Loving Summer (Loving Summer Series) (8 page)

            “I know that,” Nat says, running his hand through his hair. “Believe me, I’m all too aware of it. And you’re right, you can do what you want, but it doesn’t stop me from caring. Too much, maybe.”

            What does he mean by that? Does he really mean… no, I can’t think like that, because I’m about to go out with Astor, and I can’t have the thought of that making my heart pound in my chest while I’m with him. I have to ask, though. “What are you saying, Nat?”

            Nat shakes his head. “I can’t go there.”

            “Why not?” I demand. “Why can’t you just say what you feel? Is it so difficult that you have to walk around pretending I don’t exist?”

            “There are more than my feelings at stake here, Summer. I have a girlfriend. A girlfriend I’m committed to. Then there are other people too. You think that if I suddenly say that I’m attracted to you, that will magically make everything all right?”

            “So you do care about me?” I look at him until Nat has to look away.

            “Of course I care about you. I always have.”

            That should feel good. If anything, it makes me angry. “You knew how I felt about you,” I say. “You’ve always known. If you felt the same, why go and get yourself another girl?”

            “That’s complicated,” Nat says.

            I shake my head. “It seems pretty simple to me.”

            “Then you haven’t grown up as much as you think,” Nat snaps, then stops himself. “I’m sorry, but things
are
difficult. What did you expect me to do, Summer. It was three years, and you were a long way away. I don’t do long distance, because it doesn’t work. Yes, when I saw your photo it brought back memories, and when I saw you in person every feeling I ever had for you came back, but it can’t work. I have a girlfriend, and you… you’re meant to be dating a TV star, remember? That’s kind of hard to compete with, so nothing can ever happen.”

            “We could try,” I say. “I
want
to try. I’ve cared for you forever, you know that. Anyone else… even Astor, he’s not you. All those years when you just didn’t want to know… you don’t know how much that hurt, Nat.”

            He takes me by the shoulders then. “I’m sorry. I never meant for it to be like this, but it’s too messed up now. I’m thinking about you constantly. In my dreams, every day. It isn’t fair to Chrissy. She wants us to move further on in our relationship, and I’m not even thinking about her. I can’t do this, Summer, and I don’t think you can either.”

            I nod, moving back from him and going to the bathroom I share with Rachel to check on my makeup. There’s a smear around my eye where tears have started to fall. I wipe it away and reapply makeup.

            “You’re right,” I say. “I can’t do that. I’m not about to break things up with you and Chrissy, that’s up to you if you want to do it, and I’m not even going to consider dating you if you’re still with her. Now, that’s Astor at the door, so you’ll have to excuse me.”

            Nat reaches out for my arm again, and this time I step past him. “You’ve just said that we aren’t together, Nat, and even if we were, I wouldn’t let you just go around grabbing me.”

            “But you’re still going out?” Nat asks. “After all this, you’re still going with him, even though you know it will hurt me?”

            I shrug. “You’ve hurt me for years, Nat, and at least I gave you a chance to be happy with me. It’s you who hooked up with Chrissy. If you can’t act on what you feel for me, then why should I be unhappy? Astor is amazing. He’s a wonderful, sweet, gentle guy who also happens to be incredibly hot.”

            “Now you’re pushing him in my face,” Nat says.

            I shake my head. “No. I’m telling you that my happiness isn’t up to you, Nat. If you’d wanted to be with me, that would have been great. If you can’t give up Chrissy… well, she’s a lucky girl, and maybe you should try thinking about her instead of me. If you can’t, I’m still not going to drop everything while you figure out what you want. I’m going to go after what I want.”

            “And that’s Astor?” Nat asks.

            I shrug. “He makes me happy, and that’s more than what you’re doing right now, Nat. Now, I’m going downstairs, because he’s been waiting at the door far too long. And I’m doing it in this dress. If you can’t cope with that, then that’s your problem, not mine.”

