The Year of Falling in Love (Sunnyvale #2) Read online

  But that feeling quickly faded about a week later when one of my so-called friends saw me hanging out with her. I had two choices in that moment: 1.) I could own it and finally just be who I was without hiding. But that would mean getting teased like crazy, and with everything going between my dad and me, I wasn’t sure I could handle that. Or 2.) I could lie and cower out of the situation by calling her a stalker like Hannah did all the time.

  I stupidly and very cowardly went with option two, and to this day, I still hate myself a little bit for it. Maybe I deserve to be in the position I am now—sitting here, trying to make money to pay a debt that isn’t even mine while Isa is back in Sunnyvale with Kyler.

  The thought, while probably true, is really effing depressing, so depressing I turn on my Emo playlist just so the music fits my mood.

  Forty-five minutes and nine angsty songs later, I’m finally pulling into Mapleview. The town is a tiny blip on a map, even smaller than Sunnyvale, which says a lot.

  After I circle the designated block three times without spotting a guy wearing a hoodie and brass knuckles, I grow worried he might be a no show. Still, I drive around the block six more times before pulling over into the parking lot of a nearby gas station.

  I’m not sure what to do. I don’t have my phone, so I can’t call Big Doug. He did say that, if I saw anyone sketchy, I wasn’t supposed to drop off the envelope. But it’s not like I’ve seen anyone sketchy; I just haven’t seen anyone at all.

  I make another few loops around the block, which basically consists of a few abandoned houses, a boarded up warehouse, and the gas station. Again, I don’t see a single damn person, so I return to the gas station parking lot and sit in my car, trying to figure out what to do.

  I pick up the envelope, turn it over, and fiddle with the clasp, debating whether to open it or not. I know Big Doug said not to, but dammit, I’m really curious what could be in this thing that’s worth all this trouble.

  I mess around with the clasp for a minute or two before setting the envelope back down without opening it. If I want to get paid for this job, then I need to do it right.

  I climb out of my car and head for the gas station to see if the cashier will let me use their phone. But halfway across the parking lot, I realize that Big Doug is speed dial number seven in my phone, and I don’t know his number.

  “Shit. What the heck am I supposed to do now?” I curse under my breath, turning back around for the car.

  That’s when I spot a guy near my car, wearing a ski mask and holding a crowbar. When he raises the crowbar to break the window, I run at him.

  “Don’t you fucking dare!” I shout at him.

  The guy is completely unfazed as he bashes the crowbar against the window. Glass shatters as he reaches inside, snatching up the envelope.

  I barrel toward him, ready to beat his ass. But the closer I get, the more aware I become that the dude is fucking hella big, like sumo wrestler big. I slow down as I reach the back of my car, deliberating how far I want to take this. Sure, I promised Big Doug I’d guard the envelope with my life when I left, but I didn’t mean that literally.

  Sumo guy knows he can beat my ass too, because he’s just standing there, waiting for me to make a move.

  I linger near the rear end of the car, keeping some space between us. “I’m going to call the cops on your ass if you don’t give me that back.” Sure, I don’t have my phone on me, but he doesn’t know that.

  I swear I hear him laugh. Then he’s suddenly striding toward me. Stepping back, I swing my fist around to punch him at the same time he raises the crowbar at me. My knuckles collide with his jaw as the metal bar slams against the side of my face. I hit the ground hard.

  He hovers over me, grasping the crowbar. “Tell Big Doug his three strikes are up,” he growls then raises the crowbar and whacks it against the side of my head.

  Everything goes black.

  Chapter 10

  Isabella

  After we buy our ice cream, we sit in the car and eat it. I’m trying to be super cheery, but my thoughts are all over the place. I’m exhausted, on edge, and I’m sure I’m coming off as an energy draining downer. Despite the fact that the dark blue car hasn’t made a grand appearance since we pulled into the ice cream shop, I can’t shake the feeling it’s going to materialize at any given moment. Even the cup of ice cream I’m holding doesn’t help alleviate my worries.

