We Were Here: A New Adult Romance Prequel to Geoducks Are for Lovers (Modern Love Stories Book 1)

by Daisy Prescott

  As Axl wailed, I wove my hair into two French braids.

  Turning the music up louder, I sang along to “Sweet Child O’ Mine” and attempted to deafen my thoughts about Ben.

  In spite of yelling at him, calling him a loser, and ignoring him, he still asked about me.

  Asking about me was bad. Very bad.

  Or really, really good.

  No, it was bad.

  The next song came on, its beat fast and crazy. I danced around, trying to exorcise the unwanted feelings from my body.

  Benton Grant was bad news.

  I needed to stay away.

  The song finished and I fell face first on my bed. Pulse racing and chest heaving with my breath, I admitted defeat.

  He’d apologized.

  Those two words could change everything.

  “What Have You Done for Me Lately?” Janet Jackson

  “WE ALL WALKED down to Geoduck Beach and got stoned the other night.” Maggie sprawled on her bed, her feet in the air as she pretended to read some depressing, existential French book. We’d been studying together all evening.

  “Even Ben?” His name slipped out. My avoidance skills had improved and our paths hadn’t crossed in over a week, but he still occupied a big part of my thoughts.

  “It was weird. Gil offered him some and he turned him down. Even though Gil has his old pipe.”

  I sat up straighter. “That’s odd. Was he sick?”

  “No. He drank a couple of beers. Said he wanted a clear head this quarter.”

  “Very strange.”

  “Have you ever known him to turn down getting stoned before?”

  “Why do you ask me?” My voice remained flat and nonchalant although my pulse quickened.

  “You two used to hang out all the time last fall. Or so it seemed.” I could see her hook dangling in the water. She was fishing and not being subtle about it.

  Okay, I’d bite. “Not really. I tutored him in a study group. Then the few times we all hung out.”

  “Really? I thought you two dated. Or, you know, hung out.” The real meaning behind her words sat down in the room like an elephant on a little stool.

  “Hmm.” I played with the ends of my braid. “Not really.”

  “Not really or not at all?”

  “We’ve never gone on a date, or kissed.” The words flew out of my mouth like a flock of tiny birds.

  “Never? Selah swore you had. She said Ben always stared at you.”

  That was news to me. “Never.”

  “But he talked about you all the time.”

  “Did? Like in past tense?”

  She tapped her feet together as she pondered her answer. “Now that you mention it, he doesn’t really bring you up these days. Last fall everything was all Jo did this and Jo said that. I guess that’s why I figured you two dated or had a thing, but you broke up with him.”

  “There was nothing to break up. Trust me.”

  “I probably shouldn’t tell you this, but he’s been pretty sullen lately. Quinn called him a sour bastard the other day.”

  I didn’t know what to do with the new information. Or anything she’d said about Ben.

  “Why didn’t you go out with him?” She kept up her casual interrogation.

  Truthfully, it felt good to unload it. I explained about how we’d met, the drugs and the cocky attitude. I left out the part about him getting written up, but included the fight and the mean words we’d said to each other. His uncaring, cold dismissal still stung.

  “And that’s it?” She closed her book

  “No.” I paused, debating whether to share all of it. “He reached out at the start of the quarter.”

  “What did he say?” She rolled over and sat up on her knees.

  “I don’t know.” I slowly unraveled a thread from the seam of my T-shirt.

  “You lost me.”

  I told her about the note I threw out and the unheard messages. How Jenni went out with him for coffee. I spilled every pitiful detail.

  She listened, nodding and frowning where appropriate.

  “This explains the fight on Halloween.”

  My cheeks heated. “Oh, God. I can’t believe that happened. I’ve apologized to Quinn a dozen times for the fight ending his party. I still feel terrible.”

  “Quinn’s fine about it. He was thrilled a real old fashioned brawl with strapping guys broke out at one of his parties. Don’t you remember he kept shouting for a video camera?”

  I chuckled at the memory. “It wasn’t a brawl. Ben got in one punch and then fell over when Trey clocked him.”

  “If you weren’t seeing Ben, is Trey your boyfriend?”

