I didn’t know what was happening to my life anymore.
For years I was invisible to everyone at The Academy, and in a matter of weeks, the popular girls were targeting me with their own brand of bitchy cruelness, while the king of the school was offering me rides home from school.
Even now, as I walked along the shoreline with Daryl by my side, I couldn't quite grasp the U-turn my life had taken.
"So, what are your plans for the weekend?" Daryl asked, as he tossed a football into the air and caught it easily. He was so much taller than me that I barely reached his shoulder in height. "Doing anything interesting?"
"My plans?" Wrapping my arms around my middle, I bit back a shiver and looked out at the water. "Nope. No. I don’t have any of those."
"You cold?" Without giving me a chance to respond, he whipped his gray school sweater off and held it out for me. "Here."
"Uh… thanks?"
"No problem."
Feeling shy, I took the sweater from his hands and quickly slipped it over my head. The moment I had his sweater on, swamping my little frame, his scent filled my nose and I breathed in deeply, feeling a world of happy memories bombard me.
"You still smell the same," I blurted out, and then quickly realized myself. "It's nice. Really good. I like it." Mortified, I cleared my throat and quickly looked away from his quizzical expression. Ugh.
"Yeah?" Stopping directly in front of me, Daryl leaned in close, pressing his nose to my bare throat, and causing a riot to break out south of my navel. "Well, you smell even better," he offered before pulling back to look at me.
My heart literally skipped a beat. "I d-do?"
He nodded, green eyes locked on mine, and gave me back my earlier words, "I really like it."
"Um…" Face burning from the attention, I roughly cleared my throat and looked away, more affected by his presence than was good for me.
"I missed you, Dolly," he said then, snapping my attention back to his beautiful face. "More than a lot."
"Yeah, D." I blew out a pained breath and fell back into step beside him as we walked. "I missed you, too."