I shook my head.
“I’m on your side, but Luke doesn’t strike me as someone who would cheat on you.”
“That’s just the thing,” I said bitterly. “Who’s to say we were ever together?”
“Are you serious?” Amber laughed in disbelief. “It’s obvious you two are together. Have you seen yourselves?”
“No, but I saw him with his supermodel ex-girlfriend wrapped around him. I can’t ignore that.”
Amber shook her head. “I’m not telling you to ignore it. I’m telling you to ask him about it.”
“I have nothing to say to him.”
She snorted. “That’s not true. Let’s say he was up to no good, not that I think he was. Wouldn’t you at least want to tell him off?”
I propped myself up on my elbow. “No, I just want it to be done, like it never happened, like we…”
I trailed off, remembering our time together after my weekend home. His hands on my skin, his lips on my collarbone, his body pressed against mine. I’d felt something, and I could’ve sworn he felt it, too.
I balled my hand into a fist and pressed it against my mouth to hold in the sob that was threatening to escape.
I needed something, anything, to take my mind off this. I jumped off my bed and yanked my shirt off.
“What are you doing?” Amber clearly thought I’d lost my mind.
I pulled a sports bra out of my drawer. “I’m going to the gym.”
I had pageant dresses to fit into and a guy to forget.
…
In criminology, I did something I had never done, something I didn’t think I would ever do. I sat in the back. I wasn’t about to skip class, but I wasn’t ready to face Luke, so I slipped in at the last minute through the back door.
Cowardly, I knew, but I never claimed to be otherwise. Cowards were often the survivors in life. They did what they needed to do.
Luke was in his usual seat, next to my vacant one. I watched him throughout the class. He wore his usual jeans and T-shirt and looked as good as he ever did. I felt a warmth in my belly, my body reacting to the sight of him, and I was pissed at my body for betraying my heart.
I watched him throughout class as he took notes and switched between red and black pens. I smiled in spite of myself.
When class was over, I threw my notebook in my backpack and tried to make a quick exit. Next to me, two girls having a lengthy conversation about hair extensions of all things were blocking the aisle while they packed up their stuff. I crossed my arms and tapped my foot, but they were oblivious. Stupid back rowers.
I kept an eye on Luke the whole time. Right before he left the room through the front exit, he pulled his phone out of his pocket to check it for messages. Then he looked straight up to where I was standing, and our eyes met.
My lower lip trembled and I pulled my gaze away. “Excuse me,” I said, pushing past the two girls.
“Hey!” one protested.
“So rude,” I heard the other one say.
I didn’t care. I had to get out of there. There were two different stairwells I could take. Since the classroom had stadium seating, the front entrance to the classroom was on a lower floor than the top. I took a gamble and picked the stairwell on the right.
I picked wrong.
Luke was waiting for me at the bottom, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed. His expression was perturbed.
I stopped in my tracks, causing the people behind me to run into me, and stumbled down the last step to stop right in front of Luke.
“We need to talk.”
Chapter Eighteen
“I can’t,” I said, not meeting his eyes, afraid of what I’d see there. “I have to go—”
“That’s fine,” he said, his tone hard. “But we’re going to talk. I’m coming over tonight. Don’t send Amber to get rid of me this time.”
He shifted to allow me to pass. I scurried past him, still avoiding his eyes.
I should have just talked to him then. I was useless in my next class. A rhino in high heels and a tiara could have come through and I wouldn’t have noticed.
Later that afternoon back in my room, I was still useless. Luke had said he was coming over, but he hadn’t said when. I even nuked a Hot Pocket instead of going to the dining hall with Amber. I didn’t want to risk not being here. Now that I knew this confrontation was happening, I didn’t want to put it off any longer than I had to.
Turned out I didn’t have anything to worry about as far as dinner was concerned. It was after eight when my phone buzzed with a text telling me he was outside.
His Jeep was parked next to my car, and he was leaning against it, arms crossed. His eyes were hard, his expression dark. I’d never seen him angry before, but from the looks of it, he was pissed.
My nerves morphed into anger. Why was he pissed? I was the wronged one here.
I leaned against my car opposite him and crossed my arms. Under any other circumstances, our mirror-image postures might have been amusing.
“What the fuck, Cori? You ignore my texts and calls, you leave me waiting in your house for twenty goddamn minutes and then get Amber to send me away. Then today you try to avoid me in class.”
I stared back at him, fury barely contained in my eyes. I was not the one at fault here. “That’s right,” I said, my voice dripping in venom.
“Like I said, what the fuck?”
I looked away for a moment, trying to keep my lip from trembling while I got the words out. “I saw you yesterday.”
Confusion replaced the anger in his eyes. “What?”
“With your ex. At your house,” I spat. “You drove off with her.”
“Fuck.” He looked away, clenching his jaw, not even trying to deny it. Even though I’d seen the evidence with my own eyes, I had still hoped he’d deny it, that he’d be able to say something that would erase that image. It was stupid.
“So I guess we’re done here.” I turned to walk away.
He grabbed my arm. “Wait.”
I eyed his hand on my arm and he quickly dropped it. He ran both hands over his hair, sighing.
