Ditched (13 page)

Max glanced over his shoulder as I approached.

“Now I understand why you were in such a hurry to move back here,” I said. He was seated at the edge of the blanket. I settled down next to him.

He nodded. “When I lived here, I took it for granted. I didn’t realize how much I would miss it.”

“It still feels like home to you?”

“I don’t think I really ever want to live anywhere else.”

I closed my eyes for a second, letting my other senses take over. I’d copied Max and seated myself at the edge of the blanket. I leaned back, propping myself up with my hands as they rested behind me. My fingers dug into the sand as I listened to the waves rolling in. The combination of sunshine and gentle breeze were perfect together.

I felt Max’s fingers brush mine. His pinky settled on my pinky. I reflexively started to move my hand away, feeling as though I’d gotten into his space. He surprised me by gently latching his fingers around mine. Startled, I glanced over at him. He was looking up at the sky. He was wearing a comically innocent expression.

I stared at him for a moment, perplexed by his odd action. I was waiting for him to say something. This was just not the kind of thing Max did. Not with me, anyway. He had to have known I was watching even though he didn’t look my way. Before I could ask what he thought he was doing, I felt him drag my hand gently through the sand. I was only vaguely aware that it bumped into something with a rough edge. I became more aware as he squeezed my hand, causing me to squeeze the unfamiliar object lightly.

I glanced over my shoulder and his hand abruptly left mine.

“
What
are you doing?” I finally asked. I couldn’t help but laugh at his odd behavior.

“Nothin’,” he said with a shrug.

My gaze returned to the object in the sand that was half buried, half in my hand. “Is that…?” I plucked it out. “Max! It’s a sand dollar!”

He feigned surprise. “Would you look at that?
I guess it’s your lucky day. You found one all on your own.”

“Did you plant that there?”

He shook his head and looked offended. “No, of course not.”

I gave his shoulder a shove and laughed. Now I understood why he’d been so intently scouring the beach. He
may not have put it there, but he’d been very picky about where to spread out the blanket.

I held it up and brushed it off. It was unbroken and nearly perfect. “Oh, thank you,” I said as I continued my inspection of it. It was much smaller than the ones in the gift shop. Yet like Max said, it was way better to find it on the beach than to purchase it out of a bowl.

“We can look for more later,” he said. “Although usually they’re a lot harder to find. I think it helped that the water was rough earlier. It helps to pull them in.”

I set it off to the side, next to the beach bag I’d brought with me.

“Do you know where I’d really like to go?” I asked him.

“Where?”

“I’d like to see Villette Vineyards. When I go back, I want to be able to picture where you are.”

“Sure,” he said. “We can do that.”

“I’d also like to meet your grandparents,” I told him.

He flicked a glance at me and then gazed off. He gave me a noncommittal shrug.

I was flustered for a second. “You don’t want me to meet them?”

“No, that’s not it. It’s just...” he faded off. I waited and he gave me a smile that
looked a little forced. “Sure, yeah. We’ll line something up before you go.” He moved away from me, readjusting himself on the blanket so he was sprawled out on his stomach.

“You should put sun
block on,” I told him.

“Don’t have any,” he muttered.

I reached for my bag. “Lucky for you, I travel prepared.”

He lifted his head
slightly and grinned at me. “Are you going to put it on me?”

“Sure,” I said as I plucked the can out of my bag. He laid his head back down and I sprayed it on, starting with his shoulders.

“What the hell is that?” he demanded. He propped himself up on his elbows to look at me.

I held up the can. “Sun block.”

“That’s sun block?”

I nodded. “Y
ou just spray it on.”

He wrinkled up his face. “What happened to rubbing it on?”

“You don’t need to,” I said with a little laugh.

“Huh
,” he said as he put his head back down. His next words were mumbled into the blanket. Yet, I was fairly sure he said, “I kind of feel cheated.”

I stifled a laugh because that almost sounded like flirting. Flirting was something
Max and I just didn’t do. Not even the silly friendly kind because, well, for obvious reasons. I had a boyfriend, or fiancé, depending on the point in our friendship. Or maybe that wasn’t what he’d said at all. Maybe I was hearing things.

I sprayed myself down with
sun block, causing him to scoff. Then I got comfortable lying down next to him.

“What did you think of the university?” he asked.

“The campus is pretty small,” I said. The university back home, where we’d spent our freshman year, had to be at least twice as big. Of course, this made sense considering that Sapphire Bay was about half the size of Chamberlain.

“I think in this case, small is good. The class sizes are smaller, more personal attention, that kind of thing,” he said.

“That does sound nice.” A few of my classes had to have had close to a hundred students in them. “Did all of your classes transfer?”

He nodded. “Everything.”

“You’ve registered for business classes in the fall?”

He gave me a crooked smile. “I actually already have a course in winemaking. You know, you can’t find those kinds of classes back in Chamberlain.” I did know that. It was why he’d moved back here. “Then next year hopefully I’ll be ready for courses in vineyard and winery management.
I’ve also still got a few general ed classes to finish.”

“Me too,” I said with a sigh. I didn’t want to think about school. It was summer. This was vacation. So I changed the subject again.
“So…Tori—”

He groaned. “You are such a girl. You never let things drop.”

“That’s not true!”

“Prove it,” he taunted.

“Fine.” I thought for a few seconds, struggling to come up with a subject change. “Do you still have a lot of friends around here?” He’d mentioned his friends to me over the years. I didn’t know if they were still around.