  Giggling, I shook my head. “No! I’d brought him to introduce him to Quinn. He didn’t say he was gay, but my gaydar and his Whitney Houston poster told me he might be.”

  “He had a hell of a right hook.”

  “He got bullied in school a lot until his dad took him for boxing lessons.”

  “You should still set him up with Quinn.”

  “Not happening. Turned out my gaydar and the poster belong to his roommate, Kyle. Unlike Ben, Trey actually made a move on me after the party. I had stupid white and red clown makeup all over my face.”

  “You made out with a clown?” Her laughter turned into a cackle.

  “He made out with my face before I realized what was happening. It was completely unexpected and awful. Then Ben started screaming my name outside the dorm, ruining the moment. Thankfully.”

  Maggie nodded. “Bad kissers are the worst. It’s like being licked by a dog.”

  “Or pecked by a tiny bird. Or sniffed.”

  “Sniffed?” Giggles overtook her until she wheezed. “You mean snorted? Like a pig?”

  I couldn’t breathe. “Exactly.”

  “I’ve never been sniffed. So many guys don’t know what to do with their tongue. They’re all in or nothing.”

  “Or the lizard tongue.” I darted my tongue quickly in and out of my mouth.

  “All teeth like a shark.” She chomped her teeth together.

  “Snake tongue.” I gagged.

  “Rabbit?” She scrunched up her nose and brushed it across the back of her hand.

  We continued laughing until tears spilled from our eyes. I sprawled onto my roommate’s bed, trying to catch my breath. “My side hurts. I think I have a cramp.”

  Maggie wiped her cheeks, still giggling. “I can’t breathe.”

  Lizzy and Selah walked into the room, took one look at us, and declared we needed margaritas.

  Large tumblers filled with tequila-laced slurpee concoctions in hand, we settled on the floor and beds. With Maggie’s prompting, I summarized the earlier conversation.

  “Speaking of nebulous relationships . . .” Lizzy took a big gulp of her drink, then cringed. “Ow. Frozen headache.” She pressed her fingers against her temple. “Okay, I’ve wanted to ask this since last year. Margaret, my dear, what is the deal with you and young Gilliam?”

  Maggie choked on the liquid in her mouth.

  We waited for her to compose herself. She’d asked a question we all wanted the answer for. Yes, we had our theories, and Quinn had started a pool end of fall quarter last year, but no one knew for sure. Except Maggie and Gil.

  Instead of answering us, Maggie took another sip of her drink.

  “I told you mine, tell me yours.” I prodded her leg with my foot.

  “Come on, spill,” Selah whined.

  “There’s nothing to spill. End of story. I need a refill.” Stretching over to the dressers, Maggie grabbed the blender.

  Lizzy and I made eye contact.

  “If not Gil, anyone else?” Selah didn’t let her off the hook.

  “Not really.”

  “Because everyone thinks you and Gil are a couple?” Lizzy took a direct approach. Beneath her sweet demeanor and Electric Youth perfume, the girl had a hidden strength like a small, fluffy guard dog.

  Maggie refilled our glasses. “Ben said the
same thing. You know Gil hangs out with other women, right? Lots of them. They show up at his shows and loiter around like a flock of pigeons by the stage.”

  “Vultures is more like it.” Selah grimaced into her cup.

  “Best nickname for the groupies ever, Selah.” Lizzy gave her a high five.

  “Yeah, but they don’t stick around for long.” I tried to be optimistic.

  “I’m not sure that’s better or worse.” Picking at her shirt’s buttons, Maggie avoided eye contact. “I’m not surprised. He’s been like this since freshman year. Bouncing between girls.”

  “That’s because he’s not with the right girl.” Always the optimist, Lizzy pointed out a possible silver lining to Gil’s behavior. “Maybe he’s not ready for anything serious?”

  Maggie sighed again.

  “What about you?” Selah asked Lizzy. “Any action?”

  Lizzy scowled. “No. This dry spell is worse than the Sahara. The last guy I kissed was Roger. Have you ever noticed how much he looks like a Monchichi doll?”

  We all groaned. I think everyone had kissed Roger at some point. He got around more than Dylan on 90210.

  “Sounds to me like we need to go out and find some entertainment off campus.” Selah raised her cup.

