CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
“Are you sure you want to do this?” Gina asked uncertainly. We stood in front of her full-body mirror, putting finishing touches on our looks. “We could just stay in and watch movies all day and eat until we’re fat or something.”
“Gina,” I said as I slipped a red tank top over my head, “I’ve got less than two weeks left in LA. Am I going to let some boy ruin my time here? No. We’re going to go out, have fun, maybe meet some hot guys, and get tan.”
It had been three days since I had left the hospital—and Connor. Jc had texted me to let me know that Connor had returned home, but I hadn’t replied. I didn’t know what Paige had said to the boys about my sudden disappearance from the hospital, but whatever it was had worked. Connor had not tried to contact me.
Gina let the topic drop. “So what are our plans for today?” she asked as she swept her mascara wand over her dark eyelashes.
“Well I figured we’d hit the beach for a few hours then grab dinner somewhere,” I replied. I looked at her through the mirror. “Are you seriously putting on makeup to go to the beach?”
“Yup.”
“You do realize you’re either going to sweat it off or it’s going to wash off in the water, right?”
“Allison,” Gina said in a sweet yet condescending tone, “there’s a reason I wear waterproof mascara. Besides, since your plan includes meeting hot guys, I’ve got to look my best.”
“But you’ve already got a hot guy,” I reminded her. “Like a super-hot guy.”
“I know.” She grinned. “That doesn’t mean I can’t still look.”
I shook my head. “You’re unbelievable.”
“Tell me something I don’t know.”
Once Gina and I were ready to go, we packed up our beach totes and hopped in her car. The drive there wasn’t nearly as long as usual, which I was grateful for. When we arrived, we found an open spot and spread out our towels. Once situated, I sprayed myself with a light coat of sunscreen—my tan had improved so drastically over the past three months that I barely got burnt anymore—and stuck my headphones into my ears. I turned on the Ed Sheeran Pandora station and laid down, ready for a much needed day of relaxation.
Gina and I spent about two hours lying there on the beach. Every now and then we would turn over to our other side or jump into the ocean to cool off, but for the most part we were stationary. At one point during the afternoon, I returned to my towel from having taken a dip in the cool waters when a football bounced across the sand and landed on my stuff.
“Sorry about that!” A guy called as he jogged over to retrieve it.
I picked it up and tossed it back to him. “It’s no problem.”
The guy smiled. He was hot, with tanned skin and dark curls that fell in front of his bright blue eyes. Not to mention the clearly defined six-pack he had. “Are you two here by yourselves?”
“Yeah,” I replied. By this point, Gina had become aware of the guy’s presence and she removed her ear buds to listen in on our conversation.
“You should come hang with us,” he said, jabbing his finger back at the group of guys waiting on him. I glanced back and Gina and she shrugged as if to say, “It’s up to you.”
“Sure,” I said with a smile of my own. “Sounds like fun.”
Another smile. “Awesome.” He waited while Gina and I stowed our phones in our bags so they wouldn’t get stolen. “I’m Danny by the way,” he offered as we started walking towards his friends.
“I’m Allison and this is Gina,” I said. His friends, who had been goofing off while Danny was gone, quickly noticed that he wasn’t alone when he returned their group.
“Guys, this is Allison and Gina,” Danny called to them. He pointed out each of his friends to us as he said their names. “That’s Oliver, Toby, and Chad.”
The boys waved and grinned at us. Chad was short, with a close-cropped hairstyle. Oliver and Toby were the exact opposite of him. They were both tall, with matching brown hair and identical goofy grins. In fact, everything about them identical. I never had much luck when telling twins apart, but thankfully they were wearing different colored swim trunks (Oliver with red, Toby with green). Gina sidled over towards the twins and immediately struck up a conversation.
“So do you two studs ever argue about who the more attractive one is?” She cocked out her hip as she stood there while twisting a strand of her dark locks between her fingers. It was obvious by the slack jaws and eyes nearly popping out their heads that the twins thought she was some kind of goddess. It wasn’t the first time Gina got that reaction out of a guy.
