Say Yes (Nostalgic Summer Romance)

But jealousy slithered in my stomach like a hungry snake, because I’d seen him walking with a girl after class today.

A very curvy, very beautiful girl.

I had no idea who she was, or where they were going, or if I had any reason to be jealous. All I knew was that, according to Angela and the agreement I’d so cheerfully entered into with Liam when I’d convinced him I could do this, I wasn’t allowed to be jealous.

Nor was I allowed to be as upset about not seeing him for a week as I was.

Part of me felt like I had it under control. So what, he hadn’t asked to hang out. That was fine. Maybe he scratched his itch, and now we were back to what we were before yes night: which was to say, nothing at all.

The other part of me was more twisted up than a pretzel. Because the truth was now that I’d had him — all of him — I wanted more. I didn’t want the past few weeks to be it. I didn’t want to go back to what we were before.

And I definitely didn’t want to share.

“Aren’t you going to open it?” Angela asked, snapping me back to the moment.

“Later.”

“Later? It was sent all the way from the States. Aren’t you curious what’s inside?”

“It’s probably just cookies or something.”

“I like cookies.”

I didn’t respond.

“Cookies would be a hell of a lot better than this,” she noted, picking up one of my celery sticks before dropping it back on the plate.

“I said I’ll open it later!”

Angela cocked a brow at the outburst, folding her arms over her chest. “Okay… what’s going on?”

I sighed, shaking my head. “Nothing. Sorry. I’m just… irritated.”

“Because?”

I flattened my lips together, because I knew if I told her the truth, she’d tell me I was in trouble. She’d tell me I needed to walk away from him before I ended up hurt. And I knew if I told her a lie, she’d see right through it.

So, the best thing to do was to just stay silent.

She plopped down next to me on the couch. “I don’t want to resort to this, but you better start talking or I’ll start tickling,” she threatened, wiggling her fingers toward me to seal the intent.

I squirmed away from her. “I can’t tell you.”

That got her attention, her brows folding together, tickle fingers falling dead at her sides. “What do you mean, you can’t tell me? You tell me everything.”

“I just… can’t,” I said again. “I’m fine, I promise. Just a little emotional. Okay? Can we just drop it?”

Angela chewed her cheek, obviously not happy with that option. “Okay. But only if you open that package and stop whatever is happening here,” she said, gesturing to the sad, half-eaten piece of celery on my plate.

I nodded, deciding that whatever was in the package from home would probably cheer me up, anyway. And regardless, if it got me out of admitting to Angela that I was struggling with the very thing she warned me about, I’d take it.

She popped off the couch and grabbed the box, setting it in my lap, and just as she did, our phone rang.

My heart leapt into my throat, and I jumped off the couch and ran to the phone before Angela could even process that it had rung. “I’ll get it!” I said, and as soon as I picked it up, I forced a breath to try to sound cool. “Hello?”

“Hello, sweetheart!”

My shoulders deflated at the sound of my mom’s voice, a reaction that made a twinge of guilt follow on the heels of disappointment. Had this been even one week ago, and I would have been ecstatic to receive a call from home.

But there was only one person I wanted to hear from right now.

The one person seemingly fine with never talking to me again.

“Hey, Mom,” I said on a sigh, and Angela pointed to her room before disappearing and leaving me to talk.

“Dad’s here, too,” she said.

“Hey, pumpkin,” I heard him say next.

“Hey, Daddy. Is everything okay?” I asked, frowning when I saw the time on the clock. “It’s early there. And I know long distance is expensive.”

“Did you get a package?” Dad asked.

That made my brows pop into my hairline. “I did. Just now, actually.”

“We were tracking it,” Mom explained. “Have you… opened it?”

“I literally just got it.” My stomach flipped in warning. “What’s in it? Is everything okay?”

“Open it and find out,” Mom said, and I could tell from the tone of her voice that she wore one of her big smiles, the one I always called her I got a good deal at Nordstrom smile.

“Okay… one sec,” I said, setting the phone down long enough to grab the box from across the room. It was light, too light for how big it was. When I got back, I sandwiched the phone between my shoulder and ear, grabbing our only pair of scissors to help open it. “Why do I feel like a Jack-in-the-Box is about to jump out at me?”