“Not really. I mean, I moved away three
, no wait,
four
years ago. I kind of lost touch with everyone. Grant was my closest friend but he’s in Colorado now, for school. Blaine moved away a year after I did. Last I heard Jake was around but I didn’t run into him last summer. Darren’s here, obviously.”

“I thought you didn’t like Darren?” It came out sounding like a question.

“I like Darren just fine. I just don’t like how he treats girls.”

“Oh. So even though you’re moving back to your hometown, it’s almost like you’re starting over. I mean, you’re going to have to make all new friends.”

He lifted his sunglasses to look over at me across the blanket. We were so close that I noticed his eyes weren’t entirely green. There was an amber ring that radiated outward from his iris. The result was shockingly pretty. I wasn’t sure how I’d missed that all of these years. I guess I just hadn’t been paying attention.

“
It’s not as bad as it sounds. I’m sure once classes start up I’ll run into a few more people I know. If not,” he made a face as if to say…
Who cares
? “It’s kind of like having a whole new start,” he said. “And that was my reason for coming here.”

Chapter 10

Two
weeks after leaving Chamberlain, I was still in Sapphire Bay. Not surprisingly, the more my parents pressured me to come home, the more determined I was to stay a little longer. As the days went by Max never asked when I was leaving. I was glad because I didn’t want to go back and he really didn’t seem to mind that I was around. He told me he liked the company. Phone calls to my parents became less frequent. I think they’d become resigned to the fact that I was on my own timeframe.

Max had started working full-time, though. That still gave us evenings to find something to do. Sometimes we’d sit on the beach, a couple of nights he’d grilled steaks, one rainy night we’d gone to a movie. But most of the time, we just spent relaxing. It was a nice change from the full class load and endless nights of homework I’d been buried under just the month before.

I was able to keep myself busy during the day while he was gone. The beach house was on the edge of town but there were plenty of places within walking distance. Every day I’d ventured just a little further as I became more familiar with the area.
It was a cute little town with unique, touristy shops on every block. I’d already spent hours walking through them. I hadn’t bought much, just a few small gifts for my friends. But it gave me something to do.

It w
as two weeks to the day I left, that Collin called for the first time. I was in my room, putting away some laundry. I swiped the phone off my dresser, thinking it was Felicia because I’d just left her a voice mail wishing her happy birthday.

I squinted at th
e ID on my phone, thinking I was seeing things, or imagining things. But no, it was Collin’s name that appeared. I silenced the ringer, waiting the call out. I stared at the phone in my hand for a moment, possibly even glared at it. As if it were to blame for the way my heart had tipped into a slow, painful plummet in my chest.

At first, I’d been waiting for him to call. But now, two weeks later…? It was much too little, far too late.

More than anything, I realized I was annoyed. I’d managed to pull myself together the last few weeks. I was doing fine. I was feeling good. I was enjoying my summer and having the best time with Max. With one call, he’d taken that away.

And I hadn’t even talked to him.

I immediately called Lanna.

“You sound mad,” she said.

“I am mad.” I threw myself down on the bed.

“Good,” she said. “
You should be. You wouldn’t be normal if you weren’t at least a little bit angry and bitter.”

“I was actually doing just fine until he called,” I admitted.
“Out of sight, out of mind has been working quite well for me.”

“Glad to hear it,” she quipped.
She was quiet a moment. Then she said, “To be honest, I was afraid one call from him would have you running back home. I’m also really surprised you didn’t answer. I thought you’d be dying to hear from him. And don’t be mad at me, but really, I thought you’d be the one flooding him with phone calls.”

I couldn’t be mad because I felt the same way she did. Lanna knew me well, probably better than anyone. I was actually as surprised as she was that I hadn’t called him once.

“I think, maybe, with everything that happened, we’ve crossed the point of no return.” I hadn’t been able to turn my feelings off completely but these past weeks, they’d faded substantially. The good feelings, the bad and even the mixed up ones were dying away. In other words, Collin himself was fading from my mind.

“I still think you sound like you’re taking this awfully well,” Lanna accused. “Are you suppressing everything?” She didn’t let me respond. “Or, maybe your feelings for Collin were never that strong in the first place.”

Had I
just
been thinking that Lanna knew me better than anyone? Obviously, I was wrong.

“
Excuse me?”

“
Okay, so you loved him…but were you in love with him?” she pressed. “Or were you just in love with the idea of getting married? Or did you just like the idea of making your families happy? Of having a nice, neat, clean, easy future laid out before you? I’m not saying you weren’t happy with him. You just seemed…comfortable with him but was there any
spark
?”

I was speechless.

She sighed. “I’m sorry. That was going too far.”

“Do you think?” I scoffed.

“Yes, I know it was. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that,” she admitted.

I agreed but I didn’t want to be mad at her. I decided a subject change was in order.

“How are things back home?” I asked.

She sighed dramatically. “Oh, you know, the usual. Dani and Felicia are squabbling again. Felicia’s mad because Dani has Todd spend the night too often. Dani’s mad because Felicia
spilled an entire box of her Cocoa Puffs. Or something like that. They’re both grumpy because rent went up. Felicia thinks Dani’s a slob. Dani’s in a constant state of annoyance because Felicia puts things where she can’t find them. I could go on but you know how they are so I’ll spare you from anymore details.”