“Lilly?” I heard. I looked around, but didn’t see anyone. When I felt a hand grip my shoulder, I whirled around and screamed. Drew stepped back with his hands in the air; as if he were scared I’d hit him or run. I let out a strangled breath, utterly relieved.
“Drew!” I took a deep breath. “What are you doing out here?” I asked.
He narrowed his eyes at me. “I should ask the same of you. You know it’s not good for you to be alone out here, right? Someone could attack you.”
“Yeah, well what about you? Someone could do the same to you,” I said as I sat down on the park bench, trying to calm my nerves.
Drew sat beside me. “Don’t be crazy, no one is going to jump me.”
Judging by the appearance of his lip in the light, someone already had. It didn’t look like something that happened at the art studio, but I didn’t ask him about it. We were silent for a moment before I finally spoke again. “I came by earlier and left you some spaghetti. Please tell me you got it and no one stole it?”
“I did!” he said cheerfully. “It was delicious. It’s been so long since I had a good home-cooked meal. I don’t cook much, unless you count making a sandwich or some ramen noodles.”
“Mom taught me how to cook some stuff, but I learned mostly in college. I guess I cook all right. I’ve never been able to get a handle on my portion control though. I always cook way too much.”
“It was really great, thank you for thinking of me. I must have been in the shower when you came by. I stopped by to give you your dish back, but you didn’t answer, so I’ll have to bring it later.”
“No hurry.”
Drew glanced up at the sky and I followed his gaze to the twinkling stars. The streetlight was far enough away from the bench, and the tree branches framed an opening above us large enough to see the blinking diamonds beyond the treetops. “Is this where you come to get inspiration for your paintings?” I asked.
“Sometimes. But staring at the stars doesn’t mean I plan to paint the Milky Way. I could get an idea for something completely different. It depends on my mood, I guess.”
“Do you paint portraits? I don’t recall seeing any in your apartment.”
“Every now and then I do. Usually, I do a commissioned piece here and there for a client who wants a person in a garden or their child playing. Sometimes, they’ll send me a picture and I’ll work with it. But I don’t do it often. It’s a skill I don’t think I’ve mastered yet. “
That was hard to believe. His work was amazing and I was confident he could paint anything. I angled myself towards him slightly and our knees touched. “So you wouldn’t paint someone if they modeled for you?”
“Maybe. I rarely do those kind of paintings though. It’s intimidating. I’d rather draw from memory or a picture if I can.”
“Why?”
“Well, staring at someone for hours, while you draw out every feature of them is nerve-racking. They’re sitting so close, staring at me while I try to get down every detail … it’s not so easy.”
“Oh, I see.” It was the only response I could give. Suddenly, I couldn’t think of anything else, but Drew sketching me while I watched his eyes wandering over my body.
“I think you would be the perfect model for someone to sketch though.” He scrutinized me, his eyes dropping from my face down to my neck.
I looked down shyly, “Oh, I don’t know about that.”
“I do. You have strong features that would transfer beautifully on canvas.”
“Like what?”
“You have a strong jaw line and prominent cheekbones.” His hand reached out and brushed across the side of my cheek. “And your eyes, they’re enchanting.” He swept a wispy hair away from my forehead, “And your lips…”
His words trailed off as I licked my lips, causing Drew to focus on my mouth before he gazed into my eyes. He leaned in closer and I could feel my heart hammering in my chest. I tried to steady my breathing and stay calm because I wanted him to kiss me. So much. It seemed like he wanted to kiss me too, but was debating whether he should or not. I couldn’t understand why all of a sudden he seemed into me, after giving me the cold shoulder for most the week. And I didn’t even know what I did to deserve it. If he thought I was going to make it easy on him and invite him to kiss me, he had another thing coming.
I leaned back and looked in the opposite direction. “Yeah, my lips… I know they’re small and thin. Must be why I’m all of a sudden so un-kissable these days.”
“Un-kissable? Seems to me you’ve been doing fine these days,” he stressed with an irritated tone.
