Crossing Abby Road (16 page)

I hoped that meant she’d decided to stay…for one more day or for the whole summer. She was probably taking a huge risk on me, too. We were taking separate risks, but together. There was no room in my mind to think about that anymore when she ran her hands up my chest, pressing them flat over my heart. It wouldn’t take much for her to feel how hard it was beating.

“Aw, dammit,” she muttered, running a finger across the neck of my T-shirt. “I forgot to make you beg.”

I laughed into her hair. “Oh, Abby, I’ve been begging for you for hours.”

Still up on her toes, she put a hand at the back of my head and drew me down, whispering in my ear the words to a Frank Sinatra song, one that was originally sung by the Beatles.

The way she was stretching caused her shirt to lift, exposing a slice of bare skin at her back, which my eager hands found. She inhaled against me. Neither of us moved for a second, then I kissed her, because there was nothing else in the world I could do.

More cars drove past, their headlights giving me glimpses of Abby’s face, her eyelids, the dazed and disheveled way she looked right after I kissed her. At one point, we’d moved to the side yard. Part of my brain must have registered that I knew the house was vacant.

Abby was on my lap, straddling me just like I’d wanted during our tickling match. But we weren’t laughing now—well, we had been when I’d scooped her up and carried her to the secluded stone bench when we’d heard some people about to walk by.

“Do you really want to sign autographs right now?” I whispered as explanation.

“You…” she whispered, resting her forehead against mine, “are the smartest guy I know.” She ran her tongue between her lips. “With the most gorgeous green eyes.” She laced her fingers through mine. “And the sexiest hands.”

I didn’t know my hands could be sexy, but coming from Abby—the sexiest chick I’d ever had on my lap—I’d damn well take it. “If you’d sit still for a minute,” I said, readjusting her position on me, “I’ll show you what else my hands can do.”

Her face beamed, and the next thing I knew, she propelled herself against me at such a speed that we fell off the bench and onto the grass. Nothing hotter than being knocked off your feet then straddled.

“Me first,” she said, her hair tumbling over her shoulders in crazy waves. With me willingly pinned under her, Abby started at the inside of my elbow, showing me just how sexy hands could be.

It wasn’t until one of those sexy hands of hers brushed against my bare stomach, then across my chest that I knew we’d had enough. My hands were similarly a bit higher up inside the front of her shirt than they should have been on a first date.

Or was this our fourth date?

Was it a date at all? My main motivation for sending my hands up there had been to show her she was better built than any Bond Girl.

“I need to go jump in the ocean,” I said, staring down at her face bathed in moonlight, her hair splayed across the grass, the dreamiest glaze in her eyes.

“Can I watch?” she asked, fisting my shirt in both hands. “I’ll even save you from sharks.”

I exhaled a laugh/moan and rolled to the side, off of her. “I haven’t made out for two hours straight since eighth grade,” I said.

“It’s been almost three hours.”

“Really?” I blinked. “Huh.”

“Congratulations on the accomplishment.” Abby laughed and rolled to her knees, sweeping the hair back from her shoulders. She was as stunningly beautiful as ever, but it was better now, or worse—because now I knew what she tasted like, the sounds she made when I sucked on her lip or got up close and personal with that purple bra. It would ring in my head forever.

“In about thirty seconds, Abby, I’m going to need way more than a cold shower to recover.”

Had meeting a hot girl today who happened to be a celebrity been good luck after all?

Hell, yeah.

And had she also inadvertently inspired me to remember what was important, what I wanted out of life now?

That was another hell, yeah.

If I had any brains at all, I would never let this woman go, knowing my nightmares and darkness somehow eased just because she was near.

“Walk me to my bike?” she asked.

“Good idea.”

I scooped up her hand this time as we took the footpath to the back entrance of Modica’s. There was still a pretty good crowd at the square, so I left Abby by the back door and went for her bike. A part of me hoped it was gone, though the crime rate in Seaside was next to nothing. But there it was, propped against the window like it had been twelve hours ago.

“So, um, thanks for lunch and dessert and everything,” she said, after she’d swung one leg over the bike. “It was really…delicious.”

I laughed and pushed a hand through my hair. Even after all day and the last two hours, Abby could still leave me tongue-tied. “Anytime.”

She set one foot on the pedal, but I stepped in front of the bike and took the handlebars. “You’re sure you know the way back in the dark?”

“The streets are lit and it’s barely a mile.”

“I can drive you. No problem.”

“I gotta work off that pie,” she said.

