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“Awesome.” Aria sips her coffee. “But there’s something else bothering you. Something that’s not awesome.”
I nod.
“So…” Aria arches a thin brow.
I sigh. “You have to promise not to tell Lark or Mom or Dad.”
“Done,” she says without hesitation, but I’m not really surprised. I’ve always been able to trust Aria with a secret.
“Well, there’s this guy,” I say, rushing on when Aria grins. “A really cute, interesting, sexy-as-heck guy. I mean, it’s not anything serious, but… Well, I guess it kind of is… Or could have been, if I hadn’t… Well, there were things I had to tell him and he’s kind of…” I blow out a breath through pursed lips. “It’s complicated.”
“Why?” she asks, still smiling. “You obviously like him.”
“I do.”
“That’s great. You deserve a nice guy after all the losers Nana set you up with.”
I sigh again. With extra heaving. “Well, you see, that’s the thing. He isn’t really a nice guy. I mean, he’s nice, but he’s also kind of…trouble.”
Aria’s forehead wrinkles. “Trouble? In what way?”
“He’s kind of a bad boy,” I say. “You know, alternative lifestyle, doesn’t want to date a girl he thinks is a Goody Two-shoes, prefers to hook up with women who aren’t virgins…”
Aria sets her coffee down on the glass table between us with a hard thunk, her expression suddenly dead serious. “Oh heck, no, baby sister. Heck, to the hell no.”
Chapter 7
Melody
“What?” I blink, doing my best to play innocent, but Aria is having none of it.
She holds up a single finger between us. “No. You are not going to get mixed up with Nick.”
“I’m not talking about Nick,” I lie. Unconvincingly. Because I’m the worst at lying. Even white lies make me queasy.
My stomach snarls, and I set down my coffee down beside Aria’s.
“You’re totally talking about Nick,” she insists in her sternest, big-sisterly tone. “I’ve seen the way you two make googly eyes at each other in the kitchen. But Nick is off-limits, Melody Anne. He’s Nash’s brother, and if you make Nash beat up his own brother to avenge your honor, I will be very, very annoyed with you.”
“Nash isn’t going to beat anyone up,” I say, bristling. “He doesn’t have a mean bone in his body.”
“He might find one if Nick wham, bam, no-thank you ma’ams my baby sister.” She widens her eyes pointedly. “My very inexperienced baby sister who is not even close to being ready to mess with a guy like Nick Geary.”
“How can you be so sure?” I ask, even my voice prickly now. “I hold my own when we’re kissing. Maybe I am ready to jump into the deep end of the sex pool.”
Aria’s jaw drops and she makes a few sputtering sounds, before she manages to get out, “Are you sure, Mel? I mean, you’ve always said you wanted to wait for marriage. I’ve never seen you so much as waiver on that.”
I sigh. “I know.” I wince. “But I don’t know, too. I’m just so confused. That’s why I wanted to talk. You had a wild phase and you ended up with a wonderful guy in the end.”
Aria nods slowly. “I did. But I got hurt a lot along the way.”
“Do you regret being with someone other than Nash?” I ask, genuinely curious. I didn’t expect Aria to be so anti-experimentation. Adventure was pretty much her middle name until Felicity was born.
She shakes her head. “No, I don’t. Every failed relationship helped make me the person I am now. I can love and appreciate Nash in a way I’m not sure I would have if I hadn’t been with those other guys, but…” She wrinkles her nose. “I just hate to think of you getting hurt. Especially your first time. You’re always going to remember that first experience. It’s unavoidable. So, it’s really preferable when it’s a nice memory, you know?”
“I know.” I gather my mug in both hands, feeling oddly…bereft.
What Aria’s saying makes sense.
The logical part of my brain knows that.
But the rest of me just wants permission to throw caution to the wind and set a cross country speed record on my way to Nick’s bed.
“Guys who don’t want a ‘good girl’ for a girlfriend usually have their reasons for it,” Aria adds gently. “And they’re usually not nice ones. You might think you’re okay with having a fling with him, but how are you going to feel when he calls it off a few weeks after you start sleeping together? Or if he doesn’t even bother to officially end it. What if he just stops calling one day and a few days later you see him out with another girl? That kind of thing happens with guys like Nick.”
I heave another tortured sigh. “I know it can, but I really don’t think it would end like that. I swear, Aria, the way he makes me feel…” I bite my lip, searching for the perfect words, but in the end all I come up with is a cliché. But clichés stick with us for a reason. Because they feel so dang true. “When we kiss it’s fireworks all the way. I’ve never felt fireworks. Ever. And I know he feels the same way.”
