Summer Rain

[6] Luke

The next evening I decided to call Lila. I knew that Zach would be running around all day trying to replace broken items and overseeing the maid servive he hired after every party.

I know if I told Zach that I was going to call Lila today, he'd tell me it was way too soon. But me and Lila are just friends, so it's not like that.

After justifying it to myself, I picked up my phone and called her.

"Hello?" She answered.

"Hey" I said, "I was wondering if you wanted to hang out"

"I'd love to" She said happily, "What are we doing?"

"I don't know, we'll just hang out or whatever" I said casually, "I'll pick you up in 20?"

"Sounds perfect" She said, and we said goodbye and hung up.

I took a 5 minute shower, got dressed and left the house. I drove the two minutes it took to get to Lila's house and then texted her that I was outside.

I watched her exit her house, and she looked hot. She was wearing ripped jean shorts and a tight black tank top.

 "Hey" She said, hopping into the car, "You totally saved my life, my mom's unpacking the living room and she's crazy about everything being set up right"

"Well no problem" I said.

She turned on the radio to some pop station and I smiled slightly. It was kinda cute how she clearly felt comfortable around me, I liked it.

"Why are you smiling?" She asked me.

"Nothing" I said vaguely.

She gave me a raised eyebrows skeptical look, and I just shrugged back at her. We pulled into the parking lot of our destination.

"Where are we?" She asked.

"We are getting ice cream" I smiled, "Then we can walk around for a bit"

The ice cream shop was a tiny place that had home made ice cream and was right on the beach. I got coffee iced cream and Lila got mint chocolate chip. We wandered along the beach until it started to get dark out. Then, we made our way back to the parking lot, and got in my car.

"Do you wanna come back over for a bit?" I asked her, "I'll take you home after"

"Yeah, I'd love to" She said, and we left.

When I got home, my Dad wasn't there. He wasn't home a lot, running his own car dealership and trying to see my grandma often. But, I was okay. He was a hell of a lot better than my mom.

I tried to put that thought away for a while. For whatever reason, my mom haunted my brain whenever I started to get a little too happy. She pops up to remind how fucked up my life really is.

I showed Lila to my room, and we sat down on my bed.

"I have a question" She blurted out.

"Yeah?" I prompted.

"Uh, well" She said awkwardly, "Who's Kat?"

I felt a little smug that she had thought about Kat again, but mostly I felt dread because I didn't really want to tell the story. I was really torn between wanting to trust her, and not trusting anyone.

"It's okay if you don't want to tell me" She said, obviously seeing my facial expression.

"No, no" I insisted, "It's fine"

It wasn't really, but for some reason I felt like it was important to tell her, so I figured I had to suck it up and tell the stupid story.

"Well, I uh, never was one to uh date a lot. But Zach was and he's my best friend, so people just assumed that I wasn't into high school girls" I said awkwardly, "Which, made some of the girls just want to get me more"