at me for the softball mishap a couple of days ago.
Surprisingly, Summer didn't so much as look at me since she arrived. She talked to everyone around me like I was invisible and spared me from her usual snarky remarks. I should be glad that she wasn't starting a fight but, if anything, her indifference just made me more edgy.
Clara and I were the only ones to sit out the game. She was reading a novel by the fire a couple of yards away- only she would bring a book to a party- and seemed so engrossed in her book that her skirt could have caught fire and she wouldn’t have noticed.
“Hey.”
I snapped my eyes open abruptly, numbed by surprise when I found Luke planting himself beside me on the beach. A smile made its way to my lips at the sight of him. I was so thrilled by the fact that he was here, sitting right by me, that I all but hugged him. Even though I had seen Luke every day at school this week, I felt like I hadn’t been able to spend any time with him. He was busy with football practices and Aimee; I either had plans with Adam or Lucy and Clara. And the truth is I missed our nightly talks in Luke’s car. I missed his jests and teasing. I missed him.
“Hi,” I responded breathlessly.
“What are you doing all on your own over here, Loner Girl? Are you too cool to hang us with us now?” he teased.
He was sitting close enough to me that our arms and legs were touching but that didn’t seem to bother him.
“Just enjoying the peace and quiet, being the boring person that I am,” I said, my voice an octave higher than usual. “I thought you were playing.”
“You know how obsessed Bryce is with winning games.” His lips twitched into a smirk. “I figured the only way he could win was with me out of the game.
I rolled my eyes at his cockiness. Men and their egos.
“And you’re not a boring person, Jamie,” he added with a soft chuckle, his brown eyes like melted chocolate as they gleamed with amusement. “You are far from boring. In fact, you’re quite entertaining.”
I frowned. Entertaining? That didn’t sound like a compliment. “Entertaining how?”
“Like… hitting Summer in the nose with a softball-”
“Plastic ball,” I cut him off sharply, feeling the need to clarify. “And it was unintentional.”
Luke grinned at me and I swallowed hard, ignoring my pulse racing when he traced the frown line between my eyes with his index finger. It was as if the places that he touched were on fire; my face was so ridiculously hot that I could have fried an egg on it.
“Right. Nice swing that day, by the way.” The playful smile lingered at the corner of his lips. “Look, I can go on all day. You do amusing things all the time without even realizing it yourself.” Is that a nice way of saying I was dimwit? “Stop frowning, Vandeviere. I meant it as a compliment so smile, please.”
“You should have said so earlier,” I murmured sarcastically. My heart gaze another squeeze at the sound of his deep, infectious laugh.
The air had felt a bit chilly to me a while ago but now that Luke was here, I actually felt quite warm. My heart was still hammering furiously against my ribcage but it still wasn’t enough to stop me from looking over to the boy sitting beside me, who was staring intently at the waves in front of us, deep in his own thoughts. After all this time that I had spent with Luke this past month you would have thought I had gotten used to his attractiveness, but I wasn’t. A smile or a wink from him still gave me the butterflies.
“So my parents took off again,” he said solemnly, breaking the silence.
I tore my eyes away from his face, hoping he hadn’t noticed me staring at him. “I don’t know whether I should say I’m sorry or Congratulations.”
He laughed, his arm brushing up against mine as he turned his head to me. “The latter works. It’s nice to have the house to myself again. Oh, by the way, Sienna picked out some clothes for you before she left for New York. I’d forgotten all about them until she called me this morning.”
“Oh. Okay, thanks. ”
“No problem.”
We sat in silence for a while, just watching the distant waves like it was the most fascinating scene in the world. I felt that there were a million things that I needed to tell Luke but I didn't know where or how to start. If I had a universal remote that controlled the universe, this would have been the time that I hit pause.
"You should have brought a jacket or something. It gets pretty cold out here,” he said, and my eyes went as wide as they could go when he shrugged out of his leather jacket and draped it over my shoulder.
"Thanks, Luke, but I'm not cold. Really. Besides, I don't think this is a good idea," I said tentatively, frowning when I heard Aimee’s bell-like laugh mixed with Roger's deep, booming one. Apparently their team had scored, and across from them Bryce had his arms thrust up in the air like his world had come to an end.
He clasped a hand over my shoulder to stop me from returning the jacket. "What do you mean you don't think this is a good idea?" he inquired.
I looked away from him, feeling awkward about what I was about to say. "What if Aimee gets the wrong idea?"
