Falling for Summer (3 page)

As soon as we land, I’m already inside the SUV, heading out to Aunt Sookie’s. I’m used to driving, and although there are a few cars on the highway at two in the morning, I speed my way over to Santa Monica and then to Aunt Sookie’s house. The neighborhood is dark and quiet, but I can see the light on inside her house.

My heart begins pounding faster against my chest as I park the SUV into the driveway. Summer doesn’t know I’m here. She’s not expecting me. She’s expecting me to do the right thing, to do the practical thing that everyone expects of me and that is to study for my exams all night and take the exam in the morning. Not stand here at the front door to Aunt Sookie’s house, wondering how Summer will react to seeing me here. I know she once had a crush on me growing up, and I still think she may have cared for me during last summer, but now I’m not sure. Not when she has gone off on location to be with Astor, and not when Drew has told me he wanted a chance with her and for me to step aside.

I have a key to Aunt Sookie’s place, but I don’t want to scare Summer by barging in. So instead of using my key, I ring the doorbell. It’s a friendly chime, one I rarely hear since no one uses the doorbell these days.

I hear a commotion behind the door, and then I see a shadow of a person outline in the frosted glass side windows of the front door. A person with long hair and a womanly body.

The door opens, and I’m grinning widely, itching to see Summer and hold her in my arms.

When the door swings open to halfway, I see long shapely tanned legs stretched into a pair of tight denim mini-shorts, a toned tanned stomach leading up to a pair of perfectly formed breasts, barely covered by a turquoise blue bikini top. My mouth drops open and I try to keep from drooling.

Summer is standing there with her hair down, and it’s wet with water dripping down her chest and stomach. Her lips are full, plump, and lusciously dark pink as though she has been biting them. From just months ago to now, Summer has gone from a beautiful girl to a sexy vixen. From looking like a Victoria’s Secret model to more like Fredericks.

“Nat!” she cries throwing her arms around me, and hugging me tightly. At her touch, I feel the stirring of blood rush to my lower extremities, making certain parts of me harden with pleasure. She’s pressed against me so tightly, I can feel her breasts soft and wet against my jacket. I can smell her damp skin, warm and sweet up against me. Suddenly I have the urge to dry her. Not with a towel. No, for something so tantalizingly wet and dewy like her skin, I’ll have to lick her dry inch by inch. “What are you doing here?” She’s smiling but then she frowns. “I thought you have exams this morning. Nat…”

“Hi Summer,” I say. My voice comes out chocked and husky, rough almost, from fighting to sound friendly, rather than aroused, yet still recovering from the shock of seeing her looking sexy like that. I’ve seen her dressed up once in that incredible peach dress she wore to have dinner with Astor Fairway, but seeing her in cut-off shorts and a barely there bikini top with wet hair and wet skin in the middle of the night bathed only by the light of the moon, has gotten my blood rushing, and it’s not to the head on top of my body.

“Why are you here, Nat?” Summer asks, putting her hand on her hip and fixing her beautiful green eyes on mine. “Is everything alright?”

“I was about to ask you that,” I say. “I’m here because I got your text.”

“What?” Summer’s face clouds in confusion. “I didn’t ask you to come here, Nat. You shouldn’t be here when you have an exam at school this morning.” She pulls me into the house and closes the door.

“I flew here on the company jet,” I say. “It’s an emergency. The exam…I can make that up.”

“Nat?” Summer nods her head disapprovingly. “I don’t want you to do badly on your exam or miss it. I don’t want you blowing your grades because you think I needed your help. Now go back. Whatever you thought you read in my text to you, forget about it. It can wait.”

“Summer…” I look her up and down, taking her in before I reach out to touch her shoulders. “It’s not nothing. I don’t hear from you for a while, and then suddenly I get a text message, and it seems as though something’s up.”

Summer bites her lips at that moment, and I can see her shift her legs nervously. “Nat, I’ll be fine. You shouldn’t have come.”

“No, Summer, I have to. I promised I’ll watch out for you, I promised Aunt Sookie,” I stare into her eyes intensely, hoping to drive in the message. “Now don’t argue with me and take me into the living room where we can talk.”

Summer shivers a little, and I realize she’s still in her bikini top, wet, and probably freezing. Not probably. Is. It’s almost like she’s wearing nothing at that moment, but better, because her wet bikini top leaves a little bit to my imagination… which at the moment, is imagining a lot.

