Our town's population is somewhere around six thousand.The reason I date mostly out-of-towners is because I couldn’t imagine having to see a date-gone-wrong everywhere I look. If I had to see my ex, Adam Kinley, on the regular, eating dinner with his newest fling at MJ’s Diner, or waiting in line at The Groovy Bean, ordering my salted caramel oatmeal cookies, it would be my own personal hell.
Not to mention the time I dated Oliver Willams, who Luke and I both knew from high school, and when Luke found me crying after I found out Oliver was talking to someone else behind my back, he was thrown in a jail cell for over an hour, forced to listen to that song “Chum Drum Bedrum” by Vitas on repeat. I had to bail him out with a loaf of pumpkin bread—Rick’s weakness.
I mention this to Luke, reminding him of a few other times he has done similar things in the past with people I had dated in Covewood. A divot forms between his brows, as if he doesn’t understand why his protectiveness is a bad thing. It’s not, but it has not always been agoodthing when it comes to my dating life either.
“Alright, alright. I understand, but it doesn’t mean that I like the thought of you keeping things from me.”
“I trust you with everything, Luke. Besides, I’m sure there are things you’ve kept from me too.”
He trains his eyes on the road, his knuckles growing white on the steering wheel. There’s a hint of pink on the tips of his cheekbones, over the curve of his ear. He’s hiding something from me, and I don’t care for it.
“I think you pretty much know everything there is about me.”
Instead of prodding him for more information, which is my typical reaction, I choose to keep it to myself—for now anyway, because I can sense his anxiety has been growing the closer we’ve gotten to his grandmother’s. That, and the fact that I don’t want to consider the reasons for his sudden change of mood,too scared to find out what it means, that revealing the truth might rock the boat and set us off course.
“There is one thing,” he finally says after a moment of silence.
This has me perking up in my seat. My head whips his way as I await his confession.
“I actually love pink and red Starbursts,” he admits.
“What!” I practically squeal.
I study Luke as one of his hands releases the steering wheel to rake through his dark hair. With the sun setting, it almost looks like spilled ink. “Anytime I grab a pack, I make sure to save the pink and red ones for you because of the smile you give me every time I bring them to you.”
His words trickle over my skin like warm summer raindrops. That has to be one of the sweetest things he’s ever done for me. I’m not sure my lungs are working properly, and I have to concentrate, making sure I’m inhaling deep breaths. This small confession only fuels the confusion that’s been gnawing at my subconscious lately.
We’re about twenty minutes away, and we’ve both grown quiet now that the twenty questions are over. Only the sounds of “December” by Collective Soul play softly in the background. I’m trapped within my thoughts, mulling over the differences between Luke and my ex, Adam.
His idea of romance was going out to dinner one weekend a month, spending most of that time on his phone rather than paying attention to me. He brought me a box of chocolates one time, claiming them to be my favorite, when in reality, I prefer fruity-flavored candy over chocolate. And Luke knows this about me. He knowseverythingabout me. And I’m starting to wonder if that’s where the danger lies, because I’m beginning to feel things I shouldn’t.
My sister’s words resurface, unwillingly, in my thoughts.
“Liv, the best kind of relationship is when you can act like lovers and best friends at the same time. You can have both.”
I can’t have both. It feels treacherous just thinking about the lines being blurred together and expecting everything to be okay. Acting on an idea of a crush that I had back in high school feels wrong.
That crush had started after Luke came back from summer camp the summer after eighth grade. Something about him had morphed that year, and suddenly, it wasn’t just friendship that I wanted from him.
It was this pull I didn’t understand then—a need to keep him close, to be the one who saw past the chaos he tried to drown himself in. I wanted to be the person who could save him…or hold on to the pieces of him that still felt whole.
Back then, while I was going to movie nights with my family or hanging out with Raine, Luke was disappearing—weekends spent hiding from his father’s anger, lost somewhere in lake parties, cheap beer, and a line of girls who didn’t know him the way I did.
I remind myself often that that version of him is gone. That the reckless boy from high school faded a long time ago. Luke is not that person anymore. He’s made sure to prove that to me.
That scares me more than anything, because this version of him, the one who looks at me like I matter, who makes me laugh without even trying, who knows all my favorite songs and remembers the little things I forget about myself.
This version is dangerously easy to fall for.
If I cross the line, if I say the wrong thing or feel too much, I might lose the only constant I’ve ever had. And I don’t know if I could survive losing Luke.
More of Wren's words squirm their way into my thoughts.“Stop telling yourself all the reasons why it wouldn’t work out, and start thinking about the one reason why it could.”But all I can think about is the one reason why it couldn’t.
Chapter Ten
Olivia
“Ihad no idea you were related to the McCallisters!” I gasp as we pull up to a huge craftsman-style house.
