Page 46

46

SCARLETT

M y hands curl into Lane’s sheets as he slants his tongue just the right way to finally send me over the edge.

His face stays buried between my legs as I ride out my orgasm. Unusually, Lane hasn’t shaved in a couple days, and the sensation of his rough stubble abrading against my inner thighs only intensifies the pleasure as release barrels through me.

By the time my taut muscles relax and my vision becomes clear again, Lane’s out from between my legs and next to me, tucking me into his arms and holding me close. Being snug in his arms while post-climax relief washes through me makes me feel so perfectly at ease, so perfectly safe, that it’s as good as another orgasm.

Once my breath is steady enough to speak, I look up at him and ask with a wry grin, “So, how’s it feel being national champion?”

“Not as good as it feels being your boyfriend.”

My heart stutters. Hearing him use that word with unwavering confidence and comfort as if we’ve been dating for years gets me high.

A happy feeling beats through me. I feel the strangest mix of emotions, contrasting but somehow complementary. It’s like my feet are on more solid ground where our relationship is concerned, while at the same time I feel like I’m floating on air.

“Is that so?” I reply.

“It’s very much so,” he nods.

“Well, it feels pretty good being your girlfriend, too,” I say, the word in my mouth tasting sweeter than any dessert. “But I don’t have a national championship to compare it to,” I continue, fixing a look of mock contemplation on my face. “So maybe, like, being the national champion in competitive ski jumping would feel better.”

Lane’s brow lowers, but he has to purse his lips to keep from smiling. “Boy, you sure know how to stroke a guy’s ego.”

I plant my hand on his bare chest and slowly drag it down his torso. “I’ll make up for my lack of ego stroking by stroking something else,” I tease as my hand descends.

My grip wraps around the hot, hard length pulsing between his legs. I keep my gaze locked on his face while it goes taut as I stroke him slowly. The way he bites his lower lip as groans of pleasure purr velvety soft from his throat has muscles between my legs twitching even though I just got off.

His release spills right onto my naked thigh. It makes for a nice excuse to take a shower together before we head out to our classes.

Outside, the balmy warmth of the sun coats my face. There’s still a chill in the air, so I’m wearing a sweater, but it feels like Spring when the sun’s rays are falling on you.

The branches of the trees are fringed with leaves that will erupt into a multicolored blossom in just a couple of weeks. The streets are more lively, and students are hanging out on the open lawns around campus. After a long and cold Vermont winter, things are starting to sprout to life again.

Lane plants a firm, possessive kiss on my lips that draws some stares from the people around us before he heads into the building where his accounting class is. I walk further down campus to get to my English class.

When I’m with Lane, all the doubts that have been wiggling into my head about our future evaporate, but once we’re apart, they crowd back in.

The way he so casually called himself my boyfriend when we were in bed together left no doubt about how he feels. But that’s right now. That’s when we’re seeing each other every day, living in the same town; hell, living in the same damn house.

That’s all coming to an end soon. Very soon.

And he’s going to literally the other side of the country. Suddenly having more money and attention than he ever has. He’ll be in sunny San Jose while I’m back here in small-town Vermont.

Is it even sane to imagine that things won’t change between us?

In spite of my efforts to fend them away, these worries are rattling around in my head as I step outside after my last class of the day.

And that’s when I hear from behind me an imploring voice calling my name, “Scarlett.”

Recognition shoots through my body, making my chest clench. I turn around, and my jaw drops.

Caleb.

Shock suffuses through my limbs as I look at a face that was a fixture in my life for so many years. A different kind of surprise fires through me right on its heels, as I realize how very little I’ve even imagined that face since I moved here.

I blink my eyelids hard, wondering if maybe I caught a whiff of some experimental chemical while walking past a chemistry class and it’s making me see things. But Caleb’s still standing right there when I open them.

“What are you doing here?” is the first thing I ask.

“I needed to see you,” he says, taking a step closer.

I match his forward step with a backward one of my own. “No, you didn’t.”

A pained expression winces on his face. I hate the fact, but it strikes a pang of sympathy somewhere deep inside me.

I’m completely over Caleb, but I spent too much of my life caring about him and deluding myself into believing he cared about me the same way, to be totally impassive when I see him hurt.

“Can we go somewhere to talk?” he asks, a pathetically plaintive lilt in his voice.

“We don’t have anything to talk about,” I reply.

“Please, Scarlett,” he implores.

Even though I felt that twinge of sympathy when I saw his hurt reaction to me pulling away from him, I don’t feel like I owe him anything. I gave him everything I had to give, and he never treated me the same way. Not only that, but he ruined what Lane and I could have had together at the end of my Chicago trip.

It’s the first time since I turned around and saw him that that realization hits me, and a wave of anger rushes through me. A wave of outrage as I fully realize everything he did: stalked me in Chicago, broke into Demi’s house to steal my phone, and sent a fake message in my name to sabotage me and Lane.

That’s way beyond shitty boyfriend behavior. Shitty boyfriend behavior is when he slept with one of my coworkers, the thing that finally spurred me to break up with him for the last time a couple months before I moved out here.

No, what he did in Chicago was downright criminal.

But maybe if I give him what he wants, a chance to spew all the bullshit out of his mouth that he thinks might win me back, and then make it totally clear to him in no uncertain terms that he has zero chance, and flatly and firmly tell him that if he ever tries to contact me again I’m going to the police over what he did in Chicago, maybe that’ll be enough to totally wipe out the last remnants of hope he’s still carrying that there can ever be any future with us.

“There’s a café down this way,” I say, turning and walking toward Brumehill Brews, not even glancing at him behind me.

I don’t bother to order anything, just sitting down at a table and letting him get it over with.

I let Caleb’s words filter in one ear and out the other as he babbles on. One thing I do notice about his speech is a distinct lack of apology. No apology about how he slept with my coworker. No apology about how he treated me like crap and took me for granted the entire time we were together.

“I know we could work out this time,” he says. “I could even move up here, find a job and?—”

“No,” I stop him. I’ve finally had enough. “That’s never going to happen, Caleb. You need to understand that. I sat here and let you say what you needed to say so that you’d get it out of your system. But now what you need to do is accept that we’re over. For good.”

His hands curl into fists on the surface of the table that separates us. “You’re with that hockey player again, aren’t you?”

The anger rushes back into me. How dare he have the gall to bring up Lane after what he did?

“Yes, I am. And we’re staying together this time. I know what you did, Caleb. I should go to the police over it. But I’m willing to let it lie, as long as you never contact me again.”

He shakes his head. “I was just protecting you.”

“Protecting me?” I repeat his words, outraged. I shouldn’t let him get a rise out of me, but I’m so taken aback by his audacity that I can’t help it.

“You know that guy was just using you for a fun time, the same as he’s doing now.” He scoffs. “Come on, he’s on his way to the NHL. What kind of future do you think he sees with you?”

I shouldn’t let anything Caleb says affect me, but I’m ashamed to admit that his words are like a javelin slicing between my ribs. They just hit too close to home with where my mind’s been lately.

“You’re wrong, Caleb,” I answer. “And it wouldn’t matter even if you weren’t. Because us? There is no us anymore, and there never will be. I came here so you could have a chance at closure, and this is it. Like I said, if you contact me again, I’m going to the police about what you did in Chicago. This is goodbye.”

I stand up from the table—but as I walk past him, he grabs my wrist.