            I walk away from him then, heading downstairs to the door. Astor’s waiting there, looking amazing in a casual shirt and jeans. Maybe I’ve overdressed for the occasion. Or maybe not, given the way he looks when he sees me.

            “You look amazing,” he says, almost as soon as he sees me.

            “Sorry it took me so long to answer the door,” I say.

            “It’s a woman’s prerogative to take her time about getting ready for a date,” Astor replies, with another glance at me. “Especially when she ends up looking like that.”

            He kisses me then. I think about Nat, and wonder if he’s watching. Then I smile to myself, decide that I don’t care, and kiss Astor back.

Chapter
9

A
stor drives me up into the canyons, around the twists and turns of the climbing roads that give me a great view of the scenery around us. There are small streams down below, along with trees everywhere the rocky hillsides aren’t rising up above road level.

            “This is a beautiful place to live,” I say.

            “I guess,” he replies. “Your aunt’s place is pretty cool too, though, and this can feel a little out of the way sometimes.”

            Maybe, but I can also see how Astor might need somewhere out of the way, occasionally. His house sits off a small side road, with great views out over one of the canyons. It’s a big, modern place that looks like it must have cost a fortune. But then, Astor can afford it. That’s kind of strange, the idea of a guy my age having a place like this.

            “This is all yours?” I ask.

            Astor smiles. “It isn’t like I have to share it.”

            “I guess what I mean is where are your parents?”

            Astor shakes his head. “I wanted my own place, so I bought one. They have a pretty good place of their own, back in Malibu, but I wanted somewhere I could just be
me,
you know?”

            I think I understand, but it isn’t easy. I know that I’m going to go to college, move out, get a place of my own, but until then, I like the idea of having my family around me. Even if it’s only Aunt Sookie at the moment. Besides, with Rachel, Drew and Nat at the beach house, I never really have time to feel alone.

            “So,” I say, “do I get the grand tour?”

            Astor nods. “I’d like that.”

            He shows me inside, into an entrance hall that reaches right up to a skylight in the roof. Off that, there’s a kitchen where everything is finished in white tiles that reflect a lot of the light coming in through large windows onto a breakfast bar running across it. There’s also a lounge, which I can kind of tell belongs to a boy living alone. It’s neat, in a way that says Astor has cleaners who come in every day, but everything about it is set up for him more than for a family. There’s a large white leather armchair in the middle of the floor, in front of an even bigger TV with a collection of games consoles hooked up to it. There’s a couch running most of the length of one wall, and another is taken up with row after row of games, DVDs, books and magazines. There’s even a dried sea star hanging on the wall as an ornament.

            There’s another room opposite it that’s more of a study. It has a desk with an expensive looking computer on it, a phone, a few pages of what look like scripts and not much else. I can imagine Astor in here looking over potential roles, or talking to his agent, or something like that. There’s a pool out back, with a great view out over the surrounding canyons and a garden that’s as neatly maintained as the rest of the place. I guess Astor can afford gardeners too. Astor doesn’t show me upstairs yet, heading back to the kitchen instead.

            “You must be hungry,” he says, moving over to the kitchen’s oven.

            “You cooked for me?” Just the thought of Astor working away in the kitchen comes as a shock, but he shakes his head.

            “My housekeeper Rosa made something and left it in the oven,” Astor says. “Actually, I should check on it.”

            He takes out two plates piled high with chicken and fresh vegetables. It’s hard to think of the kind of life Astor must have. Thanks to the money he’s earned from TV, he can have anything he wants. He can have people who can clean his house and leave food waiting for him and his date. He can have a house that looks like everything is custom designed for him. I have to admit, it’s all pretty impressive, even though there’s part of me that can see why he’s enjoyed spending time down in the beach house so much. It isn’t just that I’m there, though I’d like to think that’s a big part of it. It’s the fact that it’s something so… normal.

            “Did I tell you how great that dress looks on you?” Astor says as we start to eat.

            I smile. “A few times.”

            Astor smiles back. “Well, you deserve all the compliments I can give you.”

