Beach Lane - By Melissa de la Cruz Page 0,50
Lindsay, hi! Charlie’s having a party? No, he didn’t tell me. Tonight? Oh my God, I’ve been dying to get in there. Sure, I’m not doing anything! What time should I meet you guys?”
She clicked off, a happy smile on her face.
Jeremy turned away and scowled at the ocean. Did she really just make other plans right in front of me after I asked her out?
“About tonight . . .,” Eliza said hesitantly. “Something just came up for later. But maybe we can still do dinner or something?”
“Sure.” Jeremy nodded. He wouldn’t normally have said okay, but there was something about Eliza that made guys agree to lots of things they normally wouldn’t.
jacqui is still testing out that brazilian saying
MEANWHILE SOMEWHERE IN BRIDGEHAMPTON WAS A bed with two lumps underneath. Jacqui and her new boyfriend were spooning, and she was happy to feel the warmth of another person next to her. It was the most comfortable she’d felt in weeks.
“Oh . . . Luca . . .,” Jacqui whispered.
A tousled head shot up. “What did you say?” he asked Jacqui. “What did you call me?”
“Leo . . . Leo . . . I said, ‘Oh, Leo,’ ” Jacqui explained, peppering his face with kisses. “I said, ‘Leo . . . meu amor. . . .’ ”
Leo settled back down next to her, even though he wasn’t quite sure that Jacqui was thinking about him. Jacqui lay there, thinking of how Leo was a bad idea she couldn’t shake. Jacqui couldn’t help herself. She was the type of girl who always had a boyfriend, and she needed to do something to stop herself from crying all the time, and finding solace in Leo’s skinny arms seemed to do the trick.
After the scene at the polo match Jacqui hadn’t had the heart to continue working. Who could work when your heart was stomped on and thrown to the dogs? Instead she holed up in Leo’s room, watching bad television and raiding the fridge. She had gone back to the Perry house to pick up clothes when she knew Eliza and Mara were out with the kids.
She didn’t want to face them. They had been so nice to her at the match, but she just wanted to be alone, or at least alone in the only way she knew how to be. She knew she was going to get in trouble, but she was in a foreign country, in a place that only meant something to her because of the guy she loved, and somehow everything that she knew was actually important—like her job—just . . . faded away. She thought about maybe just getting on the next plane back to Sao Paolo and forgetting all about the Hamptons. She hadn’t even spent any of the money she’d made so far. That morning, she’d looked up ticket prices on Leo’s laptop. But right now, she didn’t even have the energy to leave the shelter of Leo’s bedroom, and she had a feeling that feeling wasn’t going to go away anytime soon.
Anna would probably fire her when she got back, but Jacqui was too far gone to care.
How silly of her to think that anyone could really love her. Their two weeks in São Paolo were nothing but a mirage. What had Eliza said? He was a “player.” Someone who pretended to be in love with her, but he was really only in love with her body. Just like every other guy on the planet. No one ever got past her looks to bother with the real person inside.
Leo seemed different at first. Yeah, he was always telling her how beautiful she was, but he was also always mentioning how lucky he felt. When she looked at him, she didn’t feel any butterflies, and when he kissed her, she didn’t close her eyes and see fireworks. But she could pretend. She was good at that.
He was sweet. He was a nice guy. And right now, he would have to do.
mara finally orders the right kind of drink
SHE COULD GET USED TO THIS LIFE, MARA THOUGHT AS SHE sipped on her second frozen star fruit margarita. The cool, sweet, and tart concoction tasted like liquid heaven, and she was getting a nice buzz from the pure agave tequila. Better yet, Ryan had asked her to come with him to the party—as friends of course—it wasn’t a date or anything. But Mara had been flattered enough that she was trying very hard to put the weirdness