  “I still can’t believe what you put in that.” Kyler stares at the cup of ice cream in my hand, his face scrunched.

  I can’t help smiling as I replay the look he gave me when I ordered strawberry ice cream with cheesecake, sprinkles, cookies, gummy worms, and chocolate syrup toppings.

  “You have no idea what you’re missing out on. It’s so yummy.” I stuff a spoonful into my mouth to prove my point. “It took me years of trying out different concoctions to get it right, and all of the concoctions were good.”

  His lips quirk. “It took you that long to put together something that looks that disgusting?”

  I stick my tongue out at him. “I’ve made ones that look way worse, like when I put gumballs and nuts into a cotton candy flavored ice cream. I almost threw that one up.”

  He makes another repulsed face. “That sounds so gross, but anything with cotton candy in it sounds gross to me.”

  My eyes widen. “You don’t like cotton candy?”

  He visibly shudders. “Ever since I was ten and ate an entire bag before I rode the Zipper at the carnival.”

  “Let me guess.” I try not to laugh at how intensely serious he seems over the subject. “You threw up?”

  “Yep. And trust me when I say it may taste good going down, but not so much when it comes up.”

  “I’ll have to take your word for it, but I don’t think it’s going to stop me from eating cotton candy or cotton candy flavored ice cream.”

  “You’re kind of crazy.” A sudden, almost thoughtful, expression appears on his face. “A crazy girl who makes touchdowns like a boss and likes the most disgusting looking ice cream I’ve ever seen.”

  “Hey, you can’t mock the ice cream until you’ve tried it.” I scoop up another spoonful, slowly put it into my mouth, and exaggerate a moan. “Mmm … soooo good.”

  He stirs his cookie dough ice cream, his attention zeroed in on my mouth. “When you put it that way, it does kind of look tasty.”

  I feel my skin warm like gooey caramel. I try to think of something flirty to say, but my brain flatlines.

  He stares at my mouth for a beat or two longer before dragging his gaze to meet mine. He pulls his bottom lip between his teeth. “Can I try it?”

  “The ice cream?” My voice sounds unnaturally high.

  He bites down harder on his lip, restraining a smile. “Sure.”

  For some reason, I don’t think he meant the ice cream.

  I take a subtle inhale, collecting myself before I speak again. “I don’t know. It’s not really for amateurs.” I mentally high-five myself for how light and flirty my voice sounds.

  He teasingly glares at me. “Come on, give me a taste. I can handle it.”

  I tap my finger against my lips, pretending to consider it. “Oh, fine. But if you hate it, don’t blame me.”

  He grins, leans over the console, and opens his mouth.

  My mouth goes dry. Umm … He wants me to feed him? While Indigo taught me a thing or two about flirting, I was never able to do it as easily as she can. I always got nervous, and that was with guys we just met in clubs and stuff. This is Kyler—Kyler Meyers sitting here, waiting for me to feed him ice cream.

  Willing my hand not to shake, I shovel up a spoonful of ice cream and move the spoon toward his mouth. His eyes are fixed on me as he waits. My heart is losing it inside my chest, throbbing like a song with a pulsating deep bass. My pulse only quickens when his lips wrap around the spoon and he slowly sucks the ice cream off.

  I’ve heard Indigo use the term erotic before: for the sound of a guy’s voice, th
e way someone dances, the way a guy she likes says her name. But I don’t think I ever quite understood the term until now.

  Kyler slants back, licking his lips, and his gaze floats upward as he lets the flavor sink into his taste buds.

  “So, what do you think?” I must have a fairy godmother or something, because, by some miracle, my voice comes out as smooth as taffy.

  “It’s not too bad.” His lips spread into a grin as he steals a chunk of my ice cream with his spoon. “It’s actually really good.” He licks the ice cream off the spoon, and again, the word erotic flashes through my mind.

  I’m not sure what my expression looks like, but something about it makes Kyler chuckle.

  “I think, the next time we come back here, I just might get a cup for myself,” he says, licking his spoon clean.

  “Oh, yeah?” I ask. Next time. “Not brave enough to make up your own concoction?”