“It’s me,” the one with red shorts—Oliver, I think—said.
“No way, dude,” Toby disagreed. “I’m the hotter one by far.”
“In your dreams,” Oliver shot back.
“I think guys tend to be hotter when they’re athletic,” Gina added. She turned back to Danny. “So we gonna play or what?”
Oliver and Toby looked at her, looked at each, looked back at Gina, and then turned to Danny with their arms outstretched.
“Pass it to me!”
“I’m open, I’m open!”
“Back off, Toby! I got this one!”
“Forget it, Oliver! It’s mine!”
Danny chuckled as he dropped back and raised the football, looking for an open target. Toby and Oliver split in opposite directions and waved their arms to get his attention. Chad rushed towards Danny in an attempt to steal the ball away. Seconds before Chad reached him, however, Danny swung his arm and tossed the football in a high arc. Oliver raced forward and leapt into the air to catch it. He tucked it under his arm and dodged Toby, who was looking for revenge—or possibly a chance to show off in front of Gina.
“You’re ridiculous, you know that?” I asked her as we stepped back to watch the game.
“I know.”
“And what about Shawn?”
“It’s not like I’m doing anything illegal. Besides, you said we’re here to have fun. That’s all I’m doing.” She grinned before turning to cheer for Oliver, who ran to the invisible goal line and scored a touchdown.
Gina and I watched as the boys continued with their game. They split up into real teams—Danny and Toby versus Oliver and Chad—and got incredibly intense. It didn’t help that the twins were battling for Gina’s affection. It also didn’t help that she cheered for whichever one was on the winning team. Eventually, the guys decided that Gina and I needed to join in on the action. Danny offered to show me how to throw the football properly and where to put my hands on the ball. Oliver and Toby nearly got into a fist fight when they realized at the same time that Gina didn’t know how to play either. Chad had brought a second football and the twins wrestled for a few minutes over it while Gina watched, a mischievous smirk on her face.
“The laces,” Danny said to me. “You’ve got to put your fingers on the laces.”
“Here?” I asked, holding up the ball so he could see.
“Yeah, that’s good.” He nodded. “Now throw it to me.”
There were about ten feet between me and Danny, which didn’t seem like it was that far. Nervously, I chucked the ball as hard as I could towards Danny. Much to my surprise, it flew through the air and he caught it easily.
“Did you see that?” I yelled to him. “I did it!”
“Yeah you did!” He grinned. “It wasn’t that bad either! Just try and control it more—focus on where you want it to go. That way it’ll get a nicer spin. Okay, ready for it?”
“Ready!” I called, bracing myself. With an almost perfect form, Danny planted his feet and tossed the ball to me. It spiraled towards me and I was able to catch it without it hurting my hands too much.
“See how mine spun?”
“Yeah.” I nodded and found my grip again on the ball. Danny and I tossed it back and forth a couple more times. We tried to see how many times we could go without someone—that someone being me—dropping it. It took us awhile, but we finally managed to make it to ten consecutive passes.
“I think that’s enough for me,” I said as Danny caught the ball again.
“Aw, are you sure? You were getting the hang of it.” Danny grinned at me and started tossing the ball up in the air.
“I’m sure,” I said. “Thanks though.” Next to us, Oliver and Toby were still fighting over who got to show Gina how to throw the football. Oliver had his arms around her, showing her how to hold the ball and what the proper arm motion should feel like. Gina was basking in the attention, often giving him compliments such as “You’re so good at this!” and “Are you sure you don’t play football?” She had Oliver eating out of the palm of her hand.
The six of us were regrouping to figure out what we were going to do the rest of the night (Gina had pitched the idea to me of having the boys join us for dinner) when a small cluster of young girls ran past us, screaming at the top of their lungs:
“OH MY GOD IT’S KIAN LAWLEY!”
