The Summer of Me & You (11 page)

“—
Cut
,” I interjected. “I already know why. It's because you
suck
at it.” Her mouth fell open in shock. I chuckled to myself as I left the building.
 

Ah, this was going to be the best summer of my life.

CHAPTER TEN

You're going to see me this weekend

*

At 5 am a week later, my phone rang.
Grrrr, I'm sleepy.
Only one person would call this damn early.
My mom, to tell me that she had to work a double shift at the hospital. Why couldn't she just text? I reached over on my nightstand and grabbed up my cell, answering the call.
 

“Hello?” I said in a sleepy voice.

“I think I'm gonna call you everyday at this hour.” It took me a moment to place the voice on the other end.

“Kaleb?”

“Yeah,” I heard the smile in his voice. “It's me.”

“It's five am, what's wrong with you?” This was my best hour of sleep. If it got interrupted I would be grouchy for the rest of the day.

“You gave me your number, you didn't give me a list of available times to call.”

I plopped back down on my pillow. “A normal person would know not to call someone at this hour,” I groaned.

He chuckled. “I know that. I wanted to annoy you some more. It's fun.”

“I'm hanging up.”

“No—don't.”

“What do you want? Just text me. Maybe I'll answer at a normal hour.”

“I just wanted to let you know that you're gonna see me this weekend whether you like it or not. Aren't you excited?”

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Alone with him in the middle of the night

*

My mom was gone for the weekend.

When Kaleb picked me up, Rebekah was in the passenger's seat. He asked her politely to get in the back but she said—

“You treat all of your girlfriends this way?”

“You're not my girlfriend, Bekah.”

“This is
my
dad's car. I
could
take it from you if I wanted.”
 

“And
you're
drugged and you no longer have a license. Sounds like a smart move to me,” Kaleb countered.
 

“I'll just walk where I need to go,” she climbed out of the car and slammed the door. She marched over to me. “Just remember that whatever you two do tonight, I was with him first. Taught him everything he knows.”

“Okay? Eww, that's gross. He's your step-brother and you have a baby with that creepy dude.”

“Didn't used to be that way.”

“That's how it is now, so back off.” Rebekah disappeared down the street.

“Sorry it took so long,” he said.

As soon as I was in the car, Kaleb said, “You're actually going somewhere with me. Wow. What happened?”

“Not sure,” I told him.

“There's really not much around here to do. I just wanted to spend time with you. You sure you'd rather not be sleeping?”

“I'm sure,” I told him.

“She's only doing that to get back at me,” he said.

“Get back at you?” I stared at Kaleb. “For what?”

“For not being who she wanted me to be.” His hands tightened on the steering wheel. “I seem to disappoint a lot these days.”

“Well, if it means anything, I'm glad you're disappointing her.”

“Before her dad met my mom, we sorta fooled around.”

“She's older than you. What did she think would happen?”

He shrugged. “I dunno.”

Dang, was
everyone
in love with him?
 

I couldn't believe I was in a car with Kaleb Scheffler. Alone with him, in the middle of the night, driving away from our town. The space inside the car was silent and there weren't a lot of other cars on this dark and narrow road that twisted and curved through a maze of trees. Kaleb accelerated, the speedometer passing sixty. But I still felt absolutely safe with him.

“She's not my girlfriend,” he added. The soft glow of the dashboard lit his face and I observed the play of shadows and light. How it wrapped around his eyes, deepening his expression as he moved his eyes from the road to gaze at me. “Never was.”

“Rebekah?”

“No, Ashley.”

“Do you always drive like this?” I asked him.

“Sorry,” he said. “I'll slow down. I just drive fast, but I don't want to scare you.”

“You're not scaring me,” I told him. I wanted to say so much more.
You could never scare me. I feel safe with you. The only thing I fear is not having moments like this with you. We should do this more often. I miss you. I want to cuddle with you in the back of your car somewhere and just fall asleep until sunrise.
 

“I'm surprised you haven't asked where we're going,” he gave me a grin.

The truth was it didn't matter where we were going, I just liked the idea of the drive and being alone with him. I pretended I'd forgotten. “You didn't tell me?”

“No,” he said, “I never said. But you agreed to come anyway.” His grin widened. His eyes swept over me and my skin tingled. It felt as if he'd reached for my hand or touched me. “I'm really glad you came with me tonight. I wanted to talk to you, Kayleigh.”

I wondered what he had to say.

“I want to talk to you about things that no one else understands. I want to take you to a place that no one else has ever been.”

What kind of things? Melancholy things? Dangerous things? And what did he mean by a place that no one else has ever been? Did he mean somewhere he'd never taken his other girlfriends? Was this his way of trying to make me feel special, thinking he'd have a better shot at getting me to do the things he did with other girls?

“But not tonight. Someday though.”

Oh
, I thought to myself as we arrived at the lake. He parked the car and stepped out, circling around to open my door.
Chivalrous.
What a surprise. I followed him down the dock and sat down, gazing across the moonlight water. I had no idea why we were here. But it didn't matter. I was with him tonight. He sat right next to me. When I looked at him, that's when I noticed it.  
 