  His lips part in mock shock. “Are you challenging me?”

  “Maybe. I think the only way you could win the challenge is if you put some cotton candy flavored ice cream in it.”

  “Nope. Never gonna happen.”

  I shrug. “Then I guess you lose the challenge.”

  He considers something. “What would I get if I did it? What would you give me if, the next time we came here, I ate a whole bowl of cotton candy ice cream with any toppings you put on it.”

  “That challenge sounds dangerous. I get really excited about ice cream toppings.”

  “I didn’t ask about the dangerous risks I’d be subjecting my taste buds to. What I asked is what I’d win if I did it. What would you give me?”

  “Why would it have to be something I gave you?” I grin. “Wouldn’t the reward be getting to eat awesome tasting ice cream?”

  His eyes flare with something I can’t quite decipher as his lips tug to a grin. “No, I’d definitely want something from you.”

  It’s getting really, really hot in here.

  I stuff another bite of ice cream into my mouth while I consider a reply. “Fine. What would you want?”

  “I’m not sure yet. I definitely have to think about it for a while and make sure it’s something really, really good.”

  “Well, when you decide, let me know.”

  “Oh, I definitely will.” He winks at me before resting back in his seat.

  I let a slow breath escape my lips. Mother of all hot chocolate syrup, that was one of the most intense flirting moments I’ve ever had.

  Thankfully, for my flushed skin’s sake, Kyler changes the conversation to a much lighter topic as his phone buzzes. I think it’s a text, but then he opens a calendar.

  He sighs disappointedly. “And there goes our awesome moment.”

  “What is it?”

  “A reminder that I need to write a paper for English.”

  “If you need to drop me off, that’s cool,” I say, not wanting to be a pain.

  He waves me off, reclining back in the seat. “Nah. I can do it tomorrow.” His head tips back as he gazes at the ceiling. “God, classes are killer. It makes me wish I appreciated high school more.”

  “What’re you majoring in?” I pick a chunk of cheesecake out of my ice cream and pop it into my mouth.

  “Right now, just general. I might change it eventually, but my dad … He wants me to focus on sports right now.” His jaw clenches, and I get the sense that maybe Kai isn’t the only one who has issues with their dad.

  “What about you? Do you want to focus on sports?”

  “I guess so. I mean, I’m good at it, so I probably should.”

  “Being good at something doesn’t mean you have to do it,” I point out. “I’m good at basketball, but I never actually wanted to join a team. It was never my thing.”

  He turns his head to look at me. “What is your thing? I really want to know because it feels like I know you, yet I don’t.”

  “My thing,” I drum my finger against my lip, “is probably awesomeness,” I joke then sigh. “I really don’t know.” I feel self-conscious to tell him about my manga obsession and how I love to draw my own comics.

  “You like to draw, right?”

  I nod. “It’s not artsy stuff, though. It’s more … comic stuff.”

  “That’s cool.” He cracks his knuckles. “Kai was into that stuff for a while. He had all these posters and stuff on his walls.”

  “Yeah, I know.” I conceal a smile with a bite of ice cream. While I knew Kai was into comics, I never knew he had posters all over his walls.

  A pucker forms at his brows. “How do you know? I don’t think he ever told anyone, not even his friends.”

  “Back in seventh grade, we hung out for a while, and he told me then.”

  “You two hung out? I never saw you.”

  “It was after school.”

  He seems like he’s tripping out over the idea. I don’t know why. Is it that weird that Kai would hang out with me? Yeah, we were on two totally different social levels, but we have a lot in common.

  “It’s not that weird, is it?” I find myself asking.

  Kyler straightens in the seat, shaking his head. “No, it’s not that. It’s just … I don’t know. It just surprises me. I mean, I know you guys hang out now, but I didn’t realize you’ve been friends since then.”

  “We haven’t been friends since then,” I correct him. “We had a falling out that lasted pretty much until the beginning of this school year.”

  “What was the falling out over?” he wonders.

