“Finally,” he groans in relief.
Jesse looks across at Kaylah. “Did you want to invite anyone over? Looks like it’s going to be a bit of a party.”
Kaylah’s eyes light with excitement and she sits up a little straighter before a wall comes slamming down behind her eyes. She slouches back into the couch. “Nah, I’m good,” she tells him, making me wonder if there’s a little something deeper with Kaylah than I had originally thought.
I look across at Jesse and Jackson, both of them with a look of understanding and sadness on their faces. I throw my arm over Kaylah and drag her into me and Nate. “All my girls will come. I’ll introduce you properly. You and Elle would get along so well.”
Her eyes lighten and the mood instantly lifts.
Jesse catches my eye and winks. ‘Thank you’ he mouths.
I’m about to tell him to shove his ‘thank you’ up his ass when a baby screeching inside the house is heard as loud as though it was sitting out by the pool with us. “For fuck’s sake,” Jesse groans, getting up from the couch. He turns on Kaylah. “Don’t ever get pregnant,” he says before trudging inside, probably to feed his little baby, who apparently ended up being called Lucy.
“Finally,” Jackson grunts with a sly grin. “Something we can agree on.”
Kaylah rolls her eyes and raises her glass to her brother. “Finally.”
Over the space of the next hour, all the girls and guys appear and it quickly turns into a pool party, just like the one we had at the beginning of senior year, way back before Nate and I had even considered getting past our differences.
So much has changed since then. I have the world at my feet with an incredible boyfriend by my side.
I’ll be off to college in just under four months and I can’t wait. It’s going to be long and torturous, but when I receive that acceptance letting into Harvard Law School, it will all be worth it.
I don’t doubt that the next seven years of my life are going to be some of the hardest and most challenging years I’ve ever faced, but knowing Nate is by my side and my friends are always close by, I’ll be absolutely killing it.
Number one criminal lawyer in the United States – here I come.
I just have to get through the best summer of my life first.
I sit by the pool with my legs dangling in the water. I don’t know how but over the last little while, this Wednesday afternoon pool party went from being a small group of maybe twenty people to nearly the whole senior and junior years at Broken Hill High.
I look around at all the people and sigh. This is probably one of the last chances I’ll get to be around these people. They’ve been my support system for the last four years of my life and I don’t know what I’ll do without them. Though, it’s not like I’m going far.
Broken Hill University is a twenty minute drive down the road and Brooke will be coming with me.
I’m going to miss Brylee though, going all the way to Yale. I’m so damn proud of her, but did she have to apply to a school that was so far away?
Thinking of her has my head turning towards the pool to see the girls relaxing in the cool water in their bikinis, giving me a glimpse of what my summer is going to be like.
“Hey,” a familiar, deep voice says by my ear as two hands slip under my arms and pull me to my feet. “What are you doing over here?”
“Just thinking,” I say as Nate weaves his fingers through mine and pulls me away towards the seat he’d just vacated.
“About what?” he questions.
“All these people,” I explain. “We’re just about done at Broken Hill High and this is probably one of the last times all these people will be together. I’m going to miss this.”
Nate grins and runs his fingers down the side of my face, pushing my hair behind my ear. “Really?” he questions. “Jesse is going to rule Broken Hill High next year. We’re going to be seeing these people way more than we care to.”
I slip my arms over his neck and lean into his hard body. “You’re right,” I tell him. “You’re going to have to keep a close eye on him next year.”
“No, can do,” Nate grins. “I’ll be busy building up my business and drowning my sorrows at college to do that. He’s all yours.”
“What?” I shriek. “I don’t want him.”
“Too bad,” he grins. “I called dibs.”
“When did you call dibs?”
“Just now,” he grins.
Damn him.
“You’re lucky I love you, Nathaniel Ryder.”
“Lucky?” Nate scoffs as his hand slips under my legs. “I thought we covered this? I don’t get lucky.”