Did I do the wrong thing with Astor Fairway? No. I just didn’t want him sweeping Summer off her feet and using her. She shouldn’t have to deal with guys like him. Anyway, he isn’t that good-looking. He isn’t as buff as I am, and what kind of name is that? He sounds like a golf course outside a hotel.

  I hear someone running towards me along the beach. I guess it’s probably one of the girls I passed and I turn with a smile. Then I see who it is and my smile widens. Summer is dressed in a grey, long-sleeve shirt and black jogging pants, with her hair tied back in a ponytail while she runs. She looks amazing, even like that. I don’t think there’s any way she could ever look less than perfect.

  “Hi Drew.”

  “Hi Summer. Did you enjoy Disneyland yesterday?” With Astor. Without me there. I don’t say it, but I want to.

  “It was great,” Summer says, and when she smiles, it’s like the world lights up. “Astor is so considerate and sweet. You saw how he was with all those fans, and with him afterwards, it was great.” She pauses, while I wish I hadn’t asked. “Did you have fun with that girl?”

  “What girl?” It takes me a second to remember that there are girls other than her. “Oh, yeah. She joined me after we went on Space Mountain together. We kind of hit it off.”

  Summer laughs then. “I bet you did, Drew. I could see you were getting along.”

  She saw all that? Why does that keep happening to me? “It didn’t mean anything,” I say as quickly as I can. “She doesn’t mean anything. I can’t even remember her name.”

  “I wonder if she feels the same way,” Summer says. “I mean, is you not being able to remember her name meant to be a good thing?”

  Why is she angry now? “She knew it was just a one-time thing.”

  Summer’s mouth drops open. “A one-time thing? You slept with her? In Disneyland? That is just wrong on so many levels. How did you even manage it? Where did you manage it?”

  I can’t help smiling at that. “You’d be surprised how many places you can find where you won’t be disturbed when you really want to.”

  Summer throws up her hands. What? What did she expect? It isn’t like anyone is getting hurt. “Incredible. Drew, you really are a girl’s worst nightmare. I mean, you look great. You have this amazing body and your eyes are such a dreamy blue, but you behave like a total jerk.”

  “I think I liked it better when you were saying how great my eyes are,” I say. I don’t want Summer thinking I’m a jerk. Anyway, why should she care? She’s already made it clear that it isn’t me she’s interested in. If she were, then I’d stop even looking at other girls, but until she is, what I do with them is my business. I can’t help it if they all feel that way about me, or if I want to have a little fun.

  “What do you want me to say?” Summer asks. “That they’re kind of stormy, like the sea? They’re not quite as blue as Rachel’s, but it’s more kind of an intense look. I like that. I like that a lot.”

  “So there’s one part of me you like, at least.”

  Summer moves close to me, close enough that I could almost reach out and pull her into a kiss. “I like all of you, Drew. I just don’t like some of the things you do.”

  I almost do it then. I almost kiss her, but I know I can’t. She doesn’t want me, and kissing her will just ruin the friendship that we have. I can’t be anything to her other than her best friend’s brother, and if I try, I won’t even be that close. Summer will push me away, and I’ll never be this close to her again. I think for a second or two that Summer will do this for me; that she’ll kiss me and I won’t have to choose, but she doesn’t. Maybe it’s better that she doesn’t. I’m better off with other girls. Girls who don’t want more from me than one night.

  I wish I could believe that as Summer pulls back from me. I can feel the heat that’s there between us, but I don’t dare do anything about it. Not now. Not when she won’t close that gap either.

  “Are you out here to run?” Summer asks.

  I nod. “I’ve been running every morning since we got here. I need to keep in shape.”

  “Then I’ll run with you,” she offers, and sets off down the beach. For a moment or two, all I can do is watch her running, then I set off after her. I think it will be easy to catch up to her, but Summer is even faster than she used to be, staying a little ahead of me for quite a while before I draw level with her and then keeping up the pace as we run along the sand. What do we look like, running together? It must be pretty good, because almost everyone we pass watches us as we run.