I almost groan with the image of us naked, sweaty and with our lips all over each other. Whenever we hug, she always fit against me so well, like yin and yang. I know when we get together, I’ll fit her like a glove, a tight glove, that is so tight, you can feel the blood rush through the veins.

“You’re freezing,” I scold playfully.

“No, I’m not,” Summer says, blushing. “You surprised me, that’s all. It’s warmer in the heated pool.”

“Where’s your towel?” I look around for one, but didn’t see one in sight. I take off my jacket and put it around her. “Tsk tsk, Summer. You know better than to get out of a heated pool dripping wet like that and standing here in the cold. You’re going to catch a cold if you don’t get covered up.” I take Summer’s hand and gently pull her into the living room I spent so many hours in growing up. The jacket has given her some warmth, but I can see her still shivering underneath. I wish I can take off the jacket and her wet bikini and warm her up the natural way…with my naked body pressed against her, and my hands rubbing each part of her.

Summer swat at me, her nose tickled a lovely shade of pink. “You surprised me, Nat. I wasn’t expecting anyone, and thought it was just the wind at first.” She smiled mischievously at me. “No one and nothing special.”

“Really?” I grin. My finger reaches out to touch her nose lightly. “I thought I was someone special for you.”

“Was,” Summer said lightly. “Now, you’re Nat, just light a big gnarly gnat.” She laughs at her own joke, and I can’t help chuckling alongside her. I know it’s not all that funny, but the way she’s laughing with a little bit of an adorable snort in there, makes me laugh, too. For someone who looks as hot as Summer does, and how nice she is, snorting is not what you expect. But it reminds me, that I’m with Summer, under that hot vixen body and adorable face.

I kiss her on the top of her head then and there. “I didn’t think showing up unexpected would get this much of a cold shoulder. And even calling me by my childhood nickname…”

“Ah, I think ‘gnarly gnat’ is a cute nickname for you,” she says, sitting us down on the white and blue slipcovered sofa in the living room. “It’s one of my better names for you. You should hear what nicknames Rachel and I came up with for Drew.”

“I can imagine,” I say, taking her hand into mine and entwining my fingers with hers.

One moment we’re laughing at sharing an old childhood memory, the next we’re looking into each others’ eyes. She stopped smiling. “I wish you wouldn’t do that,” she says.

“What?” I ask. Show affection for an old friend? Hold her hand to comfort her, show her that I care?

“Play with me,” Summer says, her eyes looking pained. “I’m too vulnerable for your games right now, Nat.”

“I’m not playing,” I protest. “I want to be here for you anyway I can. That’s why I’m here. I flew here to see you, to make sure you’re alright.”

“But, just now…your fingers, your kiss…”

So Summer can still feel the electricity between us. It’s not just me imagining the spark that always courses through us when we’re near each other. “Just on your forehead,” I said. “Like the way I would kiss my own sister Rachel. I promised Aunt Sookie I’d look out for you as I would Rachel. That’s what I’m doing now.”

Summer lifts her head to look at me, before looking away. Is it disappointment I see in those green eyes? Or is it anger? Her expression shifts so quickly I have to guess. Luckily, Summer answers that question for me. “Just like Rachel?” she asks, a little angrily. “If that’s the case, then you would be calling me or seeing me more often, like you do Rachel. But this, touching me here, and kissing me there…”

“Just a friendly kiss on the forehead,” I said. “I’m sorry if you think it’s more.”

“No, it can’t be more,” Summer’s voice is practically a whisper. “Not when you already said you have all these obligations, and I can’t be a priority for you, but a distraction.”

I groan. “No Summer,” I lean back into the sofa and take a deep breath. “I said that a while back when I was confused, hurt, and was trying to deal with everything. That was before…Aunt Sookie past away. Now you’re a priority. I made a promise to your Aunt, I’d be here for you, and here I am…and besides, aren’t you with Astor Fairway?”

“If you call seeing each other every so often, and being far away from each other with a few phone calls and text message in between, being together,” Summer says.

“I thought you two are a ‘hot item’, according to some of the stuff I’ve read,” I say dryly.

Summer’s head snap around so quick, I’d think she would have whiplash. “Oh, you’ve read all that?”

“That and a bunch of crappy stuff about the Academy.”

