I Know It's Over by C. K. Kelly Martin Read Free Book Online Page B

stepping into the store. She looked in my direction and made a beeline for Grayson and me. Sasha Jasinski, looking tanned and relaxed in jeans and sun-lightened hair. Grayson oozed silently beside me, his presence growing more repellent as she neared.
    I strode towards Sasha, smiling like she’d made my day. There were tiny yellow flowers painted onto her jeans and her feet were bare in her running shoes. She smelled like sunshine and watermelon. “Hi,” I said, the two of us stopping in front of Sports 2 Go’s collection of baseball hats. “How’re you?”
    “Good.” She ran her fingers swiftly through her hair. “So how’s your summer going?”
    “Interesting,” I said truthfully. “How’s the sailing?”
    “Wet.” She smiled at me, enjoying her own joke. “You should come by sometime.”
    “You’ll get me into the beach for free,” I recited.
    “Yeah, that’s the idea.” She slid her hands idly into her back pockets, watching me. “Are you guys busy?” She tilted her head to indicate the store. Grayson was ringing up a sale and one of the other guys was pointing a customer towards the punching bags. “Can you take a break? Get some ice cream or something?”
    “Yeah, I guess.” I hadn’t entirely figured her out yet, but I thought I was starting to. She really wanted me to come to the lake. We wouldn’t be having this conversation if she didn’t.
    I told Grayson that I was taking a break and wandered out into the mall with Sasha. “So, climb any roofs lately?” I asked, sauntering along next to her. I felt safe teasing her now that I suspected I had the upper hand.
    “Not lately,” she replied, stepping up to the Baskin-Robbins counter. “What flavor do you want, Nick?” She slid a ten-dollar bill across the counter.
    “Uh.” I peered through the glass and ordered the same thing I always order: chocolate fudge.
    “Really sweet,” she noted, ordering a scoop of pistachio almond for herself. “Do you have a sweet tooth?”
    “Yeah, I guess.” I felt her eyes on me, processing the answer as though it revealed something crucial. Yeah, I’m a sweet tooth person and mysterious and shit. “So I wasn’t going to come to the lake,” I said straight out. “I didn’t think you really wanted me to.” That sounds like I was being honest, but I wanted something from her; I wanted to pull her strings and watch her jump. Not very nice, but that’s how it was.
    “You think I was hard on you,” she said, watching the girl behind the counter dig for our ice cream. “I just hate that kind of stuff. And I guess I kind of freaked.” Sasha’s eyes flicked towards mine, then darted away again. “I wasn’t planning on asking you to the lake, but I did want you to come.”
    The girl behind the counter handed us our cones and we walked quietly through the mall together. Sasha snuck a look at me as we neared Sports 2 Go. “So I guess this was a bad idea,” she said in an edgy voice. I turned towards her and watched her bite gingerly into her cone. I wasn’t making this easy on her and now her eyes were nervous. “I saw you in the store and I really wanted to talk to you. I don’t usually do things like this.” A smudge of pistachio hung under her lip and she dabbed at it with her napkin. “This is probably crazy. I mean, you’re with Dani, aren’t you?”
    She was digging herself deeper into the hole, looking more anxious by the second, and I suddenly realized that I wasn’t enjoying it anymore, that I was actually beginning to feel bad for her. I shook my head and watched her thin fingers pinch the napkin.
    “I’m not with Dani,” I said. “We’re just friends.”
    “Oh, but you probably don’t even…think like that…you’re probably…” She stared straight ahead. “God, I’m babbling. When you see me again, can you do me a favor and not mention this? In fact, don’t even mention it now, okay? I don’t know what I was thinking. You ever do something without thinking