His eyes were unusual. When Kaleb was happy, the color of his eyes were a lighter brown, the way they were now. This was the first time I'd ever paid attention to them up close. His brown irises were rimmed in yellow, like they'd been carefully outlined with a fine-tipped drawing pen. His pupils were inky black. “You're the only person I can talk to, did you know that?”

Beneath the smell of his cigarette smoke was a layer of sweet, like fruit. I didn't know what it was, but I loved the scent.

This was the moment where he and I got closer and maybe...he would kiss me and I would let him. But Kaleb just sighed, and looked away from me, tipping his head back to gaze up at the glowering sky. “I'm glad you and I can be good friends without all of that other bullshit. You're unlike all the other girls I've known.”

My heart sank. I'd been reading all of this wrong. Kaleb and I were just friends. That's all he wanted to be for me. A friend.
Without all of that other bullshit
which meant he didn't want to kiss me, he didn't feel that way. A friend, not a girlfriend. Kaleb didn't want the pressure or the commitment or the obligation of birthdays and dates and stupid girly things like Valentine's Day or cuddling. He just wanted someone like me—a brainiac with zero sex appeal who read lots of books—to listen to his brooding, to realize he was deeper than the guy in torn blue jeans that every girl wanted to rip off. He had more about him than a love of sex, partying, drugs and breaking hearts. I mean because the way he held that cigarette was so damn poetic. I wanted his fingers on me, his hands and arms around me. How could I be so stupid to think he had any interest in me that way.

I know. Because he'd
said
he liked me. A lot. And now?
 

Good
friends.
 

Oh shit. I wanted to cry. The tears were forming. I needed to stop them before he realized that I was that emotional creature he wanted to avoid. I couldn't let him discover I had feelings for him. Out of control, mad, passionate feelings that could make me just as moody and extreme as he was. Kaleb didn't want that. He wanted someone strong and challenging and if I wanted to win him over I had to be that person.

I raised my glasses to wipe my eyes, hoping he wouldn't notice and I tried not to sniff like a baby. But I ended up knocking my glasses off into the lake. He noticed and he pulled his gaze away from the sky and reached down into the water, quickly grasping them before they floated away. I had reached for them at the same time and our hands touched. A shock went through me and I pulled away, hiding my face. He shook the excess water from my glasses and dried them on his t-shirt.

“Kayleigh?” he said. I didn't want to look at him.

“Yeah?”

“Turn around. Please? I really want to see your eyes.”

It felt like I couldn't breathe. Oh Kaleb, you sexy bastard. Please shut up. Stop saying things to me like that. I want you so badly. You don't need to see my eyes, not when you have the moon and the lake and the stars.

He couldn't see my eyes or he'd know how sad I was. “I can't see anything,” I tried to keep my voice steady, keep it from shaking. “It's too dark. Hand me my glasses please?”

He handed them to me and I placed them back on my face.

“You're being silent,” he said. “Too silent.”

“I'm just listening to you, Kaleb.”

“Yeah—but I want to hear you talk. You always have so many interesting things to say.” When I didn't say anything or look at him, he knew something was wrong. I was just gazing down into the lake, swinging my legs back and forth. I was so absorbed in my thoughts about him that I hadn't realized he'd scooted closer. Not until his fingers swept my hair away from my face, and his hand gently cupped my chin, turning my face in his direction. I didn't resist. Our eyes met again and I knew he could see it.

“Are you sad?” he asked. “Your eyes are a little bit watery. What's wrong?”

As if he didn't know...

“I'm fine,” I lied and he knew it. “It's just the lake. I've been staring into it for too long.”

“Yeah,” he said. “And you're not looking at me.”

Didn't know you needed me to.

“Keep your eyes on me, Kayleigh.”

I wanted to tell him that's where they've been the whole time. I wanted to just take the initiative and kiss him myself. Maybe he didn't think I was interested because guys like him didn't notice girls like me—girls who seemed more interested in books than they were boys. But he
had
noticed me. He
did
tell me he liked me. He even asked if I liked him. My answer?—Possibly. Which meant, not yet, but maybe. Perhaps he was trying to respect that. I didn't know.

Kaleb was nicer than I thought he'd be. But I had to remind myself that no matter what he said tonight, it could all be different by morning. He had mood swings. Being alone with me like this might've been his way of feeling adventurous since he'd already done everything else. Maybe I was a challenge for him. Something he wanted to try so he could add it to his list. The thought of that made me mad. Feelings of foolishness and hurt immediately bubbled to the surface, swallowing and drowning away how he'd just made me feel.

“Why?” I asked, a little more fiercely than I'd intended.

He ran his thumb over my bottom lip, deliberately. “Because,” he said. Kaleb knew exactly what he was doing. The gaze in his eyes pierced deep, causing me to become afraid of the intimacy that passed between us. I broke the connection, dropping my gaze from his eyes to his neck. He swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing once, then he dropped his hand from my chin and stretched out beside me, sighing, one hand spread out over his chest, the other ruffling through his hair.

If I stayed here like this with him any longer I knew I'd end up making a fool of myself. I checked my watch. “It's nearly 3 a.m. Kaleb,” I said.

His head turned as he peered up at me. “You have anywhere else to be?”

“
Asleep,
” I said, laughing.

He yawned. “I'm already tired, Kayleigh.”