B0161IZ63U (A) (21 page)

Her eyes ran his face.  “You know, this is the school where I met my first love.”

Chase’s eyebrows jumped.  “Your what?”

“I saw him in the halls on my first day.  He saw me.  That was definitely one of those moments.  The kind that you don’t even realize is going to be a moment.”

“You’re telling me that there’s actually a man out there who you haven’t chewed up, and spit out? If I was setting the town on fire over in Manhattan, it was only because you’d already beaten me to the punch in setting fire to every poor bastard who threw you a passing glance.”

Lila’s mouth dropped open.

“So who was the guy?  Who was the one guy, on the planet, who managed to steal the heart of Lila James?”

“He was my English teacher.”

That got Chase’s attention.  “Stop.”

“It’s true.  I was sixteen, and he was… twenty-five?  Twenty-six?”

“And you went after him?”

“Relentlessly.”  She laughed.  “He fought me for a while--”

“A fool’s game.”

“For months.  He fought me hard.  Then, one day, in after-school detention…”

“He finally bent you over?”

Lila cut her eyes at him.  He’d actually done just that, against the chalkboard, but she stopped herself from indulging that fact.

“And you let him?”

“Chase,” Lila said, mocking impatience.  “I
loved-ed
him.”

“Oh, you
loved-ed
him?” he repeated, laughing. “My mistake.  I didn’t realize you had loved-ed him.”

“Mmm… I did. For a whole year, we had our secret rendezvous.  I thought we’d be together for
always
.”

“So what happened?  If you
loved-ed
him, why isn’t he here now?”

“He said it wasn’t right.  Said I was too young. He said I would look back one day and hate him.”

“And do you?”

Lila thought about that, before whispering, “No.”

“Where is he now?”

She looked to him.  “I don’t know.”

“What was his name?”

“Josh.”

“No last name?”

“Not one I’ll
ever
tell you.”

Chase’s eyes searched hers, fighting the urge to say what was tumbling around in his head.

Lila came face to face with him.  “It’s kind of nice to be away from Cambridge, huh?”

He faced her, as well, his green eyes watching her adoringly.  “Yeah, it is.”

“Gentrification has driven away every soul that lived here when I was a kid.”  She looked around, shoving her hands in her back pockets.  “No one knows us here.”  Her eyes met his, again.  “We don’t know them.”

Chase didn’t respond this time, but he was suddenly transfixed.  When she closed the space between them and covered his lips in a soft, sweet kiss, he was utterly undone.  He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move. When she pulled back, he was frowning at her.

“Thank you for taking care of my mother.”  Her eyes shone up at him.

His heart was at his feet.  “Lila, don’t start something you can’t finish.”

Lila came to her toes, clawed her nails against the back of his head and pressed her lips to his, again, this time allowing her tongue to dip out and wet his bottom lip before she took it between hers. 

He melted. “Oh god.”

She lapped softly at his lips with her tongue, searching patiently for entry, alternating with soft pecks in between. 

He came apart, spreading his lips over hers.  He claimed her around the waist with a quickness that stole her breath, tasting her lips with his tongue.  She swirled her own out to meet his, and he made a guttural sound when she met him in the middle.  Their lips danced desperately on the quiet street, his urgent kisses forcing her mouth wider, taking more of her.  He reached up to cup her cheek with one hand, keeping her head steady as he sampled her flavor.  Tilting his head, he pushed her back until her head was up against the school sign, and then he pressed in hard, diving in as deep as he could go.

Lila pulled her lips from his. 

“This is it.” Her gasps came in perfect time with his as she clawed her nails down the back of his head.  His soft hairs fluttered between her fingers.

Unable to open his eyes and relinquish the perfection of what was happening, Chase pressed his forehead to hers, licking his lips to taste her before releasing a strangled breath. She was as sweet as he’d always imagined, and his body screamed for more.  “What?”

“This is one of those moments, that we don’t know is going to be a moment.”

At that, Chase opened his eyes.

She clutched the back of his neck.  “Except we do know it.  I know it.  I know that this is a moment.  It has to be.  Right?” She took a deep, uneven breath.