“Yeah, in my dreams,” I mumbled.
“What?”
“Nothing,” I glared at him and changed the subject. “What happened to your face?”
He stared at me a moment before answering. “Oh, you mean you don’t know?”
“Know what?”
“Why don’t you go ask your boyfriend? I’m sure he’d love to tell you all about it.”
“What? Tyler hit you?”
“Yeah. He might be bigger than me, but I won’t walk away the next time he gets in my face, so you better keep your dickhead boyfriend away from me.”
I jumped up, furious and taken aback by his accusations. “Who are you to tell me what to do? I can’t tell Tyler what to do any more than you can. And for your information, he’s not my boyfriend!”
Drew stood up, “Whatever, Lilly, I don’t really give a shit.” He whipped around and walked away from me.
“You know,” I yelled out. “For someone who doesn’t give a shit, you sure as hell put a lot of energy into being mad at me for no damn reason.” I couldn’t understand where all his hostility was coming from.
He spun around and marched towards me. “You’re right, I did give a shit, but I’m tired of you being ‘on’ one minute and ‘off’ the next. You either want me or you don’t. I get that you might not know exactly what you want right now, but I’m not okay with being used.”
“Used? Are you serious? I would never… how could you even think that? No, you know what? I don’t even want to know. Just forget about it. Forget about everything.” I was livid. I stomped off the path and through the woods towards the apartment complex. The leaves crunched beneath my feet as I walked around the trees and fallen limbs. “I can’t believe I thought this would work,” I complained out loud.
“What can’t you believe?” I heard him call out behind me. I kept walking, not bothering to turn around.
“You think you could keep seeing both of us and then act as if it didn’t even matter? You really think it’s okay to have another guy over only hours after you’ve made out with the first guy? I knew you were seeing someone else, but damn… it’s nice to see I’m so easily replaced. Out of all the guys you could have, and you go for that Tyler guy. You really know how to pick’em.”
I whirled around to yell, but tripped over a limb and fell straight forward, hitting the ground hard. The fallen leaves may have blanketed the ground, but they didn’t soften the blow when I landed. Drew rushed to my side and squatted down beside me. He reached for my arm to pull me up.
“Oh God, are you okay?”
Pushing myself up with my hands, I ignored the stinging sensation on my palms and snatched my arm from his grasp. “Don’t! Don’t pretend like you care. Leave me alone.” I plucked the leaves sticking to my cheeks and tear-streaked face and started walking again. I didn’t get very far before Drew grabbed my upper arm and forced me around to face him. He stood so close; I could feel the air from his mouth when he spoke. His eyes were dark, his face shadowed from the lack of light around us, but I sensed the frustration and anger rolling off his body. I didn’t care.
“Don’t you dare accuse me of not caring about you. I wouldn’t be so damned pissed right now if that were true. And I damn sure would not have let that dick just walk away after he hit me. I knew if I hit him back, it would have upset you. Seeing as I shouldn’t care, I should have knocked his cocky
ass down a peg or two.”
I eyed his hand around my arm and he immediately let go. Taking a step back, I stared him down, squelching the sob that threatened escape me. “You know what? You were right. I screwed up. I really don’t know how to pick them. I’m sorry I wasn’t what you expected and for dating both of you. I’m especially sorry that on every one of my three dates with Tyler, all I could think about was you.”
I released the angry tears, my vision becoming blurry. Drew seemed as if he were lost for words, so I took the opportunity to continue with my rant. “You know what I’m most sorry about?” I didn’t give him the chance to answer. “I’m sorry that I woke up in your bed after that night, thinking it was the best night of my life. And I’m sorry that I knew then that you were the only one I wanted to spend my time with, and I’m sorry for being crazy and dating Tyler in the first place.” I wiped my eyes with the back of my hands and turned to walk away.
“Lilly, wait!” Drew called behind me.
I stopped to face him. “You were wrong, Drew. I chose you—my mistake.”
