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“Ashanti? Are you okay?”
“I’m so sorry, Mrs. Henderson. I just remembered. There’s somewhere I need to be.” Ashanti turned around and sprung toward her car.
“Wait, Ashanti. We haven’t finished our discussion.”
“Sorry.” Ashanti drove off and headed to Luke’s apartment. “Stupid, stupid,” she mumbled to the darkness of the car.
So that dream, the one that had made her all hot and bothered the entirety of Thursday was no random fantasy.
Her breath came in hard, fast gasps. Was she having a panic attack? Ashanti pulled the car over before she got into an accident. A driver honked from behind as she yanked on the steering wheel. Headlights flashed in her rearview mirror.
Ashanti pressed on the gas and narrowly missed getting tailgated. She was too busy trying not to suffocate to care.
Her fingers tightened on the steering wheel. She leaned her head against the leather and closed her eyes, struggling to remember the kiss. Only wisps returned to her, as if the moment had really happened in a dream that was slowly seeping out of memory.
Why would she kiss Luke?
That night, she’d been annoyed that Michelle and Luke had been clicking so well, but it wasn’t bad enough that she wanted him for herself.
Her heart had been stirred after her father’s suggestion that she could have feelings for Luke, but she had decided her dad was wrong. She had planned to stuff any romantic leanings inside a drawer in her mind and never look at it again.
But maybe it wasn’t that easy.
If Ashanti threw herself at Luke while drunk, did that mean the alcohol had dampened her inhibitions and revealed her true desires.
Or… was it just a bad decision without any hidden motivations?
Ashanti massaged her temples. The kiss was one thing, but Luke’s silence about it was another.
Why hadn’t he brought it up? Was he trying to spare her from embarrassment? Did he wait for her to mention it first and, when she didn’t, he decided to forget it?
Ashanti couldn’t imagine what must have run through Luke’s mind when she kissed him out of the blue. What did he feel? Disgust? Revulsion? Horror?
Ashanti tapped her forehead against the steering wheