“Thank God I’m not cool, and the feeling is mutual.”
Ty surprised me by wrapping a hand around my wrist and tugging me faster along with him. “This is such a sweet date. I can’t wait to get down to the sand.”
“Not a date,” I reminded him. I really needed to get my shit together so I could get the upper hand again. Ty had it incredibly too much lately.
Still, I didn’t pull away and he didn’t let go as we navigated our way down the cliff. When we got to the bottom, he immediately took his shoes and socks off, and I did the same. We weren’t dressed for the beach. I hadn’t planned on us coming here. At first, I was just going to drive by, but then this weird, unexplainable part of me had wondered if Ty liked sunsets over the water as much as those photos led me to believe he liked the sunrise.
There were a few people on the sand, a couple of people surfing, and random stragglers walking down from Beacon’s Beach toward Moonlight, which was always busier.
“There’s a lot of erosion around here,” I told him. “A lot of the sand is covered at high tide.”
He froze. “Did you bring me out here to drown me?”
“Fuck, how’d you know?”
We didn’t go toward the water, instead walking a little ways down, stopping close to an area in the cliff where the rocks jutted out. It wasn’t safe to sit beneath it because rocks sometimes fell, but we could stay close. Unfortunately, the cliff was being eaten away.
We both lowered ourselves, setting our shoes beside us, and then…nothing.
“Wanna make out?” Ty broke the silence.
“Do you ever shut up?”
“It was an awkward silence. I had to break it up somehow.”
He was right. This whole talking thing we’d started to do lately was fucked up, but now that we were sitting here, hanging out in this planned way, I didn’t know what to say.
I shrugged. “Sure.”
Ty whipped his head in my direction, eyes wide before he narrowed them and scowled. “You fucker! I thought you were serious.”
A laugh tumbled out of my mouth, deep, making my stomach and chest vibrate. “Aw, did little Ty get his hopes up?”
“You’ve had my dick in your mouth, Sunshine. You know there’s nothing little about me.”
“Oh God. You’re such a fucking jock.” I didn’t know how I could forget that, but sometimes I did.
“Because I like to talk about how impressive my junk is?”
“I mean, partly.”
“What’s your issue with jocks?”
There was zero chance of me sharing something so personal and embarrassing with him.
Before I could figure out how to respond, Ty frowned. He tugged his phone out of his pocket and groaned. “My dad, because of course it is. I wonder if Coach called to tell him I’m missing practice.”
He was missing practice. Shit. “Why didn’t you say something? I can bring you back.” I’d just taken him here with me, assuming he didn’t have anything else to do. I didn’t even think about lacrosse.
“Nah, it’s okay. The guys are covering for me. I’m currently puking my brains out.”
So, he’d thought about practice and messaged them to help with an excuse? I remembered him texting before we’d made the hike down. Had that been what he was doing? My stomach twisted, and my heart raced at the thought. I wasn’t sure how I felt about it. Ty had chosen hanging out with me over the game he loved so much? It didn’t compute.
He rejected the call, but it immediately started to buzz again. “He can’t handle not being in control of everything,” Ty said. “The more I ignore him, the more insistent he’ll be to talk just so he can tell me all the ways I’m fucking up and how much of a disappointment I am. Langleys don’t fold. They don’t get their emotions involved. They care about the bottom line, and that’s all.” He scooped up a fistful of sand, then slowly let it sift through his fingers. “Sorry. I don’t talk to my friends about stuff like this, so it just sort of comes out when I’m with you.”
I almost joked about him basically saying I wasn’t his friend, but it didn’t feel right. “It’s cool. You know my dad is in prison, and you saw my brother’s shit. Families are fucked up.”
“Yeah, but the difference between mine and yours is mine tries to pretend they’re not. Even my mom… I love her to death, but she just acts like nothing happened. I’m supposed to forget the fact that my father is a cheating asshole, that he wasn’t a real dad to my brother, and just keep following in his footsteps.”
“Maybe she thinks it’s what you want too. If she knew you wanted to be a nurse, she might change her mind.”