  “We should go dancing in Seattle or something. It’s only an hour away. We could get dressed up.” Lizzy’s dark eyes twinkled with excitement. “No boys allowed.”

  We lifted our cups and toasted to a girls only adventure. I didn’t want to point out it was kind of sad how none of us had a boyfriend or any romantic prospects.

  Maybe only I found being hopelessly single depressing.

  “Groove is in the Heart” ~ Deee-Lite

  QUINN SUSSED OUT our plan to go dancing and insisted on joining us as our driver and chaperone. Ignoring the “no boys allowed” rule, he suggested a gay club in the Capitol neighborhood of Seattle with the best DJ in the area.

  Some chaperone he turned out to be.

  Within five minutes in the club, he danced in the middle of the floor with some gorgeous black guy with a shining bald head and biceps the size of softballs. Occasionally, Quinn would catch our attention and wave. At some point he acquired a whistle.

  Selah smiled at him and waved back. “I’m confiscating the damn whistle and shoving it down his throat if he starts blowing it in the car. I’m saying it now, giving the three of you time to come up with an alibi for me.”

  As Quinn promised, a gay club was the best place for four girls, who were over dumb straight guys, to dance themselves silly without having to deal with getting picked up or harassed.

  All the “you go girls” and compliments flattered our egos. Not to mention most of the guys in the club weren’t boys. They were men. Hot, fit, really good looking men. Some didn’t wear shirts. Others wore the tiniest jean shorts.

  “Oh look, leather pants. I’ve always wanted a pair of those.” Lizzy pointed out a couple of guys a few feet away. She screamed when they turned around and exposed their bare asses.

  “What is the point of ass-less pants?” I asked, not really wanting the answer.

  “You don’t want me to explain it to you, do you?” Selah raised an eyebrow at me.

  “No, no that’s okay. I get it.” I didn’t want to get it. Not at all.

  “I feel like I’m in a candy shop, but I can’t eat sugar.” Maggie leaned over to me and pointed at two beautiful men making out a few feet away.

  Lizzy’s mouth hung open as she stared. “I . . .”

  I lifted her chin with my index finger. “Careful, you’re drooling.”

  “Condoms?” A thin man with tan skin highlighted by silver eye shadow presented a tray filled with condoms to us. He wore the little hat and outfit of a vintage cigarette girl. “Rubbers, prophylactics, French umbrellas . . .”

  “We don’t really have the right equipment.” Lizzy picked up a neon package.

  “Girl, unless you’re lesbians, you need these.” He focused on me and Maggie. “Are you?”

  I sputtered out a no.

  “Hmm. Too bad. You’d make a great lipstick lesbian. Pity.” He handed us each two condoms in a reverse form of trick or treating. “Wrap it or don’t tap it.” Off he went like a condom fairy on roller-skates.

  “What did he mean by lipstick lesbians?” I’d never heard the term.

  “Meaning, we’re pretty and girly. It’s a compliment,” Selah explained.

  “Have you ever kissed a girl?” Lizzy asked the group.

  “I have.” Selah raised her hand. “Seriously, none of you ever experimented by kissing your friends?”

  Maggie and I shook our heads.

  “I practiced on my own hand.” Lizzy volunteered. “And the mirror.”

  With a big sigh, Selah mumbled something about prudes, grabbed Maggie by the back of the head, and kissed her. On the mouth. For what seemed like ages. Long enough for some random guy to take a Polaroid and hand it to me.

  Maggie looked more than dazed when they broke apart.

  “I’m not going to stand here like a wallflower.” After stuffing the condoms in her bra, Selah pushed her way into the throbbing mass of bodies on the dance floor. The crowd swallowed her, leaving only her hands swaying above her head still visible.

  “How was it?” Lizzy asked.

  Maggie slowly blinked herself out of the haze. “Much better than Roger. She’s an amazing kisser. Soft.” She pressed her hand to her mouth.

  I shook the Polaroid as it finished developing. “It’s a great picture of you both.” Flipping it over, I showed them. Even though both Maggie and Selah were out of focus, I could identify them, and they were lip-locked.

  “Keep it for prosperity,” Lizzy suggested. I tucked it into my little bag with my ID and money.

