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“Yup. Weird and sad.” I sighed. “Mostly sad.”
His hand squeezed me tighter. “It helps to remember the good times, I think. When my dad passed, I spent a lot of time remembering all the stuff we did together. I wanted to hold onto those things. Force my brain to remember every last detail, because I knew in time those details would slip away.”
I nodded, remembering how sad it had been going to his father’s funeral all those years ago. We were only twelve or thirteen. For the others, it had been everyone else’s first real brush with death. But not me. Not by a longshot.
“I know it’s not the same,” Luke mumbled apologetically. “I was trying to say—”
“It’s okay,” I smiled, hugging him from the side. “I know what you mean.”
I’d done the same thing with my grandparents, who I’d especially adored as a child. By my teenage years though, I’d lost all of them already. The pitfalls of being born late in your parents’ life.
“Remember this?” Luke smiled, tapping the light fixture in the hallway.
“Yes,” I giggled. “Ouch.”
“I must’ve hit my head on this thing half a hundred times,” he mused. “I mean, who hangs a chandelier in an upstairs hallway?”
“Well who the hell grows to be six-foot-five?” I chided him. “This was mostly your fault.”
We continued down memory lane, passing the office where my father used to sit behind his big metal desk. It was a play room now, apparently. A dozen or more toys lay scattered over a colorful area rug marked with streets and stop signs.
“She’s got grandkids,” Luke explained.
“Did youseeher?” I joked. “She looks like the cookie-cutter definition of a blue-haired American grandmother.”
He chuckled. “Yeah.Lotsof grandkids.”
I smiled wanly, but my stomach tightened. I’d wanted a brother, or a sister, or even a cousin. Someone to live in that room, adjacent to mine. Someone to play with. To grow up with.
“Now, here it is…”
Luke spread one big hand over the next door and pushed it open. The hinges creaked as my old bedroom was revealed, decorated with all new furniture.
“This right here is my favorite room,” he grinned.
“Oh yeah?” I teased. “And why’s that?”
“You know why.”
I let my mouth curl into a slow smirk. It was answer enough.
“You’re going to want to especially remember the things we did in this room,” Luke went on. “And if you need any help remembering—”
“No, I’m pretty sure I’ve got it,” I said, tapping the side of my head.
“Because we did alot,” he grinned on. “Really cool things. Really hot things…”
I let him go on this time, circling the room slowly as the memories came flooding back. Warren and I had broken up shortly after school ended. Luke had sorta swooped in, and not surprisingly I’d gone with it.
You did a little more than just go with it, Kayla.
Alright fine. Maybe I did want him as much as he wanted me. Luke was funny, intelligent, and heartbreakingly beautiful — all that, plus I knew him. He was a good friend. He was… comfortable.
And then all of a sudden he was more than comfortable.
Comfortable? Is that the word you’re using?
We’d spent that whole sizzling summer together, rutting like animals. Making up for all the times we’d hung out and never even kissed. The sexual tension had always been there, it just never got acted on. So the first chance Luke got to actually date me? He’d pounced on it.
