Lily's Summer of Precarious Happenings

Chapter Twelve

"I'm so sick of seeing his face everywhere," I mumbled, glaring at another flyer taped to a light post, boasting a gloriously sweaty and unnervingly attractive Colin Shore.

Kennedy wrapped an arm around my shoulders and directed me further down the sidewalk with an eye-roll, "There's a solution to your problem.  Just don't look."  We continued down the bustling coastal street, passing various coffee shops, restaurants and little boutiques. 

"It's hot," I shrugged my friend's arm away, "And you're sweaty."  

"You know, you've been really grumpy lately," She landed a stiff poke to my arm before we narrowly avoided colliding with a group of distracted tourists.  We turned the corner, and I almost collided with yet another professionally photographed and overwhelmingly absent-from-my-life boy.  Annoyed, I ripped the offending piece of paper from its tape, crumpled it into a ball and tossed it into the closest trash can.  "Well that was kind of dramatic of you," Kennedy frowned and peered into the flyer's final resting place.

"I can't help it!" I threw my hands in the air, almost smacking a passerby in the face, "It's hot, it's crowded, and I'm beginning to understand why you always talk crap about tourists."

Not even making eye contact, Kennedy proceeded to carefully pluck the wrinkled paper from the trash and neatly unfurled it in her hands.  "Are you sure your mood has nothing to do with the boy on this lovely flyer?"

My glare deepened as I made eye contact with a statuesque Colin that was shoved in my face.  The advertisement was sure to gain plenty of new memberships to his gym, as he shamelessly utilized his good looks and plastered it all over town.  Part of me wondered if he knew what he was doing, that he was using it as a ploy to further get under my skin.  However, I wasn't nearly self-absorbed enough to let that idea take form.

 "Well, I definitely don't understand his marketing tactics here," I deflected, "The annoying persistence makes me more likely to want to punch him than to join his gym."

"Right," Kennedy drawled as she turned away and delicately re-attached the paper to its tape.

"Why are you helping him?" I almost shouted, secretly feeling like my closest friend was taking sides in a massive break-up that never even happened.

"You still haven't talked to him," Kennedy sighed, "Listen.  I will always defend you, but..." She turned, meeting my eyes, "You need to ease up on him."

I felt my eyebrows shoot up and my mouth fall open slightly in indignation.  My stomach dropped, and my mind short-circuited, scrambling to find something to say in response to what felt like a giant betrayal.  It had been a week since the beach bonfire, seven days full of covering up confusing feelings and trying desperately to ignore Colin's face on ever corner.  His obnoxious advertisements made the process of forgetting him far more difficult than the average circumstance.  Wesley and Kennedy, although extremely supportive, stayed silent every time I bad-mouthed Colin.  It was frustrating to feel like maybe, just maybe, I was wrong.

Although, so far, I had been far too stubborn to admit that.

Against what I felt inside, I plastered an uneasy smile on my face that probably looked more like a grimace.  "I think I just miss my outlet."

"Well, Colin does own the best gym in town, so..."

I chortled, "You're joking, right?"

Kennedy shook her head and motioned for me to continue down the sidewalk.  "No, actually.  He's very well-respected."

My stomach turned, and a tinge of jealousy passed through me, "He just finished high school.  How is that even possible?"

"It was a... term of his graduation."  We shuffled into a gloriously air-conditioned coffee shop and quickly got in line.  She scanned the menu that hung above the registers, "He had a deal with the man that owned it previously."