“This is the only moment, Lila,” he whispered. “My life could end right now, right this second, and
this
would be the moment.”

She gasped as he dove in for more, parting his lips over hers with a passionate groan.

They took their time imparting their deepest passions with their lips, exploring each other with soft sweeps of their tongues, drowning in the newness, and never wanting it to end.

His hands traveled to the small of her back, lingering at the dip before he let them move lower, spreading his fingers wide at the curve of her ass before cupping both cheeks tightly.  A groan of torment escaped him as he did, as if touching her so intimately caused him great agony.  His kiss intensified as he palmed her, pulling her pelvis hard against his.

With a whimper from the deepest part of her, Lila pulled back, stunned by the persistent tap of his hardness against her stomach.  “Wait…”

“No,” he breathed, harshly, his eyebrows clutching together.  “Don’t kiss me and then tell me to wait, Lila.  I have.  I’ve waited my whole life for you, please don’t ask me to wait another fucking second.”

“I just… I
have
to tell you something before this goes any further.” Lila looked down while licking her lips, jamming her eyes shut when she felt him brushing a stray hair off her forehead before pushing it softly behind her ear. Her fingers dug into the hair on the back of his neck, harder, and she gasped before she said the words she knew she had to say.   “I did sleep with Jack.  I did…”

Immediately, he stepped out of her hold.

She reached for him, stopping short when she saw the look on his face, so hot with fury that she feared she might go up in flames if she laid a single hand on him. For the first time in a long time, she couldn’t read him.  That made her so uncomfortable that she instantly crossed her arms over her chest.

“I lied,” she began, “because I knew it would never happen again.  It was just a one-time thing.  It didn’t mean anything.”  Now that she’d kissed him, and felt the blaze of emotion the moment their lips had met, she knew she had to tell him the truth.  Nothing as beautiful as the kiss they’d just shared should start on a dishonest note.  There had been nothing dishonest about the warmth of his arm around her waist, his hand on her cheek, his tongue lapping at her bottom lip before he sucked it between his own.  It had been the most honest Chase had ever been with her, and he deserved the same honesty in return.

Now that she was watching the rapid change in him, Lila feared the lie outweighed the truth.  She feared it was unforgivable.

“It didn’t mean anything,” she whispered, again, her voice shaking this time.

Chase ran a hand down his face as it transformed from furious to completely distraught.  “It didn’t mean anything?” he asked.

Lila instantly shook her head.

He swallowed.  “So I asked you not once, not twice, but
three times,
Lila, if you fucked Jack, and you looked me right in my face and lied to me, three times?”

“Yes.”

He motioned between them, voice growing dark and vacant.  “So what the hell is this?  What has this all been about? Huh? Kissing me? Letting me touch you? All because you’re pissed off at him?”

“No.”  She reached for him, and her heart screamed when he moved away.  Her mind was all over the place, and it became impossible to make sense of her thoughts.

“Or do you just think it’s cool to fuck married men?”

“He’s not married, yet.”

“Oh.” His eyebrows jumped up in amusement, but only for a moment, before his face went back to furious in seconds.  “Oh, excuse the fuck outta me then.  Engaged.  You think it’s cool to fuck an engaged man?”

“I didn’t
know he was engaged when it happened.”

“When did it happen?”

Lila hesitated, eyes falling.  “The night before I got arrested.”

Chase nodded as the jagged pieces that had been out of order in his mind finally fell into place. Nothing about the past few weeks had made complete sense to him, and he now wished it had stayed that way.  He’d take being in the dark for the rest of his life over the shitty feeling that was coursing through him right then, any day. “Where?”

“Chase…”

“Answer that.”

Her eyes fell.  “In my office.”

“So he really did pull you out of class?”

She looked up at him.

“My best friend told me that Jack pulled you out of class and fucked you, probably to help me move the hell on from you, and I still couldn’t believe it, because I’m so fucking wrapped up in you, I can’t
see
straight.”

Lila was alarmed at the tone he was taking with her. “It didn’t mean anything, Chase.”