  Eventually, when we’re both sweating with the exertion, Summer turns for home.

  “You’re done already?” I joke, even though I’m just as tired as she is.

  “Breakfast is nearly ready,” she says. “That’s why I came out to get you in the first place. If we don’t turn back now, we’re going to miss it completely.”

  She starts to run back to the beach house and I follow in her stride. I could keep pace with her, but for now, I want to watch her as she runs. I want to watch every movement of her body as she almost glides across the sand. It occurs to me then that I’ve spent so long chasing after her, not quite catching her. I want more than that. I need more than that. Like the moment before we started running, when I thought we might kiss. It feels like my whole life has been that moment. I’ve gotten plenty of things. Plenty of girls. But never her.

  I chase on after her along the Malibu beach and I know that I can’t leave things like this any longer. I don’t want Summer to be the girl who might have been. I don’t care if that makes things difficult. I don’t care if Rachel will kill me for it. I’m not going to miss this chance. I’m going to do whatever I have to do to be with her.

  Chapter 7

  Summer

  The day after I first run with him, Drew wakes me up with a knock at my bedroom door. I quickly get dressed and go see what he wants, noticing that he’s in his running gear again.

  “What is it, Drew?” Rachel moans from her bed. “Can’t you see that some of us are trying to sleep?”

  “Then go back to sleep,” Drew suggests. “It’s Summer I want to talk to.”

  Rachel looks at him from her bed, and I can tell it’s a warning look, but she doesn’t say anything. She’s obviously decided to believe me when I say that I can handle Drew.

  “What do you want, Drew?” I ask. “You’re going to wake Aunt Sookie up.”

  “I don’t want to do that,” he says. “I just thought that you might like to come for a run again this morning.”

  “Are you still obsessing over not falling behind with football training?” Rachel asks.

  “I’m just trying to stay in shape,” he shoots back. “So how about it, Summer?”

  “Well, I do like to run,” I say. “I have to keep in good condition for volleyball.”

  “And it can get pretty boring, running alone,” Drew points out.

  I nod. “I guess so.”

  “Great,” Rachel says, pulling the covers up over herself. “Go run. Just do it quietly, so I can go back to sleep.”

  I smile at that and nod to Drew, who goes to wait for me downstairs while I change into my running gear and tie my hair back. Rachel is already snoring by the time I go to run with her brother.

  Like he said, it’s far better running with him than it would be alone. I still have the sensation of the breeze on my skin and the sun on my face. I still have the soft sand giving way beneath my feet or the harder sand making it easier to run. There are still all the morning people out on the beach, used to me by now in the case of a few of the regulars. It’s just that with Drew there with me, I have someone to keep me going and to push me on, so that I run harder than I would have alone.

  It’s good having someone to talk to, too.

  “I’m a little worried about Aunt Sookie,” I say when we’re about where we turned for home yesterday. “Ever since coming back to the Pad this summer, I noticed she’s been tired constantly, and the least little thing seems to take it out of her.”

  “Maybe she’s just a little sick,” Drew suggests, slowing down a little. “Maybe she’s just caught a bad cold, or something.”

  “This feels like more than a little,” I say, and I can’t keep the worry out of my voice. “Like the way she’s eating. Suddenly, it’s like she’s changed her whole diet.”

  “She has lost a lot of weight since I last saw her three years ago. Well, maybe that’s it,” Drew says, finally stopping and looking out at the ocean. “Maybe it’s what she’s eating.”

  “Maybe.” I’m still not convinced by that. It’s true Aunt Sookie had lost a lot of weight from when we were kids showing up here every summer, and she’s changed her sugar-laden high calories diet to all grains, fruits, and vegetables.

  “Whatever it is, your aunt’s tough,” Drew assures me. “And you’ll be there for her. We all will. Now come on. Let’s get back and see if my sister is out of bed yet.”

