“I didn’t say you weren’t,” she calls back.
“I’m proud of you, Crys,” I tell her. My little sister got her driver’s license before me. I really am proud of her but at the mention of driving, my heart starts pounding in my head. “Mom would be too.”
Crystal’s eyes soften at the mention of Mom. She was only nine when I got into that car accident. Only nine when we lost our mother that same night, so it hadn’t affected her as it did me. She’s lucky to still carry that optimism she was born with. A perfect balance to my type A pessimism that’s terrified of stepping into a moving vehicle, no matter how hard I try to combat it these days.
Even when I prepare myself for the eventual worst, I always feel like I’m taking ten steps backward.
“Thanks, Di.” Crystal’s gratitude brings me back to the present and out of the deep and dark place of my thoughts. It’s a bad route to go—the road where all my self-doubt and insecurities lie.
I finally feel the sun hit my face as Crystal continues to tell me more about her basketball season as well as her friends. I still can’t believe that she’s already a junior in high school. She’s got a more prominent social life at that age than I did.
I hear the door open and turn to the back door. Huh, no one’s outside. I swear I heard a creaking door. Shrugging, I turn back to my phone screen and, out of the corner of my eye, I spot it.
Or rather, him.
I swallow as quietly as I can because the sight in front of me is equally surprising. Carson Ryder, right outside his door. More specifically, a shirtless Carson with running shorts, a pair of worn-out sneakers, and ankle-high white socks.
Why are shirtless men my Achilles heel? Better yet—why can men just roll out of bed and look like that? With no fucking effort? It’s highly unfair to the straight female gaze.
Almost instantly, the words I threw at his face on Wednesday come back to haunt my brain and I wince. Visibly.
“Diana!” Crystal shouts. Wow. With those lungs, she could wake up the entire street I’m on through the phone. She should have joined cheer instead.
“Sorry,” I apologize, faking a yawn. “I’m still a little tired.”
She furrows her brows. “You seemed fine earlier. Maybe you do need some sleep. It’s what, six in the morning over there? Don’t you have anything else to do? A party to host?”
I shake my head. “On a Sunday? No. No to all of that.” Especially because I planned to finish off the cherry tarts sitting in my fridge while watchingGilmore Girls.
Crystal doesn’t believe me and I can tell by the slight eyeroll. “I saw that!”
“Saw what?” She asks, fake innocence lacing her hazel-green eyes that are very similar to my own. Eyes we inherited from our mother. “I’m going to drink a cherry cola and leave you be. Good day, sister. And you better tell me what’s getting you distracted.”
My eyes instinctively move to Carson’s front door, and he’s not there.
“Or who.” She wiggles her eyebrows before I rollmyeyes and disconnect the call.
I lean against the outer wall of my house and let out a breath, closing my eyes. Though Mom’s birthday has gotten easier, it’s still hard to remember a day like this—a celebration of life for someone who’s not alive. I’ve come to terms with a lot of things after Mom’s death but the pain of losing her always lingers.
“You okay?”
Opening my eyes, I find Carson leaning on the wall, arms crossed over his ivory shoulders, accentuating the anchor tattoo on his bicep. For some reason, I always thought he was much more tan than he is. He’s been living in California for as long as I have, if not way longer. Wouldn’t he have tanned at least slightly?
I’m not complaining because he’s always been handsome to me. That never changed from the day he threw a pie in my face.
“Diana?”
I blink. “Did you ask something?”
He nods slowly, blue eyes trained on me. “Yeah. Are you okay? You seem tired.”
I rub an eye. “It’s early. Why areyouup?”
He jabs a thumb at the gate. “I’m going on a run. And I didn’t mean physically tired.”
Emotionally. Is it that obvious? “This early?” I ask.
He nods. “If daylight savings was still going on, it would have been earlier.”
