The Start of Us: Book 1 in the No Regrets series

by Blakely, Lauren

  That’s all it takes. The weirdness dissolves. We took the elephant in the room, and we turned it into a mouse and then it scurried on out of here. We spend the next thirty minutes talking about music that hits us hard in the heart, from Dave Matthews Band to Screaming Trees and Natasha Bedingfield to Nirvana.

  “So, can I ask you another question?” Trey says as he sets down his drained coffee cup. “Why did you picture the beach?”

  Memories flash by. Days when I was younger. Running through the sand. Falling asleep to the ocean waves. Eating pizza on the deck as the sun sets over the water. Just a few weeks a year, but they were the best days.

  They were the only ones that ever seemed normal in my life, the only time I remember being a family, and I haven’t been back to the beach since my parents split. I’m not really sure how to say all that. I’m not accustomed to speaking the truth. Not to men. Not to friends. Not to my mom. Not to anyone. But right now I don’t feel like a jaded teenage girl. I feel like a real girl. Like a twenty-year-old who doesn’t know what her future holds, and even though I know what tomorrow will bring—an end to this, an end to him, an end to the fluttery possibility of a real date—I decide to tell him some of my truths. To see how it feels to be Harley and not the girl I was with all those other men.

  “I used to go to the beach when I was young,” I say. “My dad’s parents lived in Southern California. San Diego. I don’t remember much of it. I can’t tell you the specifics or anything. It was more like a feeling. I close my eyes and the warm breeze skims over my arms. I hear the waves rolling in at night. I smell the saltiness of the ocean. And I have this sort of fuzzy, hazy memory of being happy. I mean, I was six, right? You’re supposed to be happy. What could possibly make you unhappy at age six?”

  “An ice cream cone spilling on the ground is about all I can think of,” he answers immediately, and I smile and point at him.

  “Exactly! You have no worries. No cares, and I guess the beach always seemed that way to me. Not so much that it’s an escape, but I think it’s impossible to be stressed if you’re there.”

  “I think it’s a logical fallacy to be stressed at the beach. Worry disappears when your toes touch the sand.”

  “I believe that. But then I don’t know if we’re ever really as happy as we were when we were six.”

  “When we were six,” he says, musing on the words. “Isn’t that the name of a book?”

  I elbow him. “Yes. A Winnie the Pooh book of poems. When We Were Six. I like that book. So, what about you? If you could go anywhere, where would it be?”

  “I would leave New York in a heartbeat. It’s too dirty, too smoky, too fucking claustrophobic. I’d get on a train to Florida. To Virginia. To California. I don’t care. I’d ride it across the country and not look back.”

  “Why?”

  “Too much shit happened here,” he mutters as he rubs his hand against the ink on his forearm. Swirling lines, tribal art, all in threes. It must mean something to him.

  “Like what, Trey?” I ask, wishing I could touch his arm gently to reassure him, let him know I want to listen. “What happened here?”

  He shrugs, swallows, looks away. “I don’t know,” he says in an offhand voice that makes me wonder if he’s trying to play it cool. “Crazy stuff. Things you don’t want to know.”

  There are things I don’t want him to know either. Parents, family, that kind of thing. So I don’t press. I respect secrets. “It’s always that way, isn’t it? Too much happens here.”

  He nods several times, and even though neither one of us is admitting anything, we at least have some kind of common ground. “Right? It’s like, is anyone ever really happy with the way they grew up?”

  I shake my head. “I don’t think so. I don’t think it’s possible. I don’t understand what it’s like to be one of those kids who had a white-picket-fence life, you know?”

  “So, are we just jaded hipsters?”

  “Hey! Do I look like a hipster?”

  “Prepster maybe,” he teases.

  “I don’t feel jaded right now.”

  He smiles. “Me neither. It’s weird. But I don’t feel cynical right this second. And trust me, I usually do. I usually feel like I’ve seen too much or whatever. But something about this night just feels…I don’t know…right?”

  Right. Nothing I’ve ever done with a member of the opposite sex has ever been right. Yet, as butterflies swoop through me, I might be learning what the word means.