“Lindsey came out to the house to talk to me.”
“Then why’d you drive off with her?”
“Her friend dropped her off earlier. She’s still friends with some of the guys, so she was hanging out, waiting for me. I just took her home.”
“What’d she want to talk to you about?”
“She wants to get back together.”
No hesitation at all. He just put it out there.
I was silent for a moment. I bit my lip and looked away, trying to mask the tears that were filling my eyes. Shit. I didn’t want to cry in front of him.
Luke closed the distance between us. “Hey. Why are you crying?” He wiped away a stray tear with his fingertips.
I jerked my face away. He held his hands up.
“Do you think I got back together with her?”
I looked at him, the tears freely falling. “What else am I supposed to think? I saw you two wrapped around each other.”
He shoved his hands in his pockets. “Fucking Lindsey.” He sighed. “She’s been trying to get back together with me since we broke up last spring. I said some harsh things to her so she would get it through her thick skull that I don’t want anything to do with her. She started crying, so I hugged her. I’m not a complete dick.” He laughed bitterly. “Or maybe I am. I’ve managed to make two girls cry in the last twenty-four hours.”
“Why did you break up?” I wanted to know. Now that we were having this conversation, I might as well get all the dirt.
His gaze met my eyes. “She cheated on me.”
I sniffed. “That sucks.”
He kicked at the ground with his feet, and I knew there was more to it than that. I waited.
“You have to understand, Cori, I’m not the same guy I was with her. She was like an infection or something. God, it was toxic, you have no idea. But I was like addicted or something.”
I raised my eyebrows and wrapped my arms around myself, taking a little step back.
“Shit. I didn’t want you to find out like this.” He sighed. “She cheated on me first. So I cheated on her. It was a vicious cycle that went on for about a year. She’d cheat on me, then I’d cheat on her. It was like some sick game she liked to play. I finally woke up to what I had been doing, how shitty it all was. So I ended it right before summer break.”
I took a minute to process everything he’d said.
Toxic, infection, vicious cycle.
Cheat, cheat, cheat.
None of that sounded anything like the Luke I knew. The Luke I knew listened to classical music while he studied and showed me pictures of his baby nephew. The Luke I knew acted like a big brother to the pledges he was in charge of. The Luke I knew respected me, wouldn’t cheat on me.
But here he was in front of me admitting he had a history of cheating, that he’d once been addicted to the girl I’d just seen him with.
He looked me in the eye. “I’m not going to apologize because I didn’t do anything wrong, not to you anyway. I swear to you that what you saw was innocent.” He took a breath. “But I am sorry that you had to find out about everything like this. I probably should have told you, and that’s the only thing I will apologize for. It messed me up for a while, so I don’t like to talk about it. And I know how it makes me look. I was a complete dick. But I swear, Cori, I swear to you that’s not me. I wasn’t like that before her, and I’m not like that now.”
Luke looked like he wanted to come to me, close the distance between us, but I kept my arms wrapped around myself, a definite sign he needed to stay away.
I gazed up at the sky. I didn’t know what to do. What Luke had just told me about himself shattered my perfect image of him. I mean, I’d known he couldn’t be perfect—no one is—but he was pretty damn close to it.
Everything he’d told me didn’t match anything I knew about him. If I hadn’t seen him with Lindsey, I’d never have believed him. In fact, if he had tried to tell me about his sordid past last week, I probably would have laughed, thinking he was joking.
But any girl who’s ever read Cosmo knows the rule when it comes to guys who’ve cheated—once a cheater, always a cheater. If he were planning to cheat, though, why would he tell me about his past? He’d said it himself—he knew how it made him look.
I couldn’t blame him for not telling me about this. It had never come up, and no one wants to offer up dirty details that made themselves look bad.
And who was I to punish him for his past?
I let out a breath. “Okay.”
“Okay?”
“Okay. I wish you had told me sooner, but okay. I get why you didn’t.”
“I’m sorry, Cori. I was such a fucking dick last year. I’m so glad I didn’t meet you then. I swear I’m not that guy anymore.”
“I know.” I smiled a little. “You’re not a dick.”
He stepped forward, taking my smile as a good sign. “Are you sure about that?”
“About ninety percent sure.”
He reached for my hand. “Are we okay now?”
I took a deep breath and nodded. “I think so.”
He looked down at me. “Because if you want to, we can hash out all our old relationships and crap. I’m an open book. I’ll tell you anything you want to know.” He grinned a little. “Do you have any secrets you want to share? Any old boyfriends waiting in the wings?”
Not in the wings, just in a grave.
He’d made the comment to ease the tension in a tense situation, but I stiffened, then forced myself to relax so he wouldn’t realize something was off.
This was it. The question had been asked. I’d told myself I would tell him about Tyler if he asked. I just never thought he would.
I needed to tell him.
I should tell him.
But I couldn’t.
Our relationship had just suffered a blow with his past. I didn’t need to add to it. I shouldn’t add to it. It was in his and my best interests not to tell him.
Lie. But it was a lie I was willing to believe.
“No,” I said. “We don’t need to talk about all that stuff. It’s in the past.”
