Pieces of Summer (A stand-alone novel)(21)

“You came to a carnival light show?” Blake’s voice has me spinning around, pulling Whit with me. She forces a smile for his sake, but I can tell it’s fake.

“Yeah. Whit loves these things. Figured I’d bring her.”

Whit’s stiffness ebbs ever so slightly after she hears that, and she slides her arm around my waist.

“What’re you doing here?” I ask him.

He shrugs. “Taking out a hot little number. I’ve had to fix her friend’s car twice. She came in the garage with him to get it the last time, and I hit her up about the light show. It’s weird. I swear I’ve seen her before, but I don’t know from where.”

“It’s summer,” Whit says tightly. “People come and go every summer. It’s possible she’s a seasonal.”

“Possibly. Still think I’d remember a girl who looks like her. Just her ass alone is memorable.”

Whit mocks a gag, slowly loosening up, and Blake chuckles while pocketing his hands.

“It’s seriously bugging the hell out of me as to where I’ve seen her before. And she even admitted I seemed familiar too.”

“You’ll figure it out,” Whit tells him.

“Weird thing is that she said she’d meet me when she met me, and wouldn’t set a time. Then she sent a text saying she was here, and I told her I’d meet her near the entrance.”

“Definitely weird,” I agree, shrugging… bored out of my mind.

“There she is,” he says, looking past me.

A slow smile curls his lips, and I turn around with Whit to see this girl he’s been going on about. My eyes immediately land on something that has my breath fogging up my throat, and my free fist clenches at my side as my other arm falls away from Whit.

Looking lost and uncertain, Mika is walking around in a small circle, glancing down at her phone. Her shorts are up to her ass, showing off her tan legs. Her shirt is loose and hanging down on one side, revealing her shoulder. And her hair is braided to one side as she nibbles her lip.

“Guess I better go get her before she bails. She looks nervous.”

Blake starts to walk by, and reflexively, I grab his arm and jerk him back.

“What the hell, man?”

“The f*ck are you doing here with her?” I growl.

His eyebrows go up in confusion as I jerk him back harder, gripping his arm tightly.

“You know her or something?” he asks, confused.

“That’s Mika,” Whit says flatly from somewhere behind me.

“She related to you?” Blake goes on. “I’ve never seen you get so pissed before. What am I missing?”

“Why are you here with her?”

Blake looks down at my hand, then over at Mika, then back to me, and something in his eyes shifts. “Ah, f*ck. She’s the one. Isn’t she?”

I’ve never f*cking told him her name, or any of the story, but I did get drunk enough once to admit to him a summer girl had f*cked my head up.

“Shit, man. I didn’t know,” he goes on.

My eyes shift over to Mika about the time she sees us, and confusion mars her face before her eyes turn to angry slits. She spins around and walks away, and I fight with myself not to go after her. Maybe she’ll f*cking leave soon before I completely lose my mind.

“Ah, hell,” Blake groans. “You’ve really f*cked up now.”

I let him go, cracking my neck to the side, and I watch as Mika pulls her keys out of her pocket, heading toward the parking lot.

“I don’t care if she’s pissed. She shouldn’t even be in Hayden. She has the entire f*cking country she can go to. This is the one place she shouldn’t have ever come back to.”

Blake’s hand clasps my shoulder, and we both watch until Mika disappears from sight.

“I wasn’t saying you cared about pissing off Mika. But you should probably notice your girlfriend is missing at some point, otherwise you’re going to end up single.”

My eyes slowly flutter shut, and I take a long, regretful breath. He’s right. I just really f*cked up. It’s shitty that I don’t even care.

Once again, Mika is in my head.





Chapter 14


MIKA



I almost feel hungover when I wake up. I’m not sure why I spent the night crying, but I did. Maybe it’s because I went to the carnival to make a friend and saw Blake and Chase were already friends. I felt like the idiot getting played. I should have known better than to think someone just wanted to get to know me.

You look so familiar… Asshole.

Clutching my aching head, I pull on a pair of exercise shorts with my free hand, awkwardly working them over my hips. Sluggishly, I head downstairs for coffee, since coffee is a good cure for crying hangovers.

Just as I stumble into the kitchen, a small breath leaves my lips as my jaw tries to unhinge. Why the hell is Whit in my kitchen?

She’s sipping coffee, regarding me intently as she sits at my bar.

I look around, making sure I didn’t accidentally sleepwalk into the wrong home last night. Nope. Definitely mine.

“Morning,” she says softly.

My eyes drop to the white T-shirt covering her body, and my eyebrow arches. That’s definitely Aidan’s shirt.

“We need to talk,” she tells me.