  “Yes. It does. It does feel right.”

  Then he tilts his head to the side, watching, waiting, and the moment feels suspended, like it’s a line in the sand and we’re going somewhere, over, under, around, and I’m not sure what’s next, but we’re inching closer, our legs almost touching, our shoulders near to each other.

  He taps my leg once with his fingertips, and electricity sparks across my skin. “This is better, much better, right?”

  My mouth feels dry. I’m not even sure what he’s asking. Or why he’s asking. But I don’t entirely care what the question is—with him, the answer seems to be yes.

  “Yes,” I say, my voice like a dry husk on a hot summer day. I wish I had water.

  He inches closer, lifts his hand, and brushes a strand of hair from my face. My belly flips wildly, and holy fuck, that feels good. Just the slightest touch and I am buzzed. I want more, so I move closer. He picks up on my cues and fingers a strand of my hair, and I’m soaring with one touch. I might float off on a cloud of lust right this second.

  “You have nice hair, Harley,” he says, and his voice is low and smoky now. Everything in me stills. Is he going to kiss me? Is that a prelude to a kiss? I have no clue how boys kiss girls when money doesn’t change hands.

  But he pulls back, and clearly his lips aren’t about to lock with mine. Instead, he quirks up his eyebrows. “This is going to sound crazy, but do you want to get on the train? Just ride around and talk?”

  Maybe it’s crazy to get on a train with a stranger, but Trey doesn’t feel like a stranger, and tonight he’s the closest person in my life. He knows more about me already than most people do. And that’s because I know I’ll never see him again. We can never be together. We would never work.

  But I can get on a train with this guy who wants an unscripted night.

  My first unplanned evening.

  “It doesn’t sound crazy. Let’s go.”

  We leave the coffee shop and turn onto Eighth Avenue. “So now that we’re not six and happiness isn’t about whether ice cream cones stay upright or not, do you believe in happiness now?” I ask him. It’s a bold question for me. I don’t usually dive into serious stuff. But I feel like that’s the point of us. To strip away the veneers.

  He gives me a look like I’m crazy as I zip up my jacket.

  “What do you mean, do I believe in happiness?”

  “Is it possible? Is happiness possible?”

  “I don’t know. I mean, how do you define ‘happiness’? Is it some kind of euphoria? Like a high?”

  A high. I know something about that. I know too much about that. I need to stop feeling high.

  I shake my head. “No, the opposite. Well, not the opposite. Not sadness or depression, because that sucks. But more of an even keel. A general sort of shiny, happy, serene feeling. Like all is right in the world. Like you can roll with the punches.”

  We stop at the crosswalk. The light is red. Trey looks at me, his gaze honing in on mine in a way that sends my blood racing. “You know what I believe in? This moment. I’m happy right now. I’m having a good time right now.”

  “Me too,” I say, and my body is tingling and lit up from his words. Words that feel true and honest. Words that don’t come with a price tag or an order. I don’t entirely know what to make of us, but it’s as if I’m spending the night in an alternate reality, one where my mom is normal, where my past is clean, where my future is bright, and where moments like this are possible. Then the light changes, and he reache
s for my hand, linking his fingers through mine.

  “Is this okay?” he asks in a nervous tone.

  Moments that aren’t just possible. That border on perfect. Heat shoots through my body. I never knew holding hands could be so good.

  “Yes. It’s more than okay.”

  We walk several blocks to Penn Station, talking all the way about happiness and music and life, and then we head down the escalator into the train station. He buys two tickets to the eleven-thirty train to Long Island.

  I’m getting on a train to freakin’ Long Island. But it feels like I’m in Europe. Like I met him on a train from Vienna to Paris, and we’ve agreed to spend one more day together before we go our separate ways. Because we will part. We will say goodbye. No matter how natural this night feels, it all ends in the morning.

  We head to the platform as the train rumbles into the station.

  “Are we going all the way to Montauk? Riding out to the Hamptons?”

  He shrugs. “Only if you want to.”