Luke shifted uncomfortably at the mention of Aimee. "She won't. It's just a jacket. And even if she does, it doesn't really matter."
"It doesn't matter?" I repeated in utter disbelief, unsure if I was hearing him correctly. "Luke, you and Aimee are together. Of course it matters."
When had the world spun off its axis? Since when could I, Jamie Vandeviere, give Luke Archer relationship advice?
I did not expect to see the appalled look on his face. "We're not together. Where did you get that from?"
I was about to tell him that the entire school assumed they were a couple but the incredulousness on his face shut me up.
"It's just that…” I mumbled feebly, feeling like I was intruding his personal space. I shouldn’t have said anything. “She asked you out and you said yes and she's always seen with you,"
His brow furrowed and there was a deliberate pause before he responded. "We went on one date, but that doesn't mean we're together. And she's always hanging around me because I'm the only person she really knows at this school.” He drew a cross mark on the sand with his finger. “I didn't say yes. At least not the first time anyway.”
"You... turned her down?" The fact that Luke did not say yes to Aimee right away made me feel slightly better, which is ridiculous considering I told Aimee to ask Luke out.
"Yeah, " He shrugged, "because being in a relationship is the last thing that I need right now. I don't want all that... complication. And that’s what I told her. But she said we could just take things slow, hang out and see where it leads us."
I let out a gust of air from my mouth, trying to process this new piece of information. I thought- scratch that, practically the entire school thought- that Luke and Aimee were already an item. And I guess in a way they were. They were already acting like a couple. They showed up at places together and when they did, Aimee made it pretty obvious that she was with Luke by constantly smiling at him or touching his arm. And Luke didn't object to any of those gestures. He didn't encourage her, either, but he didn't stop her.
Why would he? He said yes to Aimee in the end after all.
A breeze came along and swept my hair all over my face. As I mentally praised myself for choosing the right day to wear shorts, Luke emitted an irritated hiss beside me.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“Got sand in my eye,” he grunted, lifting his arm. “At least I think it’s sand.”
I slapped his hand away and screamed before his fingers touched his eye. “Don’t rub it! You’ll make it worse!”
Luke flinched and squinted at me with his good eye. “Sorry, Dr. V.”
“Just blink it away with tears,” I told him. As someone who had gotten sand or dust in her eyes plenty of times over the years, I felt responsible to give him all the Dos and Don’ts.
A smile morphed in the corner of his lips. “You want me to cry? I don’t do shed tears for just for anyone, Jamie. It’s gonna cost you.”
Only Luke would joke at a time like this. Ignoring his jest, I leaned in closer to him so I could get a better assessment of his right eye. He blinked several times to get the speck out, his face contorted in a grimace before firmly holding my gaze with his own again, the intensity in his eyes searing through me. Framed by his dark lashes, Luke’s eyes, deep with intensity, seemed almost hypnotic as I stared into them. As his breath fanned warmth over my cheeks I couldn’t find it in me to move even though we were sitting much too close. Wow, Luke has really striking eyes…
“Jamie-” he half-whispered.
“Ya-hooooooooo! Take that, suckers!”
Like I had just awoken from a trance, I cleared my throat, handed Luke back his jacket after mumbling a quick “thank you”, and tried to to create some space between me and Luke when I heard Bryce’s thunderous laugh resounding around us. Apparently he had finally won the match and I felt a bit annoyed with him for cutting off whatever Luke was going to say, though to be fair it wasn’t really his fault.
For the first time since I had known him, Luke actually looked bashful. He cleared his throat and looked away from me when Aimee came sprinting towards us, announcing that we were roasting marshmallows. I took that as my cue to leave and started searching for Adam, who I spotted helping Roger set the coolers by the fire.
My steps, as I strode away, felt much heavier than they had been before. It was like something was pulling me back to the place that I was sitting on seconds ago. The place where Luke’s arm brushed against mine and touched my face, even if it was only for a couple of seconds…
What is wrong with me?
"Hey, you," Adam grinned when I appeared in front of him the moment he set the cooler down.
"Hi," I tried to smile at him. “I’m sorry you lost the match.”
He wrapped his arms around my waist, which deepened the confusion that was swimming through my head as it just made it more difficult for me to make sense of what I was feeling. I thought being in Adam's arms would calm me down, get rid of the butterflies in my stomach... but it didn't.