Chapter 14
I stumbled through the woods until my feet crunched against the path again. From there, I ran all the way to my apartment, barely able to see through my tears. I hated myself for doing exactly what I swore I wouldn’t do. I admitted my feelings without knowing how he felt about me, and as expected, it didn’t get me anywhere. Why couldn’t Drew at least mention what happened that night? If he had, we wouldn’t be going through any of this crap now.
I was out of breath from the sprint to my apartment when I wiggled my key into the lock, but it wouldn’t work. I tried to hurry and get inside my apartment in case Drew was behind me because I didn’t think I could talk to him anymore. I said enough and didn’t want to say anything I might regret later. With no luck unlocking my door, I kicked it with my foot as hard as I could. My shoe left a black scuffmark on the bottom and I smiled at it with morbid satisfaction. I turned my back to the door and slid down the length of it to the ground. Sitting down, I pulled my legs up and rested my head on top of my knees. There was nowhere else I could go and sitting in the hall was as good a place as any to take a timeout.
“What are you doing?” Drew asked, nearly out of breath.
I didn’t even look up. “The key won’t work and I have to sit down.”
“Let me see your keys,” he said.
I peered up and handed them to him. He paused, placing his hand underneath mine when he looked at me. I let the keys go and put my head back down on my knees. “It’s not going to open. That would be too easy for my life right now.” I heard the key slide into the knob, followed by a faint “click.” The door moved slightly against my back and I knew he unlocked it on the first try. Damn him! I stood up and he handed my keys back. “Thanks,” I said as I pushed the door open.
“Lilly, wait,” he said, grabbing my hand.
I pulled my fingers from his grasp. “Drew, don’t. We both finally got out what we wanted to say, and I’m sure I made myself look like a fool, so let’s call it a night. Okay?”
He grabbed my hand again. “Please listen to what I have to say for a—”
“There’s no need. I get it,” I said as I pulled my hand out of his again. “I made some bad decisions, but you never even asked me what was going on, you just assumed. All of this is exactly why I said having a relationship would never work because when it ended, so would our friendship. We can’t have a normal friendship anymore.”
“Lilly, can you stop talking for one minute and listen? I want to tell you—”
“Stop trying to—”
“Oh, for God’s sake, woman…”
He grabbed my upper arm, pulling me against him and kissed me. I was stiff at first, my instincts telling me I should pull away, but my desire won over, and I surrendered to his tender lips. His hand moved from my arm to my neck as he wrapped his finger around it. Cupping the other side of my neck with his free hand, he pulled me more tightly against him. I parted my lips and let his tongue and mine swirl in an impassioned dance. The sensation made me weak in the knees and I grabbed the front of his shirt to balance myself. I moaned in response after trying unsuccessfully to muffle it. Like adding fuel to a fire, he kissed me even deeper and I felt like I couldn’t get close enough. I wanted him against me, his arms around me, to let his body dissolve all the negativity in the air between us. His hands moved from the side of my neck, and he intertwined his fingers through my hair as he gently tilted my head back. Pulling his lips from mine, he kissed a trail from my jaw to my ear, his heavy breathing sending chills down my neck.
“You’re not drunk this time. You’ll remember this kiss,” he whispered.
I pulled back slightly, looking Drew in the eyes. “I might have been slightly intoxicated before, but I remember every kiss we shared that night. I couldn’t forget it even if I wanted to.” This was not what I expected to happen, and as much as I wanted him to keep kissing me, I needed to clear up a few things. “I hope you know you can’t erase what was said earlier with a kiss.”
“I’m not trying to,” he said. “I should have never spoken to you like I did. I’m sorry; I can’t take it back. The heat of the moment makes you say all sorts of things you don’t really mean.”
“Why didn’t you say anything when I woke up the other morning?” I asked. “I felt like you thought it was all a mistake. I thought you didn’t feel the same as I did.”