  I shrug back. “I don’t know. Depends how interesting the train ride is.”

  “I can definitely make it interesting,” he says as he squeezes my hand, his calloused fingertips pressing into my palm. His fingers feel so damn good that I hope and wish he’s going to kiss me on the train.

  4

  Trey

  This girl.

  She makes me feel things.

  Sure, I want to tug her against me, feel her body pressing into mine, and yeah, I want to do a million more things to her. She’s making me crazy with want. But there’s something else too. I like everything about this night with her, like it’s a sliver of time, a dream moment that’s warm and hazy and that you don’t want to wake up from. It’s just sort of unfolding, like the unplanned detour on a vacation that turns out to be the best part of the trip.

  The train chugs out of Penn Station, and the lights are dim. It’s nearing midnight, and the car’s mostly empty, just a guy in a rumpled business suit who’s already halfway asleep a few seats away. Harley looks out the window at the night passing by as we roll on out of New York City. It’s weird, but I can breathe easier when I leave New York. I’ve lived here my whole life, born and raised. But this place is like handcuffs sometimes, and that’s when I want to leave.

  “This is so random,” she says, turning back to me. She looks happy, like she’s having a good time with me, and damn if that doesn’t make me want to ask her out again. To hop on the Staten Island Ferry at night, or go midnight bowling, or even to wander all over town. I’ve had plenty of women, more than I should have, but we never went out like this.

  “Yeah, who would have thought you’d get a tattoo and wind up on a midnight train?”

  “Speaking of, why are you a tattoo artist? How did that happen?”

  “I like to draw,” I say, wishing the answer were that simple.

  She narrows her eyes at me. “I bet there’s more to it than that. To drawing.”

  “Why do you say that?” I ask, and I’m kind of liking how she wants to know me, to understand me, how she seems to sense that there’s more to me. Maybe there is.

  “Because you seem passionate about it. And I think passion comes from somewhere.”

  “I was always pretty good at drawing,” I say as the train rattles along the tracks, the repetitive clatter oddly soothing. “I was the kid who could do the art projects, no problem, in school, you know? When they say, ‘Draw a comic to represent an event in history,’ or something. That was easy, and I loved it. But then I started drawing more and more in high school,” I say, then stop because I’m about to paint myself into a corner. I try to skirt around the one topic I don’t talk about. “Then things happened, and I wanted my drawings to mean something.”

  She holds up a hand and interjects. “What do you mean ‘things happened’?”

  There’s a sharp pang in my chest, and I want to kick myself for having said anything that would even hint at what happened to my family. Too many things happened. Too many bad things. Things I can’t even begin to speak aloud.

  I shrug it off. “Oh, you know. Just had some rough times. The usual Upper East Side shit. Didn’t get into the right college, and now I’m not following in my parents’ footsteps to become a plastic surgeon,” I say, trying to make light of my comments. It’s all true. I didn’t get into the college they wanted. No Ivy League med school for me. I’m not going to be the next Dr. Westin. Still, I feel like I’m lying, because those aren’t the rough times, but it’s not as if I can tell her the truth. Or anyone. I can manage something though—a glimpse. Words more true than I’ve said to anyone else. “But the reason I became a tattoo artist is that I wanted to do something more with drawing, and I figured tattoos were a good way to do that. I think most people, at least my customers, get them because they mean something to them. So I felt like I was helping people deal with the things that happened to them by doing tattoos. That, and they’re totally fucking cool.”

  “They are.”

  “And look, yours means something, right?”

  She nods, but doesn’t say anything more.

  “Will you tell me why you got it?”

  She shakes her head. “Not now.”

  I can respect her silence, her need to keep her reasons to herself. “I think we can take the bandage off.”

  I grab a tissue from my backpack, remove the bandage and wipe off the Vaseline, then look at her ink. “Damn, I impress myself. That’s a good ribbon, Harley,” I say, and then I trace it with my finger.

