“That’s not what I meant,” I mutter.
“Then what?” she snaps, tearing open the peanut M&M’s. Belatedly I realize we never did stop for breakfast.
“I just meant that you’ve always been driven. Known what you wanted.” I hold out my palm, and she dumps some of the colored candies into my hand before fishing one out and popping it in her mouth as she continues to glare at me.
“I’m not going to apologize for going to college, Reece.”
I don’t want you to. But how about you apologize for leaving without saying goodbye. Without giving me a chance to explain anything.
I toss the entire palmful of M&M’s into my mouth. “You’re impossible to talk to.”
“You started it,” she says, and I almost smile, having flashbacks to when we were kids, still figuring out how to talk to each other.
Lucy leans forward, flicking the radio back on. Country again, but I leave it.
Because listening to the guy warbling about his broken heart is a hell of a lot better than reminiscing about mine.
Chapter 14
LUCY, EIGHTEEN, REECE, NINETEEN
“If your brother catches me, he’s going to kill me,” Reece muttered as he hoisted himself through Lucy’s bedroom window.
“No he won’t,” she said, quickly putting her palm on the top of his head to keep him from banging it on the frame. “I can handle Craig.”
He stood before her, reached out, and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “My little protector.”
Lucy reached up, looped her arms over his shoulders. “My parents though. They’ll kill you.”
He winced, started to pull back. Lucy immediately regretted her playful words. “Don’t go,” she whispered.
His expression was tortured. “I can’t be here, Lucy. This thing with us…it’s crazy. It’s wrong.”
“It doesn’t feel wrong,” she said, cupping his cheek. “It feels more right than anything I’ve ever experienced.”
His eyes closed as he let her fingers roam his face, her palm scraping at his stubble, fingertips light along his lips. “Why can’t I stay away from you?”
“I don’t want you to stay away,” she said, reaching up and bringing his mouth down to hers.
His kiss was hesitant at first, as though still trying to talk himself into leaving.
Lucy kissed him with every ounce of longing in her eighteen-year-old body, showing him with hands and lips what she wasn’t yet brave enough to tell him with words.
The greedy way his hands gripped her butt, the gentle way he palmed her breasts, his quiet groan when she tilted her hips to his told her everything she needed to know.
It told her he felt the same. Even if he didn’t know it yet.
Chapter 15
Lucy
“You’re fidgeting,” Reece says in an irritable voice.
He’s always irritable. Have you noticed?
“My skirt keeps riding up,” I mutter, shifting to tug it down.
“Maybe if you wore something bigger than a piece of masking tape wrapped around your ass…”