Page 33
“I’m not lying about this, she is really nice,” she said honestly. “But I don’t know her. I don’t know if I can trust her yet.”
Bea took a silent bite, her little mind thinking it through. “Do you have a boyfriend?”
She coughed, some of her soda almost spilling out of her nose. “Uh, no. I don’t.”
Bea grumbled, looking back down at her sandwich. “It just doesn’t make sense to me,” she whispered.
Rory frowned. “What doesn’t?”
Bea shook her head. “Nothing, forget it.”
They rode in silence back to Misty Bay. Rory offered Bea her phone so she could pick the music, but Bea shook her head, the little one lost in her thoughts. She remained quiet for the rest of the drive until Rory pulled onto their road. Bea sat up straight, lifting her hand.
“Who’s that?” Bea pointed.
She pulled into her driveway and parked, then looked where Bea was pointing, up at a tall form leaning against her porch.
Her heart started pounding.
Bea grinned, showing her little crooked teeth. “You sure you don’t have a boyfriend?”
He smiled at the sight of her and winked in her direction.
Jay. He was home.
Chapter Ten
Rory jumped out of the car. “What are you doing here?”
Jay Sanchez just kept smiling, that familiar smug look on his face making Rory’s heart skip several beats. She forgot how handsome he was. His deeply tanned skin, his toffee-colored eyes, his lean frame. Jay was always slender yet fit, built like the soccer player he was. Soccer was one of the things they had in common, her mind drifting to their afternoons scrimmaging on the beach, the rest of the Scoopers getting mad at them for kicking up so much sand.
Rory couldn’t help it as her eyes drifted to his faded Haverport High Varsity Soccer sweatshirt, then to the pair of charcoal joggers on his legs. He even wore his Scoops hat backward on top of his wavy midnight-black hair.
“What do you think?” Jay responded, still smiling at her as she approached, Bea at her heels. “I told you the surprise would be epic.”
Bea looked up at Rory with a devilish grin. “Told you.”
Rory nudged her. “You be quiet over there.”
“You free today?”
Rory looked back at him, still stunned that he was here. At her house. In that outfit. She felt like she was going to combust.
She looked down at what she was wearing and internally winced. Still in her baggy sweatshirt from that morning, her hair a ratty mess piled high in a bun. At least she had the decency to throw on her favorite pair of light-washed jeans with two artfully ripped cuts at the knees.
“Oh yes, she’s free,” Bea answered for her. “Very free.”
Rory glared at Bea, who was looking mighty proud of herself.
“Bea bear, where you been?!”
Rory’s heart jumped to her throat at the sound of Tyler’s voice from next door. She watched him approach with an amused grin on his face at the sight of her with Rory, matching in their new necklaces. But when his eyes finally caught on the third person in their group, he paused, the grin sliding off his face.
“Jay,” he said. His voice sounded less confident. Small, even. “You’re here. Why are you not at college?”
“Drove down to see my baby,” Jay answered.
Before she could comprehend what was happening, Jay slid an arm around her waist. He tucked his hand underneath her sweatshirt and slipped a finger around a belt loop of her jeans, pulling her closer to him.