“It means everything. It means that everythin
g
between you and I, from that moment forward… has been a complete fucking lie.  You kissing me just now?  That was a
lie.”

“No.” She’d finally had enough.  “You’re the one I want.”

“Okay.  I’m the one you want.  I’m the one you want.” He nodded, covering his mouth with his hand.  His voice broke as he spoke. “Did you realize that before, or after you slept with Jack?  Huh?  I’ve been after you for
six
years. Why did I only get the green light from you two seconds ago?  Why would you kiss me?”  He jammed his eyes shut, putting his hands in his hair, as if trying to awake from some terrible nightmare.  “God damn it, Lila.”

“Listen to me.  The second you gave my mother that locket last night?  That locket that I know means so much to you?  That’s when I knew, and it’s the surest I’ve ever been about anything in my entire life.  That’s why I gave you the green light, and that’s the truth, Chase.  From the bottom of my heart.”

Chase was reading from a different script, an entirely different book.  He took a moment, then pointed down at her. “Lila, I got the green light, because you know you can’t have him--”

“
No--”

“So you decided to go ahead and snatch me up from your back burner. Well, you know what?”  He threw his fist into the sign behind her, making her jolt when he nearly took the bolts off. “Fuck you for that.  Fuck you, Lila.”

Lila was struck speechless.  Chase had never spoken to her like that, and it shook her so deeply, tears came to her eyes.

Chase hated the sight.  “I would’ve waited for you.  I would’ve fucking waited… God damn you.  God damn you for doing this.”

“Chase, I’m telling you that I want you, only you. Today.  Right now.”

He laughed at that.  She wasn’t getting it.  She’d just destroyed him, crushed him in her tiny hand, and she didn’t even realize it. His smile was gone in an instant.

“You know what, Lila?  He was right.  You are a
fucking
monster.”  The tears in her eyes made him hate himself, and in turn, even angrier with her. “You can find your own way back to Cambridge, I’m
done.”
His voice split as he said the word, perfectly matching the sensation that he felt in his heart as he stared down at her before stepping away, and making his way down the sidewalk.

Lila waited until he was out of sight before she succumbed to the cries bubbling up from inside her.

12

Hours, and one extremely expensive ticket from NYC to Cambridge later, Lila was staring at her Human Sexuality Class.  She’d made it the classroom right in the nick of time, mere seconds from being late as she raced through the doors.  She’d come straight from the airport, not even stopping to eat or shower. Sure, she looked like something that had climbed right out of the NYC sewer system, but she was there.

Her future at Harvard was still intact.

Wasn’t it?

Did she even care anymore?

As she lectured, her tired eyes went to the empty seat that Chase always occupied. Ronnie, Chase’s best friend and roommate, shifted when she looked.  He knew who she was looking for.

He probably knew why.

Lila’s stomach rumbled.  She’d never seen Chase quite so angry at her as she had that morning, and she had no way of knowing what he’d told his roommate after touching down in Cambridge.  Had he told Ronnie everything?  Had Ronnie, then, told someone else, and another person after that? 

Lila had kissed a student, and she knew that kind of news would spread across campus ten times faster than Julie’s viral video could ever dream.

Ronnie’s eyes dashed away from Lila, and hers did the same.  Struggling to focus, she made it through the lecture by the skin of her teeth, and barely managed to bark two words to each student that stayed behind to talk.

She hadn’t meant to be short, but she desperately needed to be alone.  She needed time.  She needed sleep.

Most of all, she needed Chase.

The one man who’d always been hers but somehow, no longer was.

--

Once her last class of the week let out, Lila climbed right back into her car and made the long drive up to New York City.  Everything about the last 24 hours had left her feeling completely and utterly drained.  Usually, when this kind of darkness set in on her life, there was one person in the world who was always there to shine down some light.

That person no longer wanted anything to do with her. 

So she made the drive.

For the first time in a long time, she needed her mother.

The shock of Alicia’s face when she opened the door to their Brooklyn home, and saw Lila on the other side, was priceless.

“Lila,” she cried.  “You’re back already?  You just left.”