The thought of letting her go made the back of my throat ache and my chest feel like it might cave in. But I knew she would still be here tomorrow, though she hadn’t said anything certain about that. It was another of my gut feelings that swore to me that today was not the end of our story.

Still not ready to let her ride into the night, I put my hands over hers, wrapping them around her hands on the rubber grips. Then I looked once more into those smoky-gray, kaleidoscope eyes, leaned across the handlebars, and kissed Abigail Kelly…
thought
about Abigail Kelly—the lead singer of Mustang Sally—and all the complicated drama that went along with being with her.

Our meeting was as unplanned as a snowstorm hitting the Gulf Shore.

Plans were overrated.

Her eyes were lowered when I finished, and I could hear her uneven breathing, pleased to know that the thought of going our separate ways sucked for her, too.

“Good night,” I said, running the back of my hand along her chin.

“Good night, Todd.” She pressed her lips together and gazed at me, one of her stronger strings wrapping around my heart, tying it in a double knot.

I stepped back, allowing her bike to coast forward. She sent me a big smile as she glided past, but before she got twenty feet, she skidded to a stop. “Hey. Are you working tomorrow?” she called out.

I laughed and dipped my chin, sliding my hands into my back pockets. “Only in the morning. In the afternoon, I have a date with a singer.”

Abby laughed out loud, a sound that filled me with an inexplicable sense of success. And the damnedest joy. She waved a hand over her head then pedaled away. I watched until she disappeared into the night.

…

The air had turned chilly. Or maybe I’d just grown so used to having Abby near me, her body as my second skin. Chandler had locked up hours ago, but I decided to walk across the square to my store and check today’s sales.

En route, my cell went off, reminding me of all the calls I’d missed, all the ones I’d have to return. But not until tomorrow, because today wasn’t for any more decisions. Today was for meeting a girl and kissing a girl and holding a girl so tightly against me that I felt the button-fly of her shorts, felt strings and steel cables and new beginnings tying us together.

It was early June, and Seaside was alive with noise and smells and happiness and its own kind of new beginning. I unlocked the glass door and pushed it open, reminding myself to replace the floor lock Abby had snapped this morning. Then I walked through the dark sales floor, into the backroom, sat down at my laptop, and opened my music file, closing the Sinatra playlist and starting a new one. Mustang Sally.

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Acknowledgments

My love for Abby Road, and not being able to let it go, is the only reason this book exists. Well, that, and also because my amazing editor, Stacy Abrams, believed in me, loved Abby and Todd, too, and allowed me to live in their world for just a little while longer. This book tried to kill me a few times, and if not for so many people pulling for it, it surely would’ve succeeded. Thank you, Stacy, I just…I can’t even. All the feels. Sue, thanks for, gah, I don’t know, for pretty much everything ever always. Nancy, for meeting over dumplings and Chick-fil-a sauce (not together, but yum!) to help me figure out how to give Todd his own story. Tara, for the most thorough and amazing CE pass in the history of books. Ginger, for yet again swooping in at the eleventh hour to do what you do best. Thank you to the readers and fans (both cyber and IRL) of Abby Road who’ve been so excited and supportive that Todd is getting his own story. Thanks to Darwin for letting me pick your former-Marine-sniper brain that one day. Lastly, thank you to my parents, who instilled in me the ultra-throwback love for Frank Sinatra’s music. Dude, sing your face off.

“Don’t you know, little fool, you never can win?

Use your mentality, wake up to reality.

But each time that I do, just the thought of you

Makes me stop before I begin…”

About the Author

USA Today bestselling author
Ophelia London
was born and raised among the redwood trees in beautiful northern California. Once she was fully educated, she decided to settle in Florida, but her car broke down in Texas and she’s lived in Dallas ever since. A cupcake and treadmill aficionado (obviously those things are connected), she spends her time watching arthouse movies and impossibly trashy TV, while living vicariously through the characters in the books she writes. Ophelia is the author of SOMEDAY MAYBE; DEFINITELY, MAYBE IN LOVE; ABBY ROAD; AIMEE AND THE HEARTTHROB the Perfect Kisses series including: FALLING FOR HER SOLDIER, PLAYING AT LOVE, SPEAKING OF LOVE, and MAKING WAVES; and the upcoming Sugar City series for Entangled’s Bliss line. Visit her at
ophelialondon.com
. But don’t call when The Vampire Diaries is on.

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Also by Ophelia London…

Abby Road

Definitely, Maybe in Love

Someday Maybe

Aimee and the Heartthrob

the Perfect Kisses series

Playing at Love

Speaking of Love

Falling for Her Soldier

Making Waves: a Perfect Kisses novella

Love Bites: a Sugar City novella

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