“But you are a whore.”
“Shut up,” I tell her with a laugh, unable to stop grinning to the point my cheeks are starting to hurt. “I really like this one. He was texting me all night and telling me all about his life. He’s taking me on a real date. Maxen never did that shit.”
“Maxen was a high school dick when you guys dated. What did you expect?”
I shrug my shoulders despite her not being able to see me while wondering why the hell I just brought Maxen up. Is it really that hard for me to go a whole conversation without talking about him? “I don’t know,” I tell her, remembering what those times with Maxen were like. “More than screwing on his parent’s couch.”
“You don’t think Lukas wants to screw you on his parent’s couch?” she questions with distaste in her tone, making me laugh once again.
“Of course, he does,” I tell her, suddenly wondering more and more about this damn couch and all the freaking possibilities I could explore with Lukas. I wasn’t lying, that monster I could feel through his pants really was a beast. I’m sure we’d have a lot of fun with that. “What guy wouldn’t? I was putting off some pretty sexy vibes last night. If he doesn’t want to screw me on his parent’s couch, then he’s not a red-blooded man.”
“Okay,” Tora laughs. “We have to stop talking about parent’s couches.”
“Agreed,” I tell her, though I know for a fact that she’s done it plenty of times on not only her parents’ couch but Nate’s parents’ couch too. Hell, I wouldn’t be surprised if somewhere along the lines, they’d done it on mine. My phone beeps with another incoming call and I glance down at the screen before scrunching up my face. “Oh, mom’s calling. I’ll talk to you later.”
“K,” Tora grunts, ending the call without bothering to say goodbye.
I quickly accept mom’s call and not a second later, I’m giving her every last detail about the little cottage that I can’t stop looking at, and what’s more, she’s never been so happy for me.
Mom and I have always had a rough relationship. We both have strong personalities and living together always had us butting heads over the littlest things. Ever since I moved into the college dorm room, she’s been the best thing that ever happened to me.
Mom ends the call by telling me that she’ll get Tora’s dad on the phone and work out a plan for moving, rent, and general living and I find myself grinning like an idiot. I don’t think I’ve ever been so happy.
Things are finally starting to look up and for the first time since those beginning months of high school, I finally feel like I’m going to have it all.
Chapter 3
Brooke
I scowl at Maxen from across my new kitchen, hating the way he’s walking through mine and Tora’s new home as though he has some kind of right to be here.
Maxen broke my heart and I haven’t been able to find it in me to forgive him. He was my first heartbreak and those are the ones that are always hardest to forget. I’ll probably never forget the image of Maxen in the junior hallway, leaning into some random slut while he was supposed to be mine. It’s forever ingrained in my brain.
Sometimes I think I should feel strong for refusing to let go and forgive a man who wronged me. He doesn’t deserve my forgiveness. So why do I feel so weak holding onto a hurt that I should be moving on from?
Fuck. I hate this.
Maxen walks back through the door with a massive box over his shoulder and I don’t miss the way his eyes keep flicking to mine. He’s been doing it all day and it’s driving me insane because he doesn’t deserve to look at me, but mostly because each time he does, my eyes are already on him, my heart racing with desire.
In high school, he was a bit of a douche. Don’t get me wrong, deep down he’s a good guy, but what he did to me was unforgivable. He would make me feel like the only girl in the world, treat me like a queen, and look at me as though he was picturing me naked. I absolutely loved it and that look never changed, not until this past summer.
Something changed and I have no idea what it was but he stopped looking at me like an object and started looking at me with longing and it’s seriously been fucking with my head. Not even when we were together would he look at me like this. It was always more of a sexy leer and it made me feel like the most desirable woman on the planet, but this…this is something more. This is intense and I’m not sure I can handle it.