eleven
I askedCharlie to drop me off a few streets over because I felt like I needed to walk a little to process everything that had happened tonight.
The sun had still been setting when we left the beach, but now the sky was fading, turning from a deep blue to a deeper purple. I could see the first stars appearing, glowing against the night sky like fireflies. It was a beautiful sight. A warm breeze blew my hair around, reminding me once again that it was officially summer. So far, it was off to a pretty good start.
As I walked, I couldn’t help but think about what had just happened between Charlie and me. It felt strange to be thinking about him like that—like we were already in a relationship or something—but it also felt strangely organic and natural. There was something undeniably special about him. And I could tell that he felt the same way about me.
I was on cloud nine for basically the rest of the weekend. I couldn’t help but smile every time I thought of what had happened between us. It was like a dream come true. Even days later, I couldn’t get the image of us kissing out of my head. It was so sweet and tender—just like we were meant to be together. The only issue was that I couldn’t tell Matthew anything about it.
“Why do you look so happy?” Matt asked flatly. I peered at him over the back of the couch. I’d been searching for a good show to watch and minding my own business. I hadn’t even heard him walk in.
“What are you talking about?” I asked.
He crossed his arms and frowned down at me, like he found it suspicious that I was happy. Which, I guess, he was technically right about, but I didn’t know why he was thinking it. It wasn’t like he had any reason to suspect it was about Charlie, right?
“Don’t act dumb. You’ve practically been singing from happiness for days.”
I shrugged and turned my attention back to scrolling through the TV, but a few seconds later, Matt snatched the remote out of my hand.
“Hey! What’s your problem?”
“My problem is that you’re hiding something,” Matt shot back.
I stood up, pulling my blanket tighter around me, and rolled my eyes. “You’re insane.”
“What a great comeback.”
“I don’t have to share everything with you,” I said. I narrowed my eyes slightly. “You’re a huge fan of keeping secrets, right?”
I sauntered off before he could put together that I was referencing Charlie. It was probably a bad idea for me to say anything like that in the first place. I doubted he would even actually put it together since the kiss that he knew about was so long ago, but I shouldn’t have risked it. It was for the best that he didn’t think about me and Charlie together whatsoever.
Just as I walked through the door of my room, my phone started buzzing. As I pulled it out of my pocket, part of me honestly expected it to be Charlie, like he knew I had been thinking about him. But of course, it wasn’t him. What possible reason would he have to call me outside of work? I stared atViolet’s name on the screen for a second, trying not to feel disappointed, then pressed the answer button.
“You have amazing timing,” I said as a greeting.
Violet seemed unfazed by my lack of hello. “Oh yeah? Why’s that?”
“Matt was just getting mad that I look so happy all the time, so I’m avoiding him and you’re being very helpful about it.”
Violet laughed. “Why would he be mad about that?”
“Beats me,” I said. “But I obviously can’t tell him the real reason so…” I trailed off. Somehow, I’d completely forgotten to tell Violet about that. Well, it was less that I’d forgotten and more that I’d chosen not to tell her about it. The moment Charlie dropped me off the other night, I wanted to call Violet and tell her what happened. She was already so excited about the prospect of me and Charlie being together that I figured she would be overjoyed at the idea of me kissing him. But that was definitely a can of worms that I didn’t want to open for a variety of reasons. One of the big ones, of course, was that Charlie and I agreed not to tell anyone. And I obviously knew he wasn’t planning to tell his own best friend because his best friend was the one person who absolutely could not know. I also wasn’t sure whether Violet would understand why I didn’t want it to go past that. She seemed to understand when we were in the pool, but since then, she’d been heavily implying that I should go for it, even though we both knew I couldn’t.
Granted, she might have understood if I said I was over my crush now that I’d kissed him because that wasn’t uncommon for me. How many times had I been head over heels for a boy until we finally got together and I got bored? A while ago, Jaxon told me that I just liked the thrill of the chase and I was pretty sure he was right. He would know something about that, considering the way he went after girls back before Violet was into him. I’d even questioned a few times whether that was whatViolet was to him—whether he only liked her more every time she rejected him because she was the ultimate girl he couldn’t get. But now that they were together, it was clear that wasn’t the case.
Jaxon himself was the third reason that I couldn’t tell Violet about my kiss with Charlie—what were the rules about what you could tell a boyfriend about your best friend? I’d never been close enough to any of the boys I dated to tell them anything about her, so this was totally new territory for us. I was sure she wouldn’t say anything if I asked her not to, but did I have any right to ask that? I didn’t want her to feel like she was keeping secrets from Jaxon. But also, it wasn’t like Charlie was just some random boy that Jaxon didn’t know. Maybe if that had been the case, I wouldn’t have cared so much, but this was his next-door neighbor! I wasn’t sure if they talked much, but they definitely knew each other and I did not need this news spreading anywhere, including through their neighborhood gossip. No, I had to keep the news of my mega, life-changing kiss completely to myself.
“Madison?” Violet prompted. I shook my head. How long had I zoned out?
“Sorry. I, um, lost my train of thought.” I chewed on my lip, trying to think of something to distract her with. There was a strange sound on her end of the phone that I couldn’t quite place. It wasn’t overly loud, but it was just loud enough that it drowned out her voice slightly.
“What are you doing? It sounds weird.”
“It’s the mixer—I’m making brownies,” she said.
“Why?”
Violet was a great baker, but she hardly ever did it. She mostly used her talents for bake sales and other such endeavors, not for fun, much to my annoyance. I could usually rope her intomaking me something when I wanted, but it took a lot of arm twisting.