“I’m not. At least we won’t have to play anymore now that Bryce has won.”
Bryce was still doing his victory dance at a near distance, singing We Are The Champions in his absurdly off-key voice. Behind him, Lucy and Seth had their ears covered with the palm of their hands, mouthing “tone-deaf” when my gaze flitted to their direction sympathetically.
Adam took me by the hand and led me to the fire, where the rest of the gang had assembled themselves around. Roger and A.J. were crazily chugging beer down their throats like they hadn't had a drip of liquid in their mouth in the past three days; Lucy and Clara were gawking at them with their mouths hanging. Bryce staggered his way over and sat down beside Seth, who was amazed by the fact that he could burp and laugh at the same time.
I didn't dare to look back at Luke and Aimee.
Summer, Candance, and Amanda fell in behind Jack as wobbled over, each holding a soda can as they laughed over a joke that he had just told them. Summer shot me a dirty look- finally acknowledging my presence - before she sat down. To piss her off, I ignored her and smiled widely at Candace, who planted herself next to me and complimented the leather necklace that I was wearing- an accessory, for once, that was given to me by my mother two birthdays ago rather than Sienna.
It worked. I could feel her eyes shooting daggers at me as I talked to her friend. The fact that I was aggravating her was simply a bonus because I had really come to like Candace as a friend.
"What did we miss?"
My body grew rigid at the sound of Aimee's voice. The knot in my stomach tightened the moment she and Luke sat down across from me and I felt as if an elephant was standing on my chest when my gaze rested on their intertwined arms. Something was so wrong with that picture. With the fire burning gently between us, Luke's eyes fleetingly met mine just as an unsteady breath escaped from me. Was he feeling the same confusion that I was feeling? I don't even know what happened back there with him . All I know is that my heart hadn't been able to find a stable rhythm since our conversation back there by the water.
"My awesome cover of We Are the Champions," Bryce responded shamelessly.
Roger chucked an empty can at Bryce's head.
"You guys want to play Flip, sip or strip?" A.J. suggested, though in his drunken state the words sounded more like, "Flif, sif, or strif."
Bryce, Roger, Seth and Jack seemed delighted with his suggestion. Even Summer, Candace and Amanda were somewhat excited.
"How do you play?" I was almost afraid to ask. I mean, the game had the word "strip" in it.
Summer, jumping at the opportunity to embarrass me, sneered and exchanged an incredulous look with Amanda, her evil twin. "You don't know how to play Flip, sip or strip? Have you been living under a rock or something? Oh, wait. My mistake. You have."
Adam flinched a little beside me but I touched his hand to let him know I was okay.
Bryce, rolling his eyes at Summer's uncalled for remark, explained the game to me patiently with his blue eyes twinkling with anticipation. The rules were actually pretty simple: flip a coin and call heads or tails while it's in the air. If we guessed it right, we pass the coin to our right. If we guessed it wrong, then we pass the coin to our left and choose between taking an article of clothing off or gulping down an entire can of beer.
It sounded like a pretty dangerous game to me.
"Okay, to demonstrate... Rog, you go first! Heads or tails?" Bryce asked, tossing a quarter into the air.
"Tails."
It was heads.
Grinning, Roger passed the coin to Lucy before happily removing his shirt. I wondered if he guessed the wrong answer on purpose so he could have a chance to show off his six-packs.
Lucy frowningly threw the coin up in the air and let out an exulted "Hell, yes!" when she found that she had guessed right. Then she tossed the coin to Amanda, who had been all too willing to remove the skimpy sundress that she had on to reveal the red bikini that she was wearing underneath. The jocks hooted at her and high-fived each other; Amanda, pleased with their attention, winked at them and swirled like she was a lingerie model. How could Amanda be so unfazed about having everyone ogling her when she was pretty much wearing... nothing?
"Somebody throw her a pole," Summer scoffed.
Amanda froze at Summer's comment and she retreated quietly back to her seat. Then she tossed the coin to Aimee, who looked bewildered when it landed on her palm. She threw an uncertain look at Luke, who shrugged with a small smile, and flipped the coin, hollering, "Heads!"
It was tails.
"Oh! Sip or strip, Girly!" Seth cried, guffawing loudly when Aimee's cheeks turned pink. She pressed her face against the side of Luke's arm as Seth continued pressuring her to make her choice. I didn't want her taking anything off.
"I can't drink," she laughed nervously. "I'm designated driver!"
