Page 52 of Shut Up and Drive

He remembers everything.

Bradley doesn’t say anything about my calorie-loaded breakfast drink, but he looks at the nutrition facts on thecreamer and syrup, then frowns. He doesn’t have to say anything with his lips; it’s written all over his face that he’s silently judging me.

Him following me down to Amethyst Lake has quickly turned into a nightmare, and has exacerbated his criticisms of me. He is about as subtle as a sledgehammer when it comes to his expectations of me, and I seldom met them when we dated.

I sigh heavily, and Bradley turns to make eye contact. “Hey. I want to talk about what happened at the restaurant. I think there’s been a misunderstanding. Let’s go for a run. We could both use the exercise.” When his eyes flick down to my coffee, my blood begins to boil.

“Actually, before you arrived, I made plans to read in the hammock outside before it gets too hot,” I say, trying to hide my frustration. “But we can talk for a few minutes on the patio while we drink our coffees.”

His tone shifts when he sees I’m upset and he turns on the charm. “It can wait. Have yourself a bit of ‘me time’ if that’s what you need.” He winks at me and throws me the smile thatusedto make my knees a bit weak, but it doesn’t anymore. “You deserve it for how hard you work.” When I tense up, he massages my shoulders and kisses the back of my head.

And that’s how he got me to stay as long as I did.

He covers his barbed-wire words with cotton candy and I give him the benefit of the doubt. Better the devil I know than the devil I don’t, I guess.

“I’ve got some work calls to make anyway. Are we good?” He gestures his hands back and forth between us and I nod to make the moment end. “Cool. You’re thebest.” Then he smacks me on the butt like I just played a good game and struts off.

I, on the other hand, can’t get outside to my hammock fast enough. I scurry out the back door, set my mug on the tree stump that Thane and Bash fashioned into a tiny table for me one year, and settle in to read.

The hammock gently sways in the South Carolina breeze, and my heart slows as my eyes scan the pages. I sip happiness in a cup and eavesdrop on two characters falling in love. It’s literally the most calm I’ve felt in days. I take a deep breath through my nose and the surrounding pines give me the perfect scent for this memory. This is the perfect moment and nothing can spoil?—

“What do you mean the shipment will be late? I ordered it in plenty of time!” Bradley yells from the side yard of the lake house. “I don’t care what happened with the truck it was on. I have people depending on it to be here by mid-July. I don’t care what you have to do to make it work, just do it.” Then he does the cell phone equivalent of slamming a phone receiver down and shoves his phone into the pocket of his gym shorts.

I cringe and glance around to see who may have heard. That’s when I look up at the second-story balcony and see Thane towel-drying his hair.

He shakes his head in disgust and disappears back through the doorway. That is the last time I see him until dinnertime.

The rest of the day is spent holding my breath around Bradley. I want to make him vanish from my life for good—then completely block him on all platforms—but for the time being, he’s stuck here without a car. If I say ordo the wrong thing, he could get angry and embarrass me in front of my whole family and the Donnellys. So instead of being honest and telling him our relationshipreallyis over, I fake a smile all day that makes my face hurt.

That evening, our families head outside to the fire pit to visit while the kids soak up the last few minutes of sunlight on the beach. Thane follows behind me and Bradley on the path, and I feel his gaze burning a hole in my back the whole way down. Our dads head to the dock to fish, while our moms set out the stuff to make s’mores. I’m dying for something to focus on so I can ignore the tension.

Thane settles across the fire from me, and he holds my gaze as Bradley sits next to me. I throw Thane an S.O.S. stare, he nods subtly like he understands the assignment, and starts small talk.

“So,Brad, what do you do for work?”

The emphasis on the nickname Bradley hates isn’t lost on me, and I bite back a smile.

“First off, it’s Bradley,” he says, emphasizing the last syllable condescendingly. “And second, isn’t it obvious?” Bradley scoffs, pointing at his water bottle with workout- and supplement-brand stickers all over it. “I sell supplements and protein powder, and I’m a trainer at my best friend’s gym. That’s how Serafina and I met.”

Thane leans forward in his camp chair, resting his elbows on his thighs. That smile full of mischief crosses his face, and I know things are about to get to a new level of uncomfortable. “I’ll bet that’s a fun story. Tell me how you two met, Fina.”

I stab him twenty times with my eyeballs and take adeep breath in. But when I open my mouth to speak, Bradley takes the reins instead.

“She was new to the gym—I could totally tell by her horrible form. So, being the upstanding guy I am—and also that she was super hot—I offered to help her. Forfree,even.”

He smiles, all proud of himself for being my gallant knight in shining Under Armour, and turns his attention to something on his phone.

“Would you have helped her if shewasn’thot? Because I have some fantastic photos of her with acne and braces,” Thane chimes in.

Bradley snickers. “As long as she wasn’t fat… We can’t have our future children having ‘fat potential’ now, can we?” He reaches over and pokes at my side.

Now, I’m in no means a size zero—even after all of my sessions with Bradley and crazy fad diets—but being openly fat-shamed by anyone else hasn’t happened since grade school. I’m what some would consider “curvy,” but my waist has never been my problem area. My Puerto Rican butt,however, is a distant cousin to the one that J-Lo sports; I’ve always felt like it was one of my best assets—pun intended.

I guess I’m the only one who believes that.

The heat from the fire doesn’t even come close to the temperature that my cheeks flush to. I let the marshmallow I was roasting for a s’more burn to a crisp, and fall into the campfire. I can’t bear to look at anyone, so for a few agonizing moments, I turn my focus to poking at the logs. Thane clears his throat to get my attention.

His eyes may as well have the Superman lasers beamingout of them, because he is obviously pissed. That muscle in his jaw flexes, and he grips his drink so tightly the veins start popping in his forearms. He glances from Bradley to me, and I haven’t seen him this angry since he took that punch to the mouth for me in high school. I worry that he’s going to take Bradley back behind the woodshed and beat him up before tossing him out like the rest of the trash. I shake my head in a barely-there attempt to call him back from the edge. He ignores my signal and turns to Bradley.