He sighed with relief. “Thank God. I hate talking about all that shit. I’d rather focus on the now, you know?” He pulled me into his arms and kissed me gently, hesitantly at first, his lips soft and gentle. When I deepened the kiss, I could feel the tension leave his body and his lips devoured mine hungrily.
“I’m sorry I freaked out,” I said. “I should have talked to you first.”
“And then freaked out?”
I grinned. “Yeah, obviously.”
He chuckled. “Cori, you’re it for me.”
I closed my eyes, smiling. “Say it again.”
“You’re it for me, Cori. No one else.”
As far as “the talk” goes, it was perfect.
He kissed me again, then he pointed to the second floor of the house. “I think we’ve been entertaining your sisters.”
I twisted to see who was peering out the window. All I caught was a blur of blond hair as whoever it was ducked. Probably Amber.
I wrapped my arms around Luke’s neck and smiled mischievously. “I’d hate to disappoint them.” I pulled his lips to mine.
…
“We’re supposed to be studying.” I playfully pushed Luke away. We’d been “studying” for an hour already, but so far that had mainly consisted of Luke nuzzling my neck.
“I am studying.” He pulled my hair back and his lips began a lazy trail down my throat.
I tilted my neck to give him better access and enjoyed the sensation for a few moments. Then I came to my senses and pushed him away again. I stood, putting distance between us. That was the only way we were ever going to get any studying done.
“What are the approaches to restorative justice?” I narrowed my eyes at him.
“Individual orientation,” he recited dutifully.
“And?” I prompted in my best teacher voice.
“Community orientation.”
“Good. Now tell me what each one focuses on.”
“Individual focuses on crime problem. Community focuses on social justice.”
I closed my notebook with a snap. “Okay, so maybe you are ready for this test.”
“I told you that an hour ago. Besides,” he said, reaching into his pocket, “I have this.” He held up a white furry rabbit’s foot on a little chain.
I wrinkled my nose. “Where did you get that? And more importantly, why is it in your pants?”
“Hey, don’t hate on the rabbit’s foot.” I could tell by his tone that he was mildly offended. “My dad gave it to me when I was eight. I hit my first home run that day. It’s definitely lucky.”
I snorted.
“Don’t tell me you don’t have a good luck charm.”
“I don’t need luck. I prefer preparation.”
“Bullshit. Everybody needs a good luck charm.”
I stuck my tongue out at him. A wicked gleam appeared in his eyes.
I looked at him hungrily, wondering what he was thinking. My thoughts began to go naughty before I pulled myself out of it. “There are only four grades in the whole class, so neither of us can afford to fail this test.”
“We’re not going to fail. Or in your case, get a B, which isn’t failing, by the way.”
“There’s nothing wrong with having high standards.”
“I never said there was. You obviously have high standards in your love life.” He grinned.
I grabbed a pillow from his bed and threw it at him. It caught him off-guard and hit him in the face. I laughed at his surprised look.
He smiled and stretched out on the bed, folding the offending pillow in half and putting it under his head. “Would it make you feel better if I told you I also have high standards?”
“That goes without saying.”
He raised his eyebrows. “Cocky, ar
en’t we?”
“Not cocky, just confident.”
“What’s the difference?”
“Cocky has a negative connotation. Confidence is a positive trait,” I explained.
“Your know-it-all voice is sexy.”
I smirked. “That explains the attraction then because I always know it all.”
“Correct me if I’m wrong, but that statement falls on the cocky side of things.”
“It’s not cocky if it’s true.”
He just laughed and held his arms open. “Come over here.”
An hour later, I peeled myself off the bed and away from him “I need to get home.”
He pouted, actually pouted. Somehow he managed to pull it off while still maintaining an air of masculinity. And sexiness. “Why?”
“I need to get a good night’s sleep tonight.” As if on cue, I yawned. “Too many late nights at the Beta house make me a tired girl.”
“You could just spend the night.”
It was tempting, but grades came first. “Not on a school night.”
He sighed. “If you insist.”
I slipped into my hoodie. “That’s the way it’s gotta be.” I wondered who I was trying to convince with that line—me or him. It wouldn’t have taken much persuasion for him to talk me into staying.
He stood. “I’ll walk you out to your car.” Although part of me was disappointed, this was one of the things I loved about him. He respected my dedication to my grades.
I turned toward the door and smiled to myself, zipping my hoodie. Luke patiently waited at the door to walk me to my car as promised. That was another thing I loved about him; he was a gentleman.
My thoughts jerked to a stop. I loved things about him. Just things, though, right? I couldn’t love him. We so weren’t there yet in our relationship. Were we?
I didn’t think so. We’d only been dating for two months. Surely that was too soon.
Luke put his hand on my lower back to guide me out of the room and down the stairs.
Did I love him?
The question troubled me.
…
Straight to bed. That’s where I was going. I hadn’t lied when I said I’d spent one too many late nights at the Beta house. I’d been over there almost every night for the past two weeks. Sometimes Amber came with me to see Brad, but the status of their relationship was rocky. They were hot and cold. Frankly, I couldn’t keep up.
Letting Go Page 17