            We eat slowly, talking about what it’s like for Astor working in TV, our time at the acting academy, and Aunt Sookie’s place.

            “It must be good having so many friends around you,” Astor says.

            I think of Nat, and Drew; of how it isn’t always that easy, but I nod as I think about Rachel and what a good friend she is. “It is pretty good. But you must have
some
friends. I know you say they’re all part of your job, but that doesn’t stop them from being friends, does it?”

            Astor shrugs. “I hang out with some of the others on the cast of my shows, but there’s always that feeling of ‘what if the show’s cancelled next week?’ Would they still want to know me then?”

            I move closer to kiss him. “The good news is that I’ll want to know you no matter what. Show or no show.”

            “I know,” Astor says. “You aren’t like most girls, Summer.”

            “Let me guess,” I say, “they just want to say that they’ve been with a TV star?”

            Astor nods. “That, or they want to
be
TV stars. And if they’re more normal, I don’t have enough in common with them to make things work. You’re different. You kind of know what it’s like, because of your aunt’s school, but you’re normal too. Well, not just normal. You’re pretty, and smart, and…”

            “You’re pretty wonderful yourself,” I point out.

            We finish dinner and head through into the lounge, where it turns out that Astor has plenty of old movies in his collection. I guess, spending so much time with Aunt Sookie, I’ve always loved that kind of thing, and Astor seems to know it, because the next few hours turn into a movie marathon.

            We start out sitting on that long couch for it, because that’s the only spot with room for us both. Not to mention the popcorn Astor produces a couple of minutes in. We sit close enough that I can feel every breath he takes, and hear him whispering some of the movie lines the instant before they come out of the speakers.

            “You really do love these, don’t you?” I ask.

            Astor nods. “It’s kind of why I’m taking so many acting lessons.”

            “So it’s not just an excuse to hang around me at the school?”

            Astor kisses me. “That too, but I could do that at the beach. I’m taking the lessons because I want to get better at this. I see all those old stars and I think… well, what if I get my parts just because I’m young and good-looking, not because I can actually act like that? What if I don’t get roles like that when I’m older, because no one thinks I can do it?”

            I cup his jaw in my hand. There’s something almost vulnerable about Astor in that moment that I doubt he’s let anyone else see. I kiss him softly. “I doubt that will happen.”

            I get up to fetch a drink from the kitchen, and I see how dark it has gotten. I’ve obviously been there longer than I thought. Astor follows me through to the kitchen, and obviously sees me checking my watch.

            “I’m not boring you that much, am I?”

            “You’re not boring me at all,” I say. “I’m just worried that I should be getting back. It’s later than I thought.”

            “So why not stay over?” Astor says, and then holds up a hand to cut me off before I can reply. “I mean that I have a couple of spare bedrooms, and it seems like a shame to cut off the movie marathon here. I can take you home in the morning. If you want to phone home and tell them what you’re doing…”

            I know I probably shouldn’t, but there’s something so good about the evening that I don’t want it to end. So I phone Rachel, telling her what I’m doing. She seems pretty relaxed about it, and maybe a little excited.

            “Actually,” she says, “that could work pretty well. Sure, I’ll tell everyone where you are.”

            “Just be sure to tell them that Astor and I are in separate rooms.”

            “Will you be, though? I mean, I would
definitely
go there with Astor Fairway.”

            “
Rachel
.”

            Rachel hangs up, and I head back into the lounge with Astor, where we settle into his chair again, so that I’m almost sitting in his lap as we watch the movie that’s in front of us. Not that we watch much of it. Pretty soon, we’re just making out, kissing so deeply that everything on the screen seems to fade into the background. Astor’s hands are on my hair, moving down across my shoulders, moving over my back…

            I look up, and my eyes happen to see the sea star on the wall. I find myself thinking back. I would have been… what? Eight? That’s right. I was eight, Nat was nine, and Aunt Sookie had taken all of us to Sea World in San Diego. There were sea stars in a tank, and I was watching them, reaching in after them for one of the biggest ones, wanting to know what it felt like.