“You can’t believe that’s true,” Summer says. “Aunt Sookie’s Academy is a good place and a solid school. I can’t believe how people can say those things about her or the school.”

Summer looks like she’s about to cry. I know staying at Aunt Sookie’s pad and taking over her school is a lot for anyone to do. Summer’s a strong girl, but even she needs help once in a while. For Summer, who is living here, constantly reminded of Aunt Sookie, it must be extra hard.

With that, I look around the house, half expecting Aunt Sookie to walk through her bedroom door and into the kitchen to confirm what I’ve just said to Summer. For what it’s worth, Aunt Sookie always managed to be fair to all of us kids, although Summer has always been her favorite. She couldn’t help it. No one can. When it comes to picking favorites between insecure Drew, rebellious Rachel, broody me, and Summer, I’d pick her as favorite, too.

*****

The house looks just like it did when Aunt Sookie lived here. From the time we first started coming here every summer when I was five, and the twins were four, I’ve loved this house and everything about it. I love that when you walk into the house, you feel this calm and peace. I like that when you step outside to the backyard, there is a swimming pool and then a few steps down, you have the entire beach at your disposal. I love the campfires we had, and the stories Aunt Sookie told, especially about the pirates in Malibu. I used to think it was all made up, but when I was ten, Summer smiles at me one day and says, “I have to show you something.”

“Sure,” I say, and I follow her down the beach to a remote area with jagged cliffs and sand. There, Summer shows me a cave nearby that did belong to a pirate. Rachel and Drew followed up our discovery with a visit to the library where they found books about real pirates who used Malibu as a place to bury treasure.

“So you see,” Aunt Sookie says, her eyes bright with mirth. “There used to be pirates here on the beach, and when it gets very foggy on a cold dark night, sometimes, you can see the ghost of their ships sailing over the horizon.”

That is one good memory I have of being here with Aunt Sookie and Summer. The sands around the Pad is filled with our history…the Donovans and the Jones’ that spans a decade of fun, happy, sometimes sad, growing up, and everlasting experiences. Surfing lessons from Aunt Sookie, diving, stargazing, walking and running on the beach, and even beach parties. It’s Aunt Sookie’s house, the one she kept from her marriage to a producer, when she was a young actress on a television series. The house and the series lasted longer than the marriage, but Aunt Sookie managed to still look as beautiful as she did when she first owned the house. Beautiful even up to the point she got sick and started requiring special diets and living. No one knew she was sick. Aunt Sookie. It hits me like a rock how much I missed her. How different it is without her here at her Malibu Pad. I can feel the emptiness of the place without her, and I can feel Summer’s loneliness staying here without Aunt Sookie. My heart feels heavy, and I suddenly feel that same loneliness permeate through me.

“How are you doing?” I ask Summer, softly. Gone is my cockiness, my joking, just me and Summer, talking like old friends and confidantes. “I mean with everything?” Summer moves a bit on the small sofa, shifting her legs so she’s sitting more upright so she can face me. The sofa we’re on is really more the size of a large armchair. Summer and I are sitting so closely, she’s practically on my lap, and my entire body is aware of it. I narrow my eyes, feeling a possessive growl form from deep inside of me. I want to pull her entire body onto my lap and pull off her shorts. Every pore on my skin tells me to do it, but looking around me, at Aunt Sookie’s kitchen and even her photo on the mantel, I remember the promise I made Aunt Sookie
. I don’t ever want to hurt you, Summer.
Instead of saying that, I clear my throat and asks, “Why did you text me today? Is it all that stuff that’s on the Internet? Is it Astor Fairway? Is he treating you right? Is it…”

“Nat, I text you once in a while. Today’s not that significant.”

I shake my head and cup her chin with the palm of my hand, directing her eyes on mine. “Come on, Sum. It’s me, Nat. You can tell me anything.”

Summer looks down and back up, her lips part in an agonizingly delicious way. Man, even now with her face in my hand, and me trying to get her to confide in me, I’m still thinking with a certain part of my body.

“Nat,” she says firmly in a tone that reminds me of Aunt Sookie, but still velvety soft like Summer. “I’m worried about you first. You should be back in San Francisco, studying or sleeping. Not here. I don’t want to be the reason you fail out of college. Please. You have to go back now and sleep or study and get ready for that exam. I’m fine. I’ve been fine. And I…I have Drew…”