This was a dangerous realization, my teenage self screaming Don’t do it! like I was willingly stepping in front of a goddamn freight train. Because I’d been down this road once before, and though we had just been teenagers at the time, in moments like this, the wound stung like it was fresh.
Luke Bennet had been my friend. He’d been my first crush, the first boy’s name I doodled in my notebook, the boy I rushed to work after school to see. Funny, charming, beautiful Luke Bennet, who had convinced me to come to the greenhouse that night, who listened to me cry about my dead mother with that heartbreaking look on his face. Who kissed me in the moonlight and then forgot me completely.
He was unpredictable. What he said, he didn’t always mean. He was dangerous.
We were kids, I told myself. He’s grown up since then.
Teenage me made a face at the thought. Did people really change, or did they only shift, shimmy, slide? And even more troublesome—had he changed, or had I pegged him wrong all along?
His hands on my back nearly shocked me off the swing. With a quiet laugh, he gave me a little push.
“Look at that. It holds,” I said over the thumping of my heart in my ears.
“You doubted me?”
“Considering I didn’t know you knew how to make anything but trouble a couple days ago, I’d say a healthy amount of concern isn’t out of line.”
“Fair enough.”
He pushed me again, as firmly as he could in the space we had, and for a moment, neither of us spoke. The window stretched almost to the floor and all the way to the ceiling, the installment several feet inside of it. I glanced up at the cloud, which was built to look like it was suspended over the swing, the pampas grass swaying with the motion.
“You did good, Luke,” I admitted, not sure how to fill the silence between us.
“You did too. Difference is, I never doubted you.” It wasn’t an accusation. The words were touched with levity, like he was smiling.
“Well, I’ve never given you a reason to doubt me, have I?”
He considered for a beat. “No, I guess not. You’ve always been capable, reliable. Dependable, even when we were kids. But what have I done to convince you I’m not?”
There was something in his voice, the edge of a wound, a tendril of hurt.
“Well,” I started, not wanting to hurt his feelings, but compelled to be honest, “aside from you never holding down a job? Or being in a serious relationship?”
“I was married, Tess,” he said quietly. “How much more serious could I get?”
But I laughed it off, hoping to defuse the tension. “I mean, was Wendy really serious?”
He pulled the swing to a stop. “You think I’d get married if I wasn’t serious?”
I gripped the ropes, shifting so I could look back at him. The hurt on his face was unmistakable.
“I … that’s not what I meant.”
“Well, what did you mean?” He waited for my response like he’d wait until hell froze over if he had to.
My lips gaped just a little, my mind scrambling with how to explain, and when the words came, they were honest and blunt, wielded with the unwavering certainty that nothing could faze him. Nothing could hurt him. “It’s just that you’ve always been a player. You fooled around with Ivy for years. Never had a girlfriend in high school, just a string of hookups. And then, out of nowhere, you disappeared with Wendy, who was a notorious flake and player equal to you. You were always so … I don’t know. Unattainable. No one could lock you down. You toyed with every girl’s emotions in a twenty-block radius, so when Wendy did, I assumed it was just a game. Temporary.”
His gaze hardened, his jaw stiff and square. “How do you always do that?”
“Do what?” I asked, genuinely confused.
“Find ways to insult me, even when you’re being earnest?”
I opened my mouth to defend myself.
But he cut me off. “What did I ever do to you, Tess? We used to be friends, and somewhere along the way, you turned into this. You have berated me, insulted me. Treated me like I was second-class. You act like I was put on earth solely to annoy you, and I can’t understand why. So enlighten me, Tess—what did I do to deserve this?”
I hopped off the swing, my face drawn as I turned to him. The secret I’d kept from him, the truth of that night, all of it waited on my lips. But I couldn’t speak the words. I couldn’t admit it, not after all this time.
“Nothing. You did nothing, Luke. Like always.”
All of hell fueled my fire as I blew past, wanting nothing more than to get out of that shop and far, far away. But he hooked my arm, stopping me.
“What the hell does that mean?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“What doesn’t matter?” His brows were knit so tight, they nearly touched. “What happened, Tess? What do you think I did?”
“I don’t think you did anything.” I jerked my arm from his grip, fists like hammers at my sides and jaw like a vise. “If you can’t remember kissing me, I have no interest in reminding you.”
His face clicked open like pins and hammers of a lock.
But I didn’t wait for a response. I didn’t want one. Not when I was sure he’d say exactly what I feared: you meant nothing to me.
There was only one thing to do, one thing I needed—a city block between Luke and me. And with furious tears in my eyes, I brushed past him to put it there.
10
You Can Try
LUKE
I blinked as she passed like a thunderbolt.
She hadn’t said what I thought she’d said. There was no way I’d heard her right. None in the history of the world.
Never in a trillion years would I have forgotten kissing Tess Monroe.
My hand shot out like a grappling hook, snagging the crook of her elbow. I turned her around, my fingers clamping her arms to hold her still.
“Tess,” I started, my voice calm, still, like she was a wild animal set to bolt, “I have never kissed you.”
She shook her head, her eyes shining. “You did. I’ll remember it until I die whether you do or not.”
I swallowed hard, my mind scrambling backward in time, searching for the memory. “I don’t know who kissed you, but it wasn’t me.”
Fury and hurt lit her eyes like a brazier. “The greenhouse. Laney bought you a bottle of Wild Turkey.”
I frowned. “That I remember. I drank a third of it waiting on you to sneak out. Your mom had just … I’d wanted to cheer you up. But I didn’t kiss you.”
“Are you sure about that?” she shot.
“We talked and drank and…that’s it.” Wasn’t it? “We were friends, Tess.”
“I thought so too. And then you kissed me. You told me you wanted to date, kissed me all night, and forgot me by the morning.”
I found that night in my memory and flicked through it. But the end was a blank space. I didn’t remember anything until the next morning when I woken up, half-hanging from the bunk with a thumping headache and a stiff neck.
“I … I don’t remember.”