AllFreeNovel
Share Us
In between spending copious amounts of time trying to drown each other in the ocean, Shan and I had lazed idly on the toasty sand for most of the evening, carefree and untroubled by the world that was waiting for us just around the corner.
“Remember when I told you that beautiful boys with big muscles complicate everything?” I declared several hours later, sprawled out on my belly, enjoying the last of the evening sun rays, while the boys tossed a ball around further up the beach. The sun was setting, the tents had been pitched, and I was reveling in the last wisps of heat. “Well, I was right.”
“Understatement of the century,” Shan agreed from her perch beside me. “But they’re so pretty to look at.”
“True.” Pulling up on my elbows, I twisted around just in time to see Gerard leap into the air to catch the ball. “Oh, sweet baby Jesus.” He looked so damn good today. Clad in nothing but a pair of white shorts, he filled every inch of his skin like a dream. No, like a demigod. Yeah, a demigod was so much more fitting.
“I get it.” Shannon smiled knowingly. “I feel the same about Johnny.”
“It’s hard to concentrate, huh?”
“Definitely,” she agreed. “And then it gets deeper because you start to crave their words as much as their kisses.”
“Whoa,” I breathed. “Sounds intense.”
“You should tell Gibs how you feel, Claire.”
“He already knows how I feel,” I replied, settling back down on my stomach. “He’s just…Gerard.”
“And you’re Claire,” she added. “And together you make a perfect team.”
“Yeah, maybe.”
“Definitely,” she assured me. “It’ll happen. I can feel it in my bones.”
I hope so. “I’m going to miss this,” I changed the subject by saying. “I wish we lived in a world where summer never ended.”
“But then we wouldn’t have autumn,” Shan offered, happy to follow my lead. “And you know how much we love Octobers.”
“True,” I agreed dreamily. “Woolly jumpers and falling leaves.”
“Hot chocolate and Halloween,” she added with a wistful sigh.
“Bonfires.”
“Dark evenings.”
“Trick-or-treating.”
“Snuggling under blankets.”
“Okay, new plan. Let’s build a world full of Octobers.”
“Now that’s a world I want to live in,” Shan agreed.
“We can be queens.”
“Or presidents.”
“Rulers.”
“Yes, joint rulers of all things autumn.”
“Genius.”
“Hey, Shan?”
“Hmm?”
