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“Okay, class.” Miss Misty clapped her hands like a cheerleader. “Everyone skate to the center, and take your spots at the circle so we can stretch out! We want hap-hap-happy muscles!”
God, she was a peppy freak of nature. If you pictured Bob Ross but took away his paintbrushes and winter landscapes and added methamphetamines, roller skates, and spandex, you’d have a pretty good idea of Miss Misty.
I maneuvered my skates toward the center and skated to my assigned spot without a single wobble. See what I mean? Only three lessons in, and it was obvious these babies were paying off.
I sat down beside Lauren—not by choice—and waited patiently for Miss Misty to take us through our stretching routine.
“Lola,” Lauren whispered beside me, but I ignored her. The last time I’d fallen for that trick, Lauren had acted like I was the only one talking, and Miss Misty had scolded me for interrupting the class. Fucking Lauren.
“Psst, Lola.”
“Shut up,” I whispered back through gritted teeth. “You’re going to get me in trouble again.”
Miss Misty was all rainbows and unicorns until you interrupted the class. And if I was being honest, she was kind of scary. She might’ve been ten years younger than me, but she had one hell of a glare. For a twenty-one-year-old chick clad in spandex and leg warmers, she sure took her roller skating lessons seriously.
“Psst, Lola,” Lauren repeated. “I need to tell you something really important.”
“What?” I shot back with my best impression of a ventriloquist dummy.
“That boy is looking at you.” Lauren giggled.
I peered at her out of the corner of my eye. “What boy?”
“That boy,” she said a little too loud, and Miss Misty glanced in our direction.
Fucking hell, Lauren.
“Girls.” Our instructor quirked a skeptical brow in our direction. “Mind sharing with the class?”
Jesus. Chill out, Miss Misty.
“That boy over there is staring at Lola,” Lauren announced, and the rest of group started to giggle and point.
I followed their little fingers and found none other than Reed Luca staring back at me. His blue eyes shone with amusement, and his lips were fixed into a smile.
Just the sight of him made my heart skip three beats and then, as if defibrillated, jump-start into a pounding rhythm. Stupid heart.
But seriously, what in the ever-loving fuck was he doing here?
“Lola?” Miss Misty questioned, and I silently cursed Reed for showing up and getting me in trouble. “Do you know him?”
I sighed. “Yeah.”
Yeah, I knew him, all right. It was the guy who’d forced himself into my life like a fucking hurricane, and then, once I’d finally opened up and fallen head over heels, he pulled the rug straight out from under me.
The guy I’d told I needed time and who apparently didn’t understand the concept.
The guy you’re in love with…
“Will you go ask him to leave so everyone can stay focused?” Miss Misty suggested, but her words were the opposite of suggestion. They were as firm as her twenty-something ass in spandex. “We really need to get back to our lesson.”
“Yeah. Okay,” I answered and promptly got on my skates and started rolling toward the other end of the rink.
Reed continued to watch me with that stupid smile and those stupid shining blue eyes and I really just wanted to tell him to fuck off, but I didn’t want to find out the kind of power Miss Misty’s glare held when it was addressing foul language.
“Hey, Roller Skates,” he greeted once I’d reached the waist-high wall that separated the rink from the seating and concession area. “Looking good out there.”
I ignored the compliment. “How’d you know where to find me?”
“I’m stalking you,” he teased, but his joke fell like a lead balloon.
I didn’t want his jokes or his smiles, and the two of us knew all too well he hadn’t been anywhere I had been in the last week and a half.
I wanted clarity.
My lack of enthusiasm over his presence didn’t deter him. He reached across the wall, almost as if he couldn’t help himself, and brushed a loose strand of hair behind my ear before wrapping one of my pigtails around his finger like I’d done only moments before. Goose bumps pebbled my skin, and immediately, I hated how much I missed his touch.
“When did you start taking lessons?”
I shrugged. “A week and a half ago.” Around the time he’d broken my dreams of forever being a party of two.