"Then get stripping, girl," Roger hooted. "Those are the rules."
"I'm only wearing my bra under my shirt. I can't take it off!"
"Oh, tough luck, chika," Jack guffawed.
Aimee bit her lips and threw a frantic glance at Luke, perhaps willing him to come to her rescue. Before Luke could say anything, Bryce shouted,
"Fine. If you don't want to sip or strip, then you need to kiss someone. Take your pick, Aimee!"
A feeling of cold dread coursed through me. I wished I could duck tape Bryce's mouth to stop him from blundering out more ridiculous suggestions.
"That's a load of crap, Bryce," Summer chided stiffly. Apparently, I wasn't the only one uncomfortable with the idea of Aimee and Luke lip-locking. "It's sip or strip. You can't change the rules, dumbass."
For the first time, Summer and I were on the same page. But Bryce ignored her completely.
"Kiss! Kiss! Kiss!" The boys and Amanda chanted exuberantly, pumping their fists in the air.
Aimee threw a shy sideway glance at Luke who seemed equally embarrassed. Then with a small smile on her face, she muttered "What the hell?" and pulled Luke's face down to hers.
The moment Luke's lips met hers, I felt my heart shattering into a million pieces. The churning in the pit of my stomach intensified to the point that it became painful to sit across from them. It wasn't just the picture of them kissing that disturbed me- though it was torturous to look at. It was the realization that I had been suppressing my feelings for Luke all this time, the realization that I liked Luke Archer.
Now it all made sense; how I always felt so uncomfortable around Aimee and how the mere sight of her touching Luke always made my heart clench. I tried so hard to push aside the jealousy, to convince myself that Luke should be with Aimee, but my heart had other ideas.
"Jamie? Are you feeling okay?" Adam's asked, frowning at me with concern. "You're looking a bit pale."
The guilt settled in as I stared into Adam's kind, blue eyes. There is no denying that I really cared about him, too. Maybe not the way I did for Luke, but Ireally did like him.
My head was spinning and I felt like someone was pounding the back of my head with a hammer.
"I'm a little tired, that's all," I told him, getting to my feet."I think I'm going to call it a night."
The jocks, who had been busy teasing Luke and Aimee up until now, looked over to me in shock. I averted Luke's gaze when he flashed his eyes to my face, mirroring their expression. I wasn't ready to face him yet.
"Are you sure?" Adam asked uncertainly.
I nodded my head, internally praying that they would stop scrutinizing me because I didn't know how much longer I could put on this facade. I needed to get away from here. Fast.
"Okay," Adam said. "I'll walk you to your truck."
The minute we got to the parking lot, I threw my arms around Adam's neck, wishing I could somehow convey to him how much I appreciated him. The guilt thickened when he kissed the top of my head and murmured "Drive safely" into my ears before I took off. I wished there was a way for me to erase how I felt about Luke. Why can't I like Adam, only Adam?
Tears welled in my eyes as I backed my truck, blurring my vision as misery immobilized me. The image of Luke kissing Aimee played in my head over and over again, like a bad movie that couldn't be paused. I didn't want to like Luke. I mean, he's Luke Archer, golden boy of Roseville High who had enough girls pining after him as it was. I didn't need to be one of those girls. Besides, what would he think of this, the invisible girl who he enlisted into helping him put Summer in her placefalling for him? It sounds bizarre, even to my own ears.
He said "yes" to Aimee after all, which proves he likes her, not me.
My phone, which I had left on the passenger's seat before heading out to the beach, beeped loudly and made me flinch, breaking me from my train of thoughts. Thinking it was probably Lucy or Clara checking on me, I decided to type a quick reply to let them know I was okay as I waited for the light to turn green so they wouldn't worry.
There was a text from Lucy but there was also another one from a blocked number.
BE CAREFUL. He's not who he seems.
Great. Just when I thought my night couldn't get any worse.
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This chapter took up 17 pages on Microsoft Word... I hope its length makes up for the wait! This is one of most important chapters of PP so I really, really wanted to get it right. Hopefully I did :)
I know a lot of you were counting on this chapter being what happened between Luke and Aimee, but I didn't want to ruin Luke's... mysteriousness so I decided to just let him describe it to Jamie. The next chapter, however, will be in Luke's POV. But it will take place after the beach party because I don't like writing repetitive chapters where the only difference is the switch of POVs.
Juke fans... we're almost there! Be patient :D
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