  Her breath catches the second I make contact, and I am in awe. The simplest touch makes her gasp, and now all I want to do is breathe her in, inhale her, smell her hair, taste her skin. I knew there was something between us, but this reaction is intoxicating. I map her ink with my finger, watching as she tries to still herself, but the look in her eyes is one of heat. I bet it matches mine.

  “How did you get that scar?” she asks.

  “I took something that didn’t belong to me.”

  She raises an eyebrow. “You stole?”

  “Something like that. Do you hate it?”

  She shakes her head. “I like scars. Can I touch it?”

  “Hell yeah.”

  Then it’s my turn to hitch in a breath as she touches my face, her fingertip drawing the line from my cheek down to my jawline, the cut that was administered a few weeks ago, courtesy of the man I stole from. The reason everything in my life has to change. The line in the sand.

  “Do you think it’s ugly?”

  She shakes her head, her blonde hair moving back and forth, her breath light on my cheek. “I think it’s beautiful,” she says in a whisper, and I want to reach out to her, to put this night on repeat, to never forget how I feel right now. It’s more than just physical—there’s some kind of connection between us.

  “Harley,” I say in a low rasp. “If you tell me you want me to kiss you, I will.”

  She nods once, and I thread my hands through her hair as she says, “I want you to kiss me, Trey.”

  The moment slows, and I’m hovering inches from her. I force myself to take a beat, so I can recall this kiss when it’s over. Because I know it’s different than any other I’ve ever had. I want to savor every second of her deliciousness.

  “I’ve wanted to kiss you ever since you walked into my store.”

  Then I curve my hand around her neck and brush my lips against hers. Her lips are so soft, and she tastes amazing, all sexy-sweet girl, like sugar and pink frosting, and I want to bite into her. Instead, I take it slow, imprint this in my memory since it’ll be the last kiss, last girl, last night like this for a while. I run the tip of my tongue across her lips. She inches closer, telling me with her body that she likes it. I brush my thumb along her jawline as I kiss her more deeply, exploring her full lips, tangling my tongue with hers, all while touching her gorgeous face. She lets out a little whimper, the tiniest sound, and it’s so sexy that I tug her closer, needing more of her lips, m
ore of her taste, more of this greedy kiss with this girl I barely know, but want to know so badly.

  I want to do other things too. Like slide her under me, pull her on top of me, strip off all her clothes. But somehow I manage to restrain myself, even though my body has been reduced to nothing but a raging red-hot fire for her. I twine my hands into her hair, and she slides even closer. Her breasts are pushing against my chest. It’s almost too much to take. It’s as if I’ve been wound up tighter, harder, hotter with every second with her.

  We kiss like that for ages, or maybe for seconds. I don’t know because I’m losing track of everything but the feel of her, the way she responds, how she loops her hands around my neck and threads them through my hair. How she can’t seem to get enough of this kissing either. I want to drown in this, to be smothered by this kind of heat and want.

  Then the train slows with a jolt, and we break the kiss.

  “Hi,” she says, and she looks tipsy. Hell, I feel buzzed. And I’d like another, please. I want to get drunk on her. Her mouth is sinful and sweet. Her body is insanely sexy, and I want to explore her with my tongue, to lap up the taste of her soft, sweet skin.

  “Hi.” My hands are still in her hair, and hers are in mine.

  “I have to tell you something,” she says, and I tense up instantly. Like she just shot my veins full of cold fluid. No good conversation ever started with those words.

  “What?”

  She shakes her head and smiles. “It’s not a bad thing, Trey. I want to tell you that I’ve never been kissed like that.”

  I relax instantly, liking her answer. Loving her answer. I don’t need to know why she’s never been kissed like this. I just want to give her more of it. “Really?”

  She nods. “It was amazing. I want more kissing. I want more.”

  That word—more—turns everything hazy and heavy. “What kind of more?” I ask carefully, because I’ll give her whatever she wants and then some.

  She takes a deep breath as if she’s about to say something that’s hard for her. Then in the barest of whispers, she says, “I’ve never had sex, and I’m not ready for that, but there are other things I haven’t done either. Like, pretty much everything. And I was wondering if you would…”