His eyes looked out toward Miss Misty and the class who were halfway through our stretching routine, and that familiar smile started to settle into the corners of his mouth again.
I didn’t want his smile—it hurt too much to see it. “Seriously, Reed, what are you doing here?”
“I miss you,” he answered, gaze jerking back to mine, and it sounded like the most honest thing he’d ever said to me. “And I want to talk to you.”
He wanted to talk to me just like I’d wanted him to go to Santa Cruz.
The words you can’t always get what you want were on the tip of my tongue, but my mind put the kibosh on that, countering, but deep down, you want Reed, and he wants to talk to you…
Obviously, my bitterness had yet to fade.
“Lola!” Miss Misty called toward me. “Are you about finished?”
God, Miss Misty was a pain in my ass. Couldn’t she see I had some serious adult shit going on over here?
“Just a minute!” I yelled over my shoulder and then turned back toward Reed. “Uh…I’m kind of in the middle of something here.”
“I can see that,” he responded without argument, but a little sadness crept into his eyes. “Are you free after this?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “And more than that, I’m not sure I want to talk to you. I told you I needed time.”
“Please, Lola,” he begged and pulled both of my hands into his. “I know you said you needed time, but I don’t like the way our conversation went the other day. I had so much to say, and like a fucking idiot, couldn’t figure out how to say it. I hope you’ll give me a second chance to explain. I just need five minutes of your time. Name the time and the place, and I’ll meet you, whenever, wherever.”
It was so unlike Reed to put the ball in my court. He never wanted to live by anyone else’s schedule but his own, and now, he was leaving it all up to me.
Something about the gesture broke through my fortifications. “Fine,” I agreed on a sigh. “I’m free tonight.”
“What time?”
“Seven.”
“Where?”
I thought about it for a second, and then gave the best answer I could on the fly. “Golden Gate Park.”
He nodded a soft, thankful smile. I tried not to notice the way it transformed his face and failed. Before I could turn on my skates and head back toward the center of the rink, he leaned forward and pressed a soft kiss to my cheek.
Lingering, right there, against my skin, he whispered, “See you tonight, Roller Skates.”
Golden Gate Park was one of those places everyone puts on their list to visit—and quite frankly, it wasn’t without reason.
The atmosphere was bustling and packed full of history completely unique to San Fran, and the microclimate was a thing within itself. It wasn’t that close to Lola or me, but as I pulled into the parking lot in my hardly ever used Corolla, I knew exactly why she’d chosen it.
We’d come there more than once to people watch and talk, and the Conservatory of Flowers was one of her favorite places inside its confines. She hadn’t said, but I knew that was where she would be.
I opened my trunk and took out the box with one of the weirdest gifts I’d ever gotten for someone and clutched it to my chest.
I was feeling a lot of things I wasn’t accustomed to—nerves, hope, and a threatening cloud of disappointment nearly as thick as the fog I knew would be here first thing tomorrow morning.
What would I do if we couldn’t find the words to understand each other?
I honestly wasn’t sure.
But I knew I couldn’t go back to the person I was before—at least not entirely.
Because Lola Sexton had done a real fucking bang-up job of teaching me it really was possible to walk through life not knowing you’re missing a goddamn thing—until the minute you find it.
Lola sat on a bench facing away from me, toward the flowers and steps in front of the greenhouse as I approached. It hadn’t taken me any time at all to find her in the crowd, hair now down in a curtain around her face. Gray Converse covered her feet in place of her roller skates, but she didn’t look any less interesting. Just like I’d known from the beginning—she stood out. And something about her called to me.
My unicorn.
A group of pigeons gathered at her feet, and I had to laugh at the perfect little picture fate had painted us.
I sat down carefully on the bench next to her and laid the box on top of my thighs. Two minutes passed without either of us saying anything.
Finally, Lola had enough. “Possibly two of the fucking chattiest people on the planet, and neither of us has anything to say?”
“I’ve got a lot to say, Lo.”
She shifted toward me and flapped out her hands. “Then say it.”