  Um, yeah, there’s no way I want to tell Kyler the story about how Kai called me a stalker when one of his friends caught us hanging out. It’s too embarrassing, and with how much the two of them fight, I’m not sure how Kyler will react to the story.

  “I don’t know.” I shrug. “Just middle school drama, and now we’re over it.”

  He studies me intently, as if trying to unravel my thoughts. “But you two are just friends, right?”

  For a microsecond, I’m thrown off by his question. The slight pause lasts just long enough that the air between us shifts into awkward land.

  “Yeah, we’re just friends.”

  He assesses me for an uncomfortable amount of time before speaking again. “I still don’t think you should hang out with him, not until he gets his shit together. You’re too good for that.”

  “I’m not that good.”

  “Yeah, you are.”

  I want to argue, but he seems pretty adamant about it.

  “So, you’re into art and comics, huh?” He muses over the idea. “I’ve always wondered what you were drawing whenever I saw you sitting out on balcony with your notebook.”

  I don’t bother mentioning that I also spent time drawing him … shirtless.

  “I’ve been doing it since I was, like, six. It’s really relaxing.”

  His lips pull into a lopsided grin. “You should show me some of your stuff sometime.”

  “Okay,” I say, even though I’m not sure he’d get my stuff.

  “And teach me a thing or two about this whole comic world,” he adds.

  That gets me to smile. “I might consider it if you’re lucky.”

  “Personally, I think I’m pretty lucky. I mean, I’m sitting here with you, aren’t I?” he asks with a charming grin.

  I cover my mouth as laughter bubbles in my throat. He laughs, though, so I let it out.

  He chuckles. “I know. I’m the worst. I don’t know why I say shit like that. It just pops into my head.”

  “Maybe you should stop watching so many rom-coms,” I tease, twisting the end of my ponytail around my finger.

  He points a finger at me. “I never watch rom-coms.”

  “Yeah, right. I bet you do all the time,” I tease. “I bet you watch them and memorize the lines.”

  He wiggles his fingers at me. “Don’t make me tickle you again. Take it back or else.”

  I make a big show of zipping my lips together, and he dives for me, tickling me until I can bar
ely breathe.

  “Fine! I surrender,” I gasp through my laughter. “You don’t watch rom-coms.”

  He leans back, seeming satisfied. “Now say you’ll show me your art.”

  I nod, catching my breath. “I’ll show you whatever you want just as long as you stop tickling me.”

  He misses a beat, a strange look crossing his face. It takes me a second to process what I just said, but before I can get too mortified, he starts talking again.

  “Okay, no more tickling,” he says right as his phone vibrates again. He sighs, glancing at the screen. “And now it’s reminding me to do my pre-Cal paper.”

  I draw a heart with an arrow going through it on the fogged up window. “Are you sure you don’t need to take me home?”

  “I said you were fine, and I meant it.” He watches me add a thorny pattern around the heart like it’s the most fascinating thing on the planet. “So, is that what you’re going to college for? Art?”

  My fingers fall from the window as a realization crashes down on me.

  “I haven’t thought much about it.” Mostly because my family never really talked about it. College questions were always for Hannah. Me, I was just supposed to sit and listen. Listen and not be heard; those were the rules.

  “I’m sure you’ll figure it out,” he says. “You still have time.”

  “Yeah, I know.” On the inside, I’m freaking out. Art school sounds awesome, but isn’t stuff like that expensive? Where would I get the money?

  Suddenly, that job Lily suggested I apply for sounds like a good idea.

  I remain stuck in my own head as Kyler starts the car and drives out onto the street.

  “So, what’s next on the distraction to-do list? We could go to the theater and watch a movie,” he says as he cruises down Main Street. “One more game before we go hang out at your grandma’s house? Whatever you want, name it, and it’s done.”

  “Isn’t it too dark to play basketball?” I stir the melted ice cream as I peer up at the dusty grey sky. A handful of stars are sprinkled across it, and the moon is shining brightly.

  “Yeah, it might be.” He flips on the brights. “I could always leave these bad boys on. I think the park has lights, too.”