by Frankie Rose
“So you didn’t even get kissed last night?”
“Nope.” Well, Noah didn’t kiss me, anyway. And dream lays don’t count. I crunch down on a carrot, knowing how much it annoys Morgan when I eat on the phone. “Noah said something about wanting to have the opportunity to do it more than once.”
“You know what that means, don’t you?” Morgan sounds a little strained. She’s nursing the hangover from hell, courtesy of a night in with her parents. Apparently, the only way to handle such an event is to get roaring drunk on expensive tequila.
“No, what does it mean?”
“It means he’s a player. He must be okay with kissing some girls just once, if you catch my drift.”
“It could mean that,” I concede.
“And that’s okay with you?”
I think about how complicated everything is for me right now; do I really need the potential for something serious with a guy on top of all that? The answer is a resounding Hell No. I’m definitely not ready to think about emotions and feelings and all that other complicated stuff. That might require me to analyse the foray my subconscious took into porno land last night. “Yeah, I think I’m okay with that. I mean, he’s an exchange student for crying out loud. He’ll be going back to Ireland at some point. Plus I won’t have to explain anything about before, if we’re just having some fun.”
Morgan makes a choking sound down the phone. “Excuse me? Did I just hear you say, ‘having some fun’? I think all the hard liquor I drank last night has my ears on the fritz.”
Morgan Kepler, queen of hyperbole. I pop the rest of the carrot into my mouth and chomp extra hard. “I’m not that straight-laced, Morgan. At least I don’t think I am.”
“Trust me. You are.”
“Hey! I resent that.”
“I resent being accused of many things, but that, unfortunately my dear, doesn’t make them untrue.”
“All right, well maybe I don’t want to be straight-laced anymore, then. Maybe I just want someone to take my mind off things. That’s what Noah did for me last night—he made me forget for five minutes. That felt really good.” Until we hit O’Flanagan’s, of course. I’ve left that whole section of the night out of my story. I don’t feel like explaining Luke and his incredible voice, or the fact that he sang Blackbird. Morgan will only pick every single second apart and that will confuse things even further. And right now, some clarity would be great, given how muddy the water has gotten.
“I’m happy for you, chica. You need some light entertainment in your life. And I’m sure that lovely Irish boy knows at least a hundred different ways to keep you lightly entertained.”
I let out a loud sigh. Maybe she’s right. “When are you coming back to campus?”
“Late tonight. You wanna grab a coffee at lunch tomorrow?”
“Sure.” I hang up, feeling lighter than I have in days. I’m sure part of that has something to do with Noah and how our lack of history is like a clean slate. Something fresh and new and untainted. Maybe it’s time to put Lucas Reid out of my head once and for all. If I’m honest with myself, he’s been on my mind a lot since that night outside Tate’s frat house, during waking hours as well as in my dreams. It makes me angry that I’m letting myself think about him when I know it’s just another road to pain and misery for me. For starters, Luke knows all the hideous details of my past. He found my dad, for fuck’s sake. We’ve been meeting up since I was a kid so he can make sure I am okay. So he can try and find some sort of closure to the whole affair. Undoubtedly, he still sees me as the snot-nosed kid who kicked and screamed and smashed the window to the living room when she found out her father was dead. Those are the reasons I know with a certainty that Luke will never feel anything for me beyond pity and perhaps a protective sense of duty.
There are other reasons, too. Normal ones. He’s older and has lived in the city on his own for years, and I’m just starting out at college. I know he’s incredibly good looking, even if I pretend that doesn’t affect me—it totally does—and that means he can probably have any girl he wants. On top of everything, I desperately don’t want to feel anything for him because every time I look at him, I see his face on the day he came to our front door. I witness the horror of what he saw, the guilt of what he had to tell us. I see Breakwater and everything I want to leave behind. I need the man out of my life for good.
