“No. I overheard Gen tell Cali about it. Sounds like a bunch of crap to get her so scared he could…” She looks over at my pause. “You know.”
She smiles saucily, and my heart races. She used to grin at me like that when we studied together—the smile I thought was only for me. “I don’t know. Why would a guy try to scare a girl, Tyler?”
It’s cool. I’m not affected by that sexy look anymore. Okay, that’s a total lie. But at least I can hold it together and not go crazy over her the way I did when I was younger.
She knows what I meant. She’s taunting me.
I lean down until my lips are close to her ear, the scent of her hair branding my senses and stunning my brain for a moment—fucking pheromones. “So that he can touch her…you know, for comfort.”
Her breath hitches and she swallows, running a hand nervously down her bare leg. My gaze follows, because she’s in a bikini and her body takes my breath away. I’ve tried to avoid looking, with her sitting across the dock, but this close, there’s no chance I won’t stare.
I realize, after I’ve spoken, that I’ve just defined what happened between us the other day, when she came home from work upset. I had wanted to comfort her. I could have stuck with words, but I didn’t. I touched her, held her. Because that’s the way I want to soothe Mira when she’s distressed. Words aren’t enough.
“Lewis is full of crap,” she says. “He loves that Ong lake monster story, but he twists it depending on who his audience is.”
“Are you saying he had ulterior motives?” I can’t hold back the twitch at my lips as I watch her reaction.
“I don’t know, Tyler. What do you think?” she says sarcastically.
Hmm, I’m wondering if she thinks I had ulterior motives when I comforted her the other day. And when I asked her to go on the bike ride with me. I didn’t. I truly wanted to make sure she was okay. And spend time with her. I did enjoy touching her, though. “I think I’d rather not talk about my sister’s best friend—who’s like a little sister to me—and her boyfriend hooking up.”
“I think I’d rather not talk about my brother figure and his girlfriend hooking up.”
“Now that that’s settled”—I bump her shoulder and she rolls with it, her body straightening and coming to rest just shy of my own—“why are you so pensive over here?”
Mira sips her girly drink without looking at me. “You don’t want to know.”
Now I have to know. “Try me anyway.”
She looks up, her eyes penetrating, and suddenly I’m wondering if she’s right. I don’t want to know. The look on her face is a bit sharklike. “Why’d you return to town?” she asks.
Definitely should have kept my mouth shut.
I let out a deep sigh. I’ve not even told Cali what happened in Colorado. Am I seriously going to share this with Mira?
“Some things went down that I needed to get away from. Clear my head.”
“Can you be more vague?”
I frown. Saucy as usual. “I was in a relationship.” My heart constricts just from thinking about Anna and what happened. I can’t believe I’m telling Mira this. Deep down I secretly think Mira is a part of why things were never quite right between me and Anna. Mira stole my ability to love a girl.
“We were…engaged,” I say.
Mira’s body tenses beside me. She looks over her shoulder, but the others are engrossed in conversation. “Does Cali?—”
“Cali doesn’t know. No one does. My engagement was a new development. We’d only just decided…Well, anyway. I hadn’t gotten around to telling anyone. Doesn’t matter. It ended soon after.”
Mira stares at her cup. “Sorry.”
Am I sorry? I am so fucking sorry for what happened to Anna, but not that our engagement ended, and that’s why I’m a dick. If I’d cared more, loved Anna the way I should have, would things have ended up the way they did?
“Me too,” I say.
She studies me, and this time she seems depleted, as if my confession has sucked the life from her.
I’m feeling hollow myself.
I want to tell her it’s okay, that I’m okay. But I’m not.
