Page 38 of Stalk Me (The Keatyn Chronicles 1)
My phone starts to buzz again. I look down and see it’s not a text, it’s my alarm.
A smile breaks out on my face as I realize it’s finally time to spread the news. RiAnne and Vanessa should be sitting down at their prized lunch table right about now.
All alone.
I turn to Mandy and Alicia, who are lying in the chaises next to me. “This has been so much fun. We need to tweet about it, upload some party pics, and tag everyone on Facebook. ”
“Maybe we should take a group photo?” Alicia suggests.
“GROUP PHOTO!” I yell to everyone.
We all line up on the beach, do some silly pics, and instantly post them.
“Maybe we should post a few of the ones I took last night of you dancing on the bar,” Alicia says.
“That’d be fun. I really feel sorry for everyone stuck at school. Today is like perfect. What a great way to blow off some steam before we have to start studying for finals,” Mandy says.
Alicia flips through her phone. “What do you think of this one?”
“That one’s good. My legs look skinny,” I laugh. “Although I look a little tipsy. ”
“You were a little tipsy,” Mandy says. “But if I was licking salt off Cush’s abs, I would have been totally wasted. He’s so hot. ”
“Um, thanks. ” I think. I’m starting to think Mandy has a bit of a crush on Cush.
“The way you can dance, I’m surprised you’ve never tried out for dance team,” Alicia says.
“I thought about it, but Vanessa thought it would be lame of me. ”
“Well you’re breaking free of Vanessa and her evil, bitchy ways, right?”
“Yeah, I guess. I just want to have a drama-free year next year. ”
“You still gonna be dating Cush?” Mandy asks.
“I hope so. We’re having lots of fun. Saturday night was incredible. ”
I tell them all the hotel details. Every detail he planned. How he’s already told me he loves me. I’m so bragging. I normally wouldn’t kiss and tell, but I get the feeling Mandy would offer herself up to Cush if given the chance.
My phone buzzes with a text from Vanessa. She texted me a couple times this morning, wondering why I wasn’t at school.
But this text is different.
She’s PISSED!
“Oh, wow. ”
“Is it Vanessa? What’d she say?” Mandy’s eyes light up. I think Mandy enjoys drama a little too much.
“She said, Do you really want to do this? Go up against me? You planned this, right? RiAnne and I sitting by ourselves, then you perfectly time the tweets and Facebook photos. I have to admit, I underestimated you. ”
Mandy and Alicia laugh, joke, and trash talk Vanessa.
I don’t laugh with them. In fact, I barely register that they’re speaking because Brooklyn has just stepped foot onto the beach. He and Mark are dragging out their boards.
The girls follow my eyes. “Who’s that?”
“A neighbor. We surf together,” I say, but I sort of feel like my heart is shattering into a bunch of really small shards of glass, and those glass shards are trying to poke out through my chest. I wrap my hand tightly into a ball, trying to ward away the pain. I haven’t seen him since that night he asked me to go to Hermosa with him. I haven’t talked to him since our text fight, when he told me to grow up.
I have to go say something. At least Mark is there. I can pretend I’m just being nice, normal, friendly Keats.
I’m a bit hungover, but I have on big sunglasses, and I look good in a new bikini. “I’ll be back,” I tell the girls.
I jog down the beach. “Hey, Mark!”
Mark turns around. “S’up, girly. You having a party, and you didn’t invite me? Aren’t you supposed to be at school?”
“We decided to do an all-nighter last night, skip school, and hang here. We have finals this week; thought we’d blow off a little steam. ”
“Sucks you didn’t come to Hermosa. We were so stoked. We met the coolest . . . ”
Brooklyn cuts him off. “Let’s get out there,” he says directly to Mark. I swear his eyes have looked directly at everything on the beach but me.
“Uh, sure,” Mark says, grabbing his board.
Just as they are almost in the water, Cush grabs me from behind. I was carefully studying every move Brooklyn made and did not hear him sneak up on me.
“Ahhhhh!” I scream.
Brooklyn turns around to see Cush pick me up and twirl me around. Then he drops my feet into the sand and kisses me.
It’s a long kiss, but I’ve yet to close my eyes. I’m still staring out at the ocean. Out at Brooklyn, specifically.
And Brooklyn chooses this exact moment to finally lock eyes with me. The look of disgust he gives me makes me feel like the broken shards from my heart are now flying into my eyes, piercing them.
And it pisses me off.
It’s not my fault we’re not together.
I didn’t leave him.
I didn’t hook up with someone else.
Um, okay, so I did, but that was only after he ditched me.
I decide it’s only fair to throw a few shards back in the jerk’s direction.
I leap up and wrap my legs around Cush’s waist. He grabs my butt to hold me up while kissing me. I close my eyes and get into the kiss. Start running my hands wildly through the back of his hair. Trying to show Brooklyn how much I like Cush. How what he did didn’t hurt me in the least. Because I’m happy, and lucky to be with a guy like Cush.
After our big PDA, Cush sets me down. “Want a piggyback ride?”
I don’t reply, just jump on his back, wrap my arms around his neck, and kiss his shoulder while he runs back up the beach.
When I hop off his back, he turns to me and says with a smirk, “That probably pissed him off, huh?”
“Probably. Is that why you did it?”
“Yep. ” Then he gives me the sweetest looking face ever and whispers, “Plus, I love you. ”
I give him a quick kiss on the cheek.
“Well, I don’t care what he thinks,” I lie.
I want to look back at him, but I can’t bear to, so I change the subject. “Vanessa is super pissed. ”
“We knew she would be. ”
I grab my phone and read him what she said. Another text pops up on my screen. This one I don’t read to anyone.