His fingers brushed over my cheek. “Really? And I thought maybe you didn’t remember any of it. I didn’t want to bring it up and embarrass you if you didn’t. If you did remember it, I was waiting for you to give me some kind of sign that you liked what happened between us.”
“If I had only been upfront to start with, we wouldn’t be arguing, and you wouldn’t have been hit in the mouth. What did you say to him that warranted this?” I brushed my fingers over the cut on his lip.
“It’s not important now.”
“Please tell me, I want to know.” So I can kick him where the sun doesn’t shine when I see him again.
“Sometime after you left that morning, I went out to my car to get some supplies. I saw him coming from the direction of your apartment and he looked pissed. He hit my shoulder with his as he passed me, and said, ‘Enjoy the sloppy seconds, lover boy.’ I didn’t even bat an eye when I told him, ‘I don’t know what you’ve been getting, but mine has been anything but sloppy.’“
I gasped, shocked at their confrontation.
“I’m sorry, I know I shouldn’t have let him think more happened than actually did, but what he said really pissed me off. It just flew out of my mouth.”
“Yeah, I’m sure that did it. He was already pissed when I made him leave after he showed up uninvited, not believing I was really sick. But anyway, what did he say then?” I asked.
“Nothing. He gave me a hard right hook to the mouth.”
“God, I’m so sorry, Drew.” I ran my thumb over the corner of his lip again. It still looked a little swollen, but the cut was scabbed over already.
He grabbed my hand and kissed the top of my fingers. “Don’t be. It happened, it’s in the past, and there isn’t anything either one of us can do about it.
I turned away, still holding his hand in mine and walked into my apartment, grumbling out loud as I clunked my keys on the bar. “Yeah, well, the past may be the past, but I’ve got a good mind to drive over to that gym and tell him what I really think! I should have known better than to even—” I was pulled backwards and turned to face Drew in one quick movement. One second, I was complaining, the next, I was pressed against him, his free hand on the small of my back, his green eyes staring down at me.
“I’d prefer you didn’t. If he said something ugly to you, I wouldn’t hesitate to break his pretty little face.”
I smiled at his bravado and edged even closer. “You’re not jealous, are you? Not Tyler, of all people?”
“Oh, extremely jealous,” he teased. “In all seriousness th
ough, I really did try not to let it get to me, but the more time I spent with you, and all the fun we had… it all felt so natural. I couldn’t stand knowing you were spending time with him when I wanted you to be with me.”
“Can we start over? Pretend nothing happened and forget about it?” I asked.
“No, I’m afraid not.”
“Why not?”
“Are you kidding? Hell no. If you hadn’t gone out with Tyler, you wouldn’t have realized you wanted to be with me, and you’d still be denying your feelings for me. So for that, and that reason only, I’m thankful you spent a little time with the prick.”
“Oh. Well, when you put it like that, it makes sense.” I turned and walked to the couch, tired of standing in the middle on my living room floor. I sat down and pulled one leg underneath me with my back against the arm of the couch. Drew followed without question and sat down next to me. I checked my watch and couldn’t believe it was past ten already. “Wow, where did the time go?”
Drew looked at his own watch. “Oh wow, I better let you get some rest. Work calls in the morning.”
A sudden pang of anxiety rushed through me as he moved to stand and I grabbed his hand. “Please don’t leave, not yet,” I begged.
“Are you sure?” he asked, settling back into the couch.
“Yes, absolutely. This may sound completely stupid, but I feel like I almost lost you, and if you leave now, you’ll change your mind or something, and I won’t see you again.” A wide smile creased his cheeks and I knew he was trying to suppress a laugh. “See?” I said dragging the word out. “Why did I even say that? This is exactly the type of stuff you keep to yourself. But you should be used to me saying dumb things by now.”
Drew twisted, angling his body so that he was sitting face-to-face with me. His smile faded, his expression becoming more serious as he leaned in closer. “Please don’t ever be afraid to tell me how you feel. Nothing you’ve ever said has been dumb… Oh wait, there was that one time—”
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