  A cute Filipino guy bumped into Lizzy, spilling his drink on her arm. Apologizing profusely, he called her Audrey Hepburn, and bought her a fresh cocktail.

  “This is the best place for my ego.” Lizzy sipped the new drink. “Let’s dance.”

  She was one-hundred-percent right. We danced like wild women, not caring who saw, because they didn’t care. The night flew by, ending at last call with a rainbow of balloons dropping from the ceiling while Kool & The Gang’s “Celebration” played.

  Laughing, sweaty and starving, we stumbled down the street to an all-night diner.

  “It’s like Pretty in Pink out here,” Selah purred. “Look at Duckie over there.”

  Standing ahead of us in line, two guys in creepers and mohawks smoked clove cigarettes.

  “Clove cigarettes always remind me of the Goth kids smoking behind the biology building in high school.” Quinn inhaled the spicy secondhand smoke.

  “I was one of those Goth kids.” Selah gave him a high five.

  Lizzy snapped her fingers. “Speaking of John Hughes’ movies, you know, Ben’s a total Jake Ryan type. Rich, bored . . .”

  “More like Steff. Kind of a fuck up.” I’d managed not to think about him for the past few hours. Lizzy’s mention broke my Ben-free bubble.

  “Gil looks more like Jake. Except now his hair is growing out, he’s more like Bender.” Maggie sighed.

  “And he got rid of those terrible frames he had freshman year. I kept worrying Sally Jessy Raphael would press charges for theft.” Selah laughed at her own joke.

  “They weren’t terrible. They weren’t even red.” Of course, Maggie defended him.

  “Maybe they weren’t red, but they were terrible.” Quinn made a sourpuss face.

  Everyone nodded in agreement.

  Since Ben had been brought up, I wondered what he was doing tonight. Maybe he had a date. The thought made my chest hurt. I didn’t want him, not as a fuck up, but I didn’t want some other girl to have him either.

  I wanted him to be my Jake Ryan who showed up in his Porsche and rescued me. Forget the white horse, I’d take a red Porsche any day.

  Wait, did I sound materialistic? I didn’t really want to be rescued by some rich
guy. Or any guy.

  “Do you think I’m shallow and materialistic?” I asked, beginning to freak out I was both of those things.

  “You are a little Barbie in the looks department, but you have the brains hiding behind the blond and pretty.” Quinn pulled on my ponytail.

  Lizzy thoughtfully studied me. “Do you think you’re shallow and focused solely on material things?”

  Maggie nudged her. “Two sections of psychology and human behavior are a dangerous thing.”

  “What if you are?” Selah shrugged. “Own it.”

  “I think Selah is saying you are, but I disagree. You tutor people. If you didn’t care about others, you wouldn’t bother,” Maggie said.

  “Then there’s the whole volunteering with the underprivileged kids stuff.” Lizzy shared how I spent last summer. I forgot I had told her.

  I didn’t explain how in elementary school I had been one of those kids after my dad got laid off at the factory. We pretty much lived off of Bisquik recipes, casseroles, and peanut butter sandwiches until he found another job a year later.

  Mom had started working as a secretary at our church to help with the bills. At the time I thought she wanted to be a church secretary, but later realized it had been the church’s way of giving us some help without it appearing as charity.

  Anyone looking at our family wouldn’t have seen anything different. Mom bought our school clothes at thrift stores or on super-sale with her friend’s employee discount. Same house, same cars. From the outside, we were exactly the same as before. We hid our poverty behind closed doors.

  I never wanted to go back there again and promised my nine-year-old self I wouldn’t. Hard work, goals, and yes, even an ambitious, successful husband were part of my life plan.

  An entitled, spoiled rich kid didn’t fit into my goals. No matter how handsome he was.

  “Nothing Compares 2 U” ~ Sinead O’Connor

  “THE GUY I’M not supposed to mention called again.” Jenni slid a piece of paper across my desk. “He insisted I write down a note and make sure you saw it.”

  I fought the instinct to crumple it up and throw it in the trash without reading it. My fingers twitched on the paper.

  “He also told me if you threw away the note, I should tell you the message next time I saw you. What’s it going to be?” Exasperation edged her words.