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“Yo,” he answered.
“Anything?” Hernandez asked.
“Not yet. Still waiting.”
Hernandez blew out a long breath on the other end of the line. “You know, I really thought she would. There’s just always been this, like…vibe between the two of you.”
“Or maybe I’m the only one with a vibe.”
“Dude, she literally admitted she’s falling for you in that letter. That is the textbook definition of a vibe.”
“Says the guy who has a vibe with pretty much everyone.”
“Hey, don’t hate the player, hate the game.”
Jake chuckled to himself. “You really need to pick up some new lines. You can’t be reciting the same ones you used in high school.”
“And yet, they still make my best friend laugh.”
The popping sound of gravel had Jake bolting off the bench, his breath catching in his throat.
A white Mazda pulled up behind him, the headlights temporarily blinding him. Jake held his hand in front of his eyes, but it was useless. Everything was blinding white light and sparkles, and he couldn’t see the person now stepping out of the car.
“Is that a car? Is it her?”
“Dude, I don’t know, I can’t see a thing,” Jake whispered. He turned back toward the ocean so his eyes could adjust, blinking rapidly. A car door slammed shut.
“It has to be her. Who goes to Salt & Shell in the middle of winter?”
“It could be her roommate, Dez. She was the one who arranged the balloon delivery, maybe she came to let me down.”
“You can tell Hernandez that it’s me,” said a soft, melodic voice.
The sound was even more beautiful than he remembered.
Jake slowly turned around and found that she, too, was more beautiful than he remembered. For the past couple of weeks, Jake carried around that photo of her in his wallet, sneaking peeks at it whenever he could, studying every minuscule detail of that smile. The way her lips curled up on the left, right below the small freckle on her cheek, like an upside-down exclamation mark. Her face was still round and youthful, and sometimes he found himself tracing it with the tips of fingers, wondering what it would feel like to touch that soft skin.
Yet that small glimpse of her didn’t at all prepare him for what it would be like to experience her beauty in person. Now that she was standing in front of him, it didn’t take long for Jake to remember what it felt like to be under Shelly Carson’s spell. She was still magnetic, and he was more than willing to let himself be pulled directly into her orbit.
“Wait, did you say she has a roommate?” Jake was so lost in the woman’s blonde hair and vibrant green eyes that he forgot he still had Hernandez on speaker phone.
“I did say she has a roommate,” Jake said, his eyes tracing the soft blonde waves framing her face and the pale pink knitted hat hugging the top of her head.
She crossed her arms. “Tell Hernandez that if he’s still as much of a player as he was in high school, he doesn’t have a shot in hell.”
Jake laughed as Hernandez rattled on the other line.
“Oh, you can tell Shelly to go fuck all the way off…”
Jake didn’t let him finish, he simply hung up.
Shelly threw her head back and laughed. If the sound of her voice was a melody, her laugh was the harmony, dancing on top of those notes in a song so captivating, Jake wanted to record it and play it on repeat.
She must have realized how loud she was, because her cheeks flushed and she covered her mouth with her hand. “Sorry,” she whispered.
Jake grinned. “Please don’t apologize for that. Not ever.”
She quirked a brow at his response, then shook her head in amusement. “When did you get so smooth, Jakey Jake?”