  We run together most days after that. Sometimes, Drew wakes me up to do it, but mostly, I’m looking forward to it. There’s something simple about running with him along the beach, and it’s like I get to see the real Drew there too. He’s so much more straightforward than I remember, plus he’s funny, and cute, and he runs like he wants to push himself to the limit all the time.

  Plus, it’s like he’s going out of his way to be nice to me. Maybe it’s all the times that I’ve caught him messing around with girls, or maybe it’s just that he wants to show me another side to him, but he starts doing small things that are just so much nicer than I expect. Most days, for example, he makes me breakfast when I get back, and whether it’s pancakes or bacon or something else, he always seems to guess exactly what I’m in the mood for. A couple of times, I don’t even have to ask. He just gets the food ready, puts it down in front of me, and I realize that it’s just what I want.

  Then there are other things. One morning, he brings me a flower, a sprig of purple lupines.

  “Where did you get those?” I ask.

  “They’re down on the beach,” he says. “Come on. I’ll show you when we run.”

  He does, and we spend our run heading out to this spot on the beachfront where the flowers grow wild. It’s beautiful, with the sun and the beach in the background. A perfect kind of spot to stop and catch our breath before we head back.

  This new side of Drew isn’t just limited to our morning runs though. A couple of times, he comes with me to Aunt Sookie’s academy, and he helps me out with one of the classes for kids. He’s a lot of fun there, and he seems to genuinely enjoy it.

  “What can I say?” he says when I ask him back at the beach house about it. “I just know how to get along with kids.”

  Rachel, who’s sitting at the kitchen table, snorts. “Mostly because you never grew up.”

  I see less of Nat than of them in those few days. He’s often out with old friends, or going to places he used to go to, or on the phone to Chrissy. He’s still around though, in the background, and I still find my eyes going over to him from time to time. Occassionally, I find his eyes on me, but when I look over, he’s doing something else. He, Drew and Rachel all do a lot to help out Aunt Sookie, though in different ways. Nat does a lot of the cooking for dinner, while Rachel does more in the way of running errands.

  When she’s not doing that, she spends a lot of her time with Ryan, though we have plenty of fun too. I get her involved in a couple of games of volleyball out on the beach, and we have a lot of fun, even though Rachel can’t really keep up. We go swimming together, and meet up with a few friends she hasn’t seen since she moved away. Most of them are a little shocked by her new look, but they quickly realize it’s still the same old Rachel under the surface.

  And there’s Astor, too. Rachel wants details of what happened at Disneyland, of course, and she goes all gooey when she hears how calmly he dealt with all those fans. She also promises to never speak to Drew again if he tries anything else like that. Though I suspect Drew will just smile and say it might be worth it if he hears that threat. Rachel also demands more straightforward details.

  “Did you kiss him?”

  I nod.

  “You actually kissed Astor Fairway?”

  “Well, he kissed me, really,” I say, and for an instant, Rachel looks completely envious. Then she jumps up and down with excitement again.

  “That’s even better!” she declares.

  “How does it make a difference whether he kissed me or I kissed him?” I ask.

  Rachel looks at me like she’s amazed I don’t get it. “Anyone could kiss Astor Fairway. I mean, I could. All I’d have to do would be to just run up to him and do it… not that I would,” she adds hastily. “I’m just saying that someone could, if she wanted.”

  “Why does it sound like you’ve been forming plans for exactly that?” I ask.

  Rachel looks shocked. “I would never do that. I’m with Ryan, so why would I even want to? I’m just saying that there are plenty of girls who would. So it means more if he likes you enough that he kissed you.”

  That actually makes a weird kind of sense, which suggests I’ve been spending too much time out in the sun with Rachel today. I shake my head. “Don’t make too big a deal out of it though,” I say. “I don’t know if it will happen again. I mean, we had fun, but there must be lots of hot actresses trying to catch his eye. And they probably won’t have Drew showing up in the middle of their dates.”

