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I press a hand to my cheek and sure enough, it’s burning up. “It’s hot.” I wave one hand, knowing damn well why my cheeks are flushed, and it wasn’t the heat.
“It is miserable, isn’t it?” she agrees. “Maybe we should just sit in the house with the AC on high, instead of standing outside in a puddle all summer.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I reply with a little laugh. I’m a southern girl, born and bred, and I can’t even take the humidity right now.
“Maybe sandals would be better than boots.” She looks down, eyeing my Docs. “Probably cooler.”
Momma hates these boots. But I won’t give them up. They make me feel powerful, and confident, and that’s the energy I need this summer. A girl ready to kick ass and take names.
“Didn’t you always tell me that it was dangerous to wear sandals on the rides?” I counter. “My Docs are dual purpose—they look rad and keep my toes safe.”
The light in her blue eyes dances and she takes in my argument with a shake of her head. “You are just like your father,” she smiles. “A counter to every point.”
I nod and smile back. If only she knew just how like my Daddy I’d become. ‘Never met a fight I couldn’t win or a bull I couldn’t ride,’ he’d say with a laugh when someone challenged him.
“Still planning to meet up with Jenica?” she asks carefully.
“Momma …” I start then stop. What’s the point? She has made her feelings on my friendship with Jenica Miller quite clear. But she too knows mine.
Where my mother sees trouble, I see the girl that saved me, and I will never discard her. Not for anything.
Losing your first love hurts. But losing the one you thought would be your last, feels like an agony worse than death, and when Cruz left, that’s exactly what it felt like.
That first morning without him was unbearable, and by the afternoon I was so bereft, I grabbed a four pack of wine coolers from the fridge and headed straight to the beach.
I remember staring at the waves sadly, thinking about all of the time we’d spent together that summer, as I knocked back bottle after bottle of Bartles & Jaymes. It wasn’t until I’d finished all of them, and my face and toes turned numb, did the pain oflosing Cruz start to ease.
That’s around the time Jenica stumbled across me. Seeing I was drunk as a skunk, she helped me back to my house and snuck me up to my room. She was like an angel that afternoon, filling a glass of water from my bathroom sink and sitting with me as I talked through my snot and tears about the boy that broke my heart. In turn, she helped take my mind off Cruz by telling me about her life growing up in Cherry Cove and the boy she’d recently broken up, who sounded just as dumb as the one who’d dumped me.
When summer ended and I headed back to Elmhurst, Jenica and I stayed in touch. We talked on the phone all the time and I visited her on long weekends, and she did the same.
By the time I headed to Cherry Cove the next summer, we were inseparable, and when I returned last week after graduating from Elmhurst and told her about what was happening with my dad’s case, she agreed to help me find out what was going on.
Jenica Miller is more than my best friend. She is like the sister I never had and I can’t imagine my life without her.
I know Momma’s concern isn’t with Jenica per se, but the kids in Cherry Cove, who always seem to be in trouble. But what Momma isn’t recognizing is the fact that trouble only seemed to find the Cherry Cove locals in the summer, and it didn’t take a rocket scientist to know why.
Elmhurst kids were spoiled brats and I’d seen and heard some of the shit they’d pulled down here over the years. Honestly, I’d grown tired of their privilege and acting like I cared about the same things they did. But this summer I couldn’t tell them all to go to Hell as I’d been waiting to do for the past few years. I had to use my place among them to get what I needed.
Cruz may have ruined my first two years at Elmhurst, but my last two were a far cry from when he and I went to schooltogether.
I was one of the Elmhurst elite. I went to parties and dated, and my inner circle were the kids of the most important members of our society. An inner circle that reflected that of my parents. And this summer, when everyone gathered in Cherry Cove one last time before heading to college, I was going to use my place among them to learn all I could about my father’s case, starting with Royce Richardson.
If anyone could help me get access to the new evidence it would be the DA’s son. All I had to do was convince him to look into his father’s files, and I knew just how to do it.
As children of best friends, Royce and I had grown up together. I’d always known he had a crush on me, but during our last year at Elmhurst he made it more obvious, asking me out at least ten times. I had a feeling all I had to do was say yes the next time he did, and he’d be willing to do anything I asked.
Only, Momma couldn’t know any of this. She’d be livid if she knew I was planning to use my supposed friends to poke my nose where it didn’t belong. She had to think this was like any other summer. One of fun, sun, and too many parties.
“Kids from home will be there too,” I say finally. “Speaking of…did you know Cruz would be here this summer?”
There was no better way to steer my mother away from the subject of Jenica than to ask about the one she knew was a source of my own irritation.
My mother reaches for the strap of her handbag and holds it tight. “How did you find out?”
Well, there’s my answer. “Small town,” I cross my arms and pop out my hip. “People talk.”
Of course, Momma knew Cruz was coming to Cherry Cove. She knew how much Cruz’s dad missed him. Hell, she probably arranged for him to rent the Deveraux place, knowing how much it would mean to his father having Cruz’s close by.
