My Life as a Holiday Album (My Life as an Album #5) - L.J. Evans Page 0,6

what I’d done my whole life, which was to follow where she led. Because I could never, ever not go where she went. Even though I was older, she was the one who usually showed me the way. She was my world. Had always been my world.

We spent the normal forever it took to say goodbye to the crew, put on our coats, and finally escaped. The sky was full of clouds, and the air was freezing. It felt like snow, but the peace and calm that normally came with that wintery blanket would be lost on me. My feelings were too much a jumble of mixed emotions. Excitement. Apprehension. Desire. Anguish.

“I’m not ready to go home,” Khiley said. Her wavering voice made me ache to the depths of my soul. She’d cried more in the last three weeks than she had in the twenty-one years I’d known her.

“The lake?” I asked, and when she nodded, I opened the passenger door of my truck for her. She didn’t even fight me about driving, which almost spoke more about her state of mind than the tears.

We drove just past the shared drive that led to my home and the Waters’ house, taking the road to the lake instead. Once we’d parked, Khiley made her way to the tire swing that had been hanging in the tree past the picnic tables for as long as I could remember.

She shoved off with her toes, and I went behind her, pushing her higher, trying to remember the joy we used to have in this simple act. The silence between us was echoed in the hush that surrounded the lake in the winter. Barely any life showing amongst the frozen grass, bare trees, and rippling water.

“Remember when you got stitches?” she asked.

I smiled. Yes, I remembered.

Khiley had spent the night at our house because Cam and Blake were up in Nashville for some entertainment event. She was sleeping in my room on the trundle bed that was always hers on nights like these, but instead of sleeping, she woke me with a flashlight in my eyes.

We were learning about astronomy at school, and Khiley decided we needed to go out and explore the heavens to see the constellations for ourselves. I didn’t even bat an eye. I just got out of bed and went with her.

That air was dog heavy, announcing summer was only a few days away, as we made our way down the beaten path to the lake. Khiley beelined for the picnic tables, climbing up on top of one and lying down before turning the flashlight off. I joined her, my hand finding hers. We stared out at the dark sky while the crickets talked and the fireflies flitted around us.

She sighed, contentment rolling through her, and it drew my eyes from the dark sky to her face and her body barely visible in the moonlight. She was wearing nothing more than a tank and cotton pajama shorts, and they showed all the curves that had suddenly sprouted from her lean frame. Those curves tugged at parts of my body that were changing as much as hers, and for the first time in our life together, I’d wondered what it would be like to have her lips pressed against mine. Would it feel as complete as when we had our fingers linked?

I didn’t give it much thought past that. I just leaned over and put my lips on hers. Softly and then pressing harder. At first, her whole body stilled in a way it rarely did, and then she pushed me so hard I rolled off the table, catching the bench with my chin on my way down. Blood instantly spurted from the cut.

Khiley laughed, her soft laugh I only heard when she was with me, until she realized I was bleeding. Then, she was at my side in a flash, pressing the bottom of her tank top to my chin.

“Oh my God. I’m sorry,” she said. The blood instantly soaked through the edge, spreading out over the thin material.

“Take your shirt off,” she commanded.

“You take yours off. Mom will make me do laundry for weeks if I come home with blood on mine after sneaking out.”

Khiley averted her gaze. “I… I can’t take mine off.”

“Why not?”

We’d seen each other naked a gazillion times before. Not as much in the last few years. But as little kids, we’d gone into the lake in nothing more than underwear more than we’d worn swimsuits.