The Enemy (It Happened in Charleston, #2)

by Sarah Adams

I tell her to hold on so I can turn on sad music over the speaker. And because she’s the best friend a girl could ever have, she complies without question.

“Most do. I chose to grow into mine.”

I roll my eyes and nod my agreement, but Logan holds out his elbow. He looks as serious about sealing this promise with our secret oath as he did when we were six and first established it. I look around, making sure no one is watching, and then tap my elbow against his. There. It’s done. He now has the right to give me a swirly if I break our agreement.

“Has it never occurred to you that the only reason I picked on you in high school is because I was crazy about you? Or that messing with you was the only way I could get you to look at me?”

He smiles, and his eyes fall and settle on my mouth. “June, I’m not your enemy.” Those dark eyes hold my mouth for five heartbeats before they pop back up to meet my gaze. “I never was.”

I pause, taking in June’s white bungalow and teal front door. The wooden porch seat looks lonely. Sure, it has a sunshine-yellow pillow on it, making the whole scene look happy, but when I picture June sitting in that chair all by herself, I get the urge to drive straight to Home Depot and pick up another matching one to plop down right beside hers. I’ll put a dark-blue pillow on it. It’ll be my pillow.

“I could bash on that woman with you right now if that’s what you want. I could also list a hundred different ways I think you and your body are perfect. I could tell you that I check you out from head to toe every time you walk away from me, and that, last night, I had a dream about you that would definitely make you blush.” She chuckles against me. “But I think what you need is to hear that your ex was a self-serving ass. You’re beautiful, June. His words had nothing to do with you and everything to do with his teeny-tiny—”

So, I passed her this note: You look cute covered in soda.

Now, Ryan is my box of cookies.

“I turned a million years old in the process.”

“I’M...CARRYING…YOU…INTO…THE…SHOWER!” I say with my arms wrapped around Ryan’s gigantic body, using all of my strength to try to lift him off the ground.

A warm, heart-wrenching, let’s-do-this-forever kind of smile, and I feel a piece of the ice around my heart break off.

Fact: People stuck in their college days are more annoying than ingrown hairs.

JUNE: *GIF of a woman slowly mouthing you’re dead to me. JUNE: Just kidding. Thanks for telling me. I’ll help you make a pros and cons list when you get back.

“Son, just ‘cause you’re good at something doesn’t mean it’s what you were made to do.”

Some of us need to live through the healing rather than talk through it.”