“He asked me to dinner—”
“He what?” I snapped.
“He asked me to dinner. I told him I wasn’t really in the headspace to date, but that wasn’t entirely the truth.”
I stared at Hallie through the dark. “What is the truth?”
Maybe it was the darkness that made Hallie bold. Perhaps it was the cold and the quiet. “I don’t want to date him. But I want that with someone. To know what it’s like to have a person want you more than their next breath. To feel safe enough to want them, too. To crave them so badly it hurts.”
My breaths came quicker, shorter. “And you haven’t…had that…”
It wasn’t a question, but it wasn’t quite a statement either.
Hallie tugged her lip between her teeth, her cheeks flushing. “I’m not a virgin or anything. I had a boyfriend before everything…happened. But it was never like that. And when I was such a mess after, he couldn’t handle it.”
“Limp dick,” I muttered. What a piece of shit.
Hallie choked on a laugh. “Definitely, a two-pump chump.”
Oh, hell, I did not need that kind of imagery in my head. I didn’t need to want to show Hallie what sex could be like. To make sure she came so hard, she saw stars. There’d be no hurry. I’d worship every inch of her skin. Taste her. Make her quiver and beg for release.
“What about you?” Hallie asked.
I took a long swallow of beer. “What about me?”
“Aspen says you don’t date much.”
Now that Aspen was married and happy, she would likely make it her mission to get me to settle down, too. “My life doesn’t really allow it.” I’d learned that lesson the hard way.
Hallie stared at me through the darkness, and I wanted to know what she saw. “It obviously did at one point.”
A weight settled in my gut as my fingers tightened around the bottle. “I was young and stupid.”
Hallie’s eyes flared. “We’ve all been there. Young and stupid. If you ever want to talk about it—”
“I don’t,” I clipped, pushing to my feet and letting the blanket fall.
Hurt flashed in Hallie’s expression, but I couldn’t let it land. Couldn’t let myself take it in. I had to keep moving.
Because I was a coward who couldn’t face that it was so much more than being young and dumb. Because I’d believed pretty lies once. And keeping Melody in my life had nearly cost me everything.
21
HALLIE
I rubbedmy eyes as I sat in the elementary school pickup line. They burned as if they’d been repeatedly doused in acid. I guessed going on five or so hours of sleep each night would do that.
It had been a while since I’d had to function like this, but the past two weeks had done it to me. It was a mixture of nightmares and missing Lawson. Because while he was physically present, he was a million miles away mentally.
He’d put up an invisible forcefield between us. I’d touched on a sore spot, and he’d cast me out.
Everything about it hurt—the distance and the fact that he had obviously cared deeply for the boys’ mom. You didn’t have the sort of reaction Lawson did if youdidn’tcare.
Just the thought made me nauseous. And that made me foolish on top of it all. More than that, it made me feel naïve and silly, like a little girl whose crush had rejected her.
The doors to the school opened, and Charlie was one of the first kids out. I slid out of the SUV and met him on the other side as he launched himself at me. “I missed you!”
My heart squeezed. “I missed you, too.”