My head snapped up. About fifty yards down the beach was a group of four making their way towards the water. Leading the group was Kian, with his girlfriend Andrea by his side. Her long dark hair had been pulled into a high ponytail and it swung from side to side with every step she took. Behind them was Jenn, the majority of her face obscured by her sunglasses. And there was one more boy, who was bringing up the rear.
Connor.
“Allison?” Gina asked. Her voice sounded distant, as though she was at the other end of a long tunnel. A hand touched my shoulder gently and I jumped, startled. Gina was next to me, looking concerned. Danny, Chad, and the twins were all staring at me as well.
“We need to go,” I said to Gina. “Now.” I turned and hurried back over to our things and started throwing my towel into my bag.
“Allison!” Gina called after me, but I ignored her. “Allison, wait up!” She gave up trying to stop me and simply followed along, yelling back to the boys, “It was nice meeting you!” and we rapidly gathered our things. I wasted no time, immediately retreating to Gina’s car once all my belongings had been shoved haphazardly into my tote.
“Allison? Allison!” Danny tried to chase us, calling my name, but I refused to stop. I knew he would draw even more attention to us and I had no desire to be near Connor any longer than I had to be. I couldn’t help myself though, and I glanced back to see Danny, whose arms were raised in the air. But my eyes didn’t linger on him long, as they traveled instead to the boy behind him, whose green eyes looked hurt and confused as he recognized me. I ran faster.
Gina and I hopped into her car and she started it up, the radio blasting through the speakers. She sped out of the parking lot without checking for other cars or pedestrians and I let out a sigh of relief.
“So are you going to tell me what that was all about?” Gina asked as we drove back into the city.
“It’s fine,” I told her. “Don’t worry about it.”
“Look, I’m not stupid, Allison.” Gina’s eyes darted between the road, her rearview mirror, and me. “I saw Connor. When those chicks yelled Kian’s name, obviously I looked and I saw Connor. And he saw you too. I just want an answer about what happened between you two. I understand that you want to keep your space from him, which I respect, but I thought you weren’t going to let him spoil your summer.”
“I told you, G, he didn’t want a relationship.” I crossed my arms and stared out the window at the passing street signs. What I didn’t tell her was the real reason I didn’t want to see him—fear of finding out what Paige had told the guys about my disappearance. I was not in the mood for their interrogations today.
“Bullshit,” Gina retorted. “I want the real answer. Maybe he didn’t want a relationship, but that’s not the reason you called me crying at seven o’clock in the morning asking me to come pick you up from the alley behind the hospital. I’m not an idiot, Allison.”
“I never said you were,” I replied. “But I’m telling you, that’s all there is to it.”
“I repeat: Bullshit.” Gina shook her head. A few minutes passed with only a song from the band Passenger to keep us from insufferable silence. Finally, Gina spoke again. “You need to talk about this.”
“I—”
“Shut up and let me finish,” Gina said. Her voice lacked the harshness I had expected. “It doesn’t have to be right now. It doesn’t have to be with me. But whatever the hell happened between you and Connor was bad—I can see that. You need someone you can trust. You can’t just bottle everything up inside. You’re going to explode. And I don’t want to have to risk chipping a nail scraping your sorry ass off the sidewalk. I don’t care if you tell me, or a pet, or if you pull a Forrest Gump and tell strangers that sit next to you on a bus bench. Hell, I’ll refer to you a fucking therapist if that’s what you want. But you need to talk to someone, got it?”
“I—”
“Got it?”
I sighed. Arguing with Gina was pointless. “Got it.”
“Good.” Gina nodded once. She turned up the volume on the radio, which I was grateful for. The loud music gave us an excuse not to talk and I could get lost in my own thoughts without having to worry about distractions.
I had wanted to tell Gina that there was only one person I could think of that would understand me, would understand my situation. One person out here in California that I could tell anything to and not worry about it biting me in the ass or being made fun. One person.
And I had just run away from him.