Pieces of Summer

Clutching my aching head, I pull on a pair of exercise shorts with my free hand, awkwardly working them over my hips. Sluggishly, I head downstairs for coffee, since coffee is a good cure for crying hangovers.

Just as I stumble into the kitchen, a small breath leaves my lips as my jaw tries to unhinge. Why the hell is Whit in my kitchen?

She’s sipping coffee, regarding me intently as she sits at my bar.

I look around, making sure I didn’t accidentally sleepwalk into the wrong home last night. Nope. Definitely mine.

“Morning,” she says softly.

My eyes drop to the white T-shirt covering her body, and my eyebrow arches. That’s definitely Aidan’s shirt.

“We need to talk,” she tells me.

“I think I need coffee first,” I mumble, moving over to the blessed caffeine beast and hurriedly making a cup before we start swapping questions.

“Do I want to know why you’re in Aidan’s shirt?” I ask her, already dreading the answer. I can’t believe Aidan would do this. He’s hardcore against cheating, since he saw what having your heart broken did to me.

I might have been a teenage drama queen, but it felt like my life was ending. That led to a very fucked up version of myself for longer than I care to admit. It’s probably part of the reason why Aidan is here with me now, probably worried it was all going to trigger something.

I’m not that girl. Yes, I’m severely different and incredibly messed up, but I’m in control now. I couldn’t be the wild, careless party girl I became after that painful spring even I wanted to be.

“I came here last night to talk to you,” she says on a sigh.

I relax a little. When I got home, Aidan had just showed up, and I told him I was sick before disappearing into my room. So… Whit spent the night and needed something to sleep in? That’s better than cheating.

“I feel like I should hate you.” Her words are matter-of-fact, not harsh.

I look over at her and frown.

“Why hate me? I’ve already promised I’m not here for Chase. I wouldn’t even be here right now if I’d known he still lived here.”

“You could have called any shop in this town and asked if the James boy still lived here, and they’d have told you yes. You could have asked Chuck about it one of the million times you spoke to him before moving down, and he’d have told you yes. So try again.”

True.

“I try not to ask about him,” I admit honestly. “But I did think he was gone. He always hated this place, and when his mother died and he posted he was moving, I never foresaw him returning.”

She sets her coffee down. “I always wondered why he came back, and now I think it was subconsciously about you.”

“Me? Why me? I didn’t live here. And in case you haven’t noticed, he’s intent on hating me.”

“Which takes me back to my previous statement; I feel like I should hate you. Are you the one who turned him into this? Because I’ve been blaming his parents this entire time. He was volatile when younger, but he’s just cold now.”

Volatile? When was he volatile?

My heart clenches in my chest, and I move my coffee to the counter and sit down across from her at the bar.

“You want all the sordid details?” I ask angrily.

“Yes. I do. I think I deserve to know them.”

She’s right. Even though I feel like it’s none of her business, Chase should have already told her.

“Fine. Let’s start at the beginning.”

That’s what I do. I start from the first time I saw the sweet boy in town. My father asked him if he wanted to come eat with us. He knew the James family. He knew how shitty Chase had it.

I tell Whit about how Chase and I retreated to the roof of this home the second dinner was over because there was a meteor shower. We ended up talking almost all night long. No one came looking for Chase, and my father made him a bed on the couch.