Troy leaned in and kissed her, cutting off the rest of her sentence. His lips were soft, yet insistent, and there was an edge of urgency to the kiss.
When he pulled back, she blinked at him, all her thoughts tangled up in his lips instead of whatever she’d been saying. But then she remembered. Confessing. Making things clear. And as much as she wanted to keep kissing him, she had more she needed to say. “Um, like I was saying, I like you, but I can’t stand in line with all your other girls. I’m not built that way.”
“You keep talking about these other girls,” he said. “But you’re the one who kissed me then avoided me for a few days. Then you topped it off with the just-friends speech.”
“That’s because I walked out of practice the day I kissed you and saw you talking to that girl you’re always with. The one who’s on the volleyball team.”
“Cara?”
Summer crossed her arms. “Yeah, her.”
“Her brother Kevin is in the band with me. She’s been finding us places for the band to play. She books the gigs; that’s it.”
“That’s not it. I’ve seen the way she is around you. Anyone could see that girl’s all about you.”
“I don’t know how she feels.” Troy locked eyes with Summer. “All I know is that I’ve been all about one girl for a long time.” Her heart swelled, and she wanted to believe him more than anything.
“What about the girl on the beach? The one who needed surf lessons?”
“That was Kevin’s way of trying to get me over you.” Troy grabbed her hand and tugged it free of her cross-armed position. “It didn’t work, though.” He lifted her hand and slid his fingers between hers. “Summer, I’ve liked you since the minute I met you. I used to feel guilty because I was dating Kristen and thinking about you. By the time I decided I needed to break up with her and try to wait a respectable five minutes to tell you how I felt, you were dating Studmuffin. Why do you think I hate him so much?”
Summer shrugged, his touch, her rapid heartbeat, making her blissfully dizzy.
“It’s because he was dating my girl. I was supposed to be with you, not him. I thought I’d get over it during the summer,” he said. “That lasted until I saw you again. Then every time I tried to talk to you about it, I couldn’t say anything right and we ended up fighting—the complete opposite of what I was going for, by the way.”
“Well, ever since you kissed me in the hall, I’ve been all messed up.”
A slow smile spread across his face. “I did want to help you out there, but I’ll admit it was a little selfish on my part. I wanted to kiss you for a long time, and I decided that might be my only chance. I’ve been miserable ever since.” He ran his fingers along her jaw. “It was almost better when I didn’t know how it felt to kiss you.”
This time, Summer initiated the kiss. He didn’t take long to join in, though, slipping his hand behind her neck and parting her lips with his. Where his last kiss was urgent, this one was more of a slow build, soft kisses that merged together in a delicious blur.
The doorbell rang, and Summer hesitantly pulled away. “I bet that’s my pizza.”
“I’ll get it.”
Summer handed him the money. “I’ll grab cups and plates and meet you back here.”
A clear conscious made Summer feel a little better—especially since admitting her feelings for Troy had ended up going so well. Part of her felt guilty for even kissing Troy on a day like this. But then she thought Ashlyn would’ve been happy. If only she could see her face light up when she told her. Hear her say I told you so. The hollow ache in Summer’s chest throbbed, a reminder that life would never be the same again.
She filled two cups with ice, grabbed a couple of plates and the package of Oreos, and headed back into the living room.
Troy set the pizza on the coffee table, and they filled their cups and plates. By the time they finished eating, Summer felt like she might just survive tonight after all. She’d have to worry about all the days following later.
Troy polished off the last of the soda. He sat back and pinned her with an ominous eyebrow raise. “Okay, so tell me about today.”
Looking at him, she thought that telling him how she felt first was a mistake. This was going to be hard, and she couldn’t help worrying about his reaction. They might never kiss again. “Are you sure you want to know? You’re going to think I’m crazy.”
Troy reached out and took her hand. “I want to know what’s going on. How did you know what was going to happen before it did?”
“You know how I told you I had a bad feeling about my mom leaving that day?” Summer asked. “The day she was killed?”
“Yeah, I remember you saying that.”
“When I hugged her that morning, I didn’t just feel something bad was going to happen…” She hesitated for a second, not sure how much she should divulge. But then Troy gave her hand a reassuring squeeze, and she just blurted out the rest. “I saw her get shot. I saw her die. I tried to convince her not to go, but she went anyway. I thought maybe it was my imagination, but… Well she… I saw her death before it happened, Troy.”
“You’re saying that you’re psychic?”
“Not really. It’s hard to explain.” Summer took a deep breath. “I guess I’ll start at the beginning…” She told him about the man on the sidewalk, how it was like watching a few minutes of a movie in fast-forward. “For years I thought it was just my imagination running wild. I didn’t know it was coming true. Not for sure. Until my mom.” The pressure in her lungs grew until she was sure they’d burst. “After that day I was sure.”
Troy didn’t say anything, just continued to stare.
I knew this was a bad idea. I freaked him out. “I understand this changes things,” Summer said, wanting him to know it was okay if it was too much for him, even though she didn’t think she’d be okay if he left her.
“It doesn’t change the way I feel about you.” He brushed his thumb over her knuckles. “That must’ve been really hard. Seeing your mom…”
The burning started in her eyes again, and she clenched her jaw to try to kill the tears. “I wish I could’ve stopped her. I tried, but it didn’t matter. Like with the guy I yelled at after we left the record store. I saw him falling asleep at the wheel. That’s why I told him to wake up. To drink something.”
“Maybe he took your advice,” Troy said. “Maybe he didn’t die.”
“No. He died.” Summer remembered how mad Gabriella had been. “In fact, my advice almost killed other people.”
“How do you know?”
“I just do,” she said softly, without the anger she’d put behind it earlier today. “I guess I’m drawn to them, because it’s happening more and more. It happened again on the beach, the guy I ran into after we were surfing. That mean older guy…” The memory made her shudder. Especially when she remembered the nightmares she’d had afterward. “He broke into an old lady’s house, and she shot him when he tried to pull a gun on her. I didn’t try to stop him. Not only because he was armed at the beach, but because I thought the world would be better off. I guess that makes me a bad person.”
Troy squeezed her hand, his silver ring cool compared to the warmth of his skin. “You’re not a bad person. And it sounds like you couldn’t have done anything anyway.” He glanced down, the muscles in his jaw working. When he spoke, his voice was heavy with emotion. “How long did you know about Ashlyn?”
She breathed through the throb of pain brought by hearing Ashlyn’s name, the fact that Troy was so affected making it even harder to control her own emotions. Here was where things got tricky. It was one thing to share this so-called psychic ability; it was another to admit the Angel of Death was a frequent visitor. “I didn’t see Ashlyn’s death until today. When I hugged her, I saw her dying in the ambulance. I thought maybe if I could keep her out of it…” Her voice cracked and she couldn’t continue.