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"You have no idea how much I missed you," Ariana breathed.
"Come on. Only door that isn't boarded up leads to the basement."
He tugged her hand and led her around the side of the building, through the dead brush that lined the walls.
Thomas gripped the door handle and yanked it open, ducking through the doorway. She followed him into the
deserted basement. Musty, damp air hung thick around them. She unwound the ugly scarf from around her
neck and slipped out of her new, light blue Dior coat. It took about two seconds for her to give up on finding a
clean place to lay them, and she tossed them over a dusty chair in the corner. That was what dry cleaners were
for.
"I felt like I was going crazy." Ariana pulled the wooden door closed behind them. Slivers of dusty light from
the setting sun filtered through its cracks, painting red slashes across their bodies.
"Me too." Thomas pinned her to the stone wall, tugging her sweater over her head. He ran his fingers through
her hair; kissed her
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on the mouth, the neck, along her collarbone. She hadn't felt like this the whole time she'd been in Vermont.
She had missed feeling the way she did when she was with Thomas. Missed feeling alive, free. "At least you
didn't have to spend two weeks holed up in your parents' co-op with your moron of a brother."
"Awwww. Poor thing," she said with a laugh. "Life on the Upper East Side must be so hard."
He shrugged out of his coat and yanked his sweater off over his head. "Like you were roughing it in
Vermont," he said, his hands traveling over her skin.
Her body tensed under his touch. The last person she wanted to think about when she was with Thomas was
Daniel. She wanted to forget about the last two weeks with the Ryans, let the memory of everything that had
happened between Daniel and her evaporate, like her breath in the winter air.
"What's wrong?" Thomas breathed into her ear. He pressed his hands against her hips, guiding her through
the maze of student desks piled high around the basement. Her legs backed into an old oak desk shoved
against the far wall, and he lifted her onto it. "You okay?"
"Of course," she said quickly, slipping her arms around him and pulling him close. "I'm fine."
Suddenly, a familiar buzzing sound escaped from her back pocket.
"My phone," she gasped.
"Ignore it."
"I can't." She yanked the phone out and her heart sank. Paige Ryan