  To my surprise though, what happened on our date doesn’t put Astor off. He’s waiting to talk to me when I next go into Aunt Sookie’s academy, and again when I’m done helping with the classes. I guess that kind of shows he isn’t the spoiled star Drew makes him out to be, because if he were only interested in me for one thing, he’d have moved on when it didn’t go perfectly the first time. He comes by pretty often, sometimes coming back for dinner after he’s done for the day with his private lessons with Aunt Sookie.

  The first time he does that, it’s Rachel who answers the door. She must have seen him at the party, but you would have thought that she hadn’t actually spoken to him yet.

  “Oh. My. God. Astor Fairway.” She looks from him to me, to Aunt Sookie. “You’re actually bringing Astor Fairway home for dinner?”

  “If we can get through the door,” Aunt Sookie says gently.

  “It’s all right,” Astor says. He holds out a hand. “Hi. You’re Rachel, right? Summer’s best friend?”

  Rachel shakes his hand and then looks at her hand. “I just shook Astor Fairway’s hand. I…”

  “Rachel,” I say, taking her back inside and letting the others past. “Will you try to maybe not act like a total fan for a moment?”

  “I’m not, am I?” Rachel asks, and then stops herself. “I am, aren’t I? Oh, Summer, I’m sorry. It’s just that he’s so totally hot, and… not as hot as Ryan, obviously.”

  “Obviously,” I say, trying to keep a straight face. For me, Astor’s far better looking than Rachel’s new boyfriend, but Ryan’s kind of sweet, and I know she really cares about him, because most of the time Rachel doesn’t spend with me, she spends with him. “And I know you’re excited. Just, could you maybe tone it down a little? When you get to know Astor, you’ll see he’s just a regular guy.”

  “A really hot regular guy,” Rachel points out.

  “I thought he wasn’t as hot as Ryan?” I say with a smile.

  “What? Just because he’s totally wrong for me that doesn’t mean he isn’t hot. And he must be totally into you, or he wouldn’t be here.”

  I shrug. “I hope so. Assuming that someone doesn’t spoil it by making him think all my friends are crazy.”

  Rachel bites her lip. “I’ll try to be normal. I promise.”

  I laugh. “You don’t have to go that far. Just be yourself.”

  “Hey!”

  Thankfully, Rachel does manage something approaching normal conversation with Astor. She even apologizes for being so star struck. Astor doesn’t seem to mind anyway, and after dinner we go out onto the beach together.

  “I hope Rachel didn’t scare you off from coming here too much,” I say.

  Astor kisses me, quickly and softly. “Nothing could do that while you’re here, and Rachel isn’t too bad. She must be a good friend.”

  “She is,” I say.

  “It must be nice, being that close to someone.”

  I remember then what Astor said at Disneyland. All his friends are professional friends. He’ll know them through his show, and that will be it. I put my hand in his.

  “It is nice,” I say. “But you don’t have to be alone, you know. Whatever happens, I want to know the real you. All of you.”

  “I know,” Astor says, pulling me to him and kissing me softly. In that moment he looks so happy.

  Chapter 8

  It’s a couple of days later, and Astor has come around again. We stay inside for dinner, but then retreat out onto the porch by the pool to talk. Well… maybe we start out meaning to talk, but pretty soon we’re making out. Either is good. Particularly with the way Astor kisses. He’s so delicate about it, but at the same time he’s very much the one taking charge as his lips explore mine and his hands drift down my back. It’s a combination that’s hard to resist.

  “Why don’t you come out to my house in the Canyons?” he suggests.

  “You’re inviting me to your place?”

  Astor smiles. “Well, I’ve spent so much time at yours, it only seems fair to return the favor.”

  “Right now?” I shake my head. “I don’t think I can go just like that…”

  Astor brushes a hand down the line of my cheek. It’s such a soft movement, and a sensual one. “Tomorrow then. I’ll come by and pick you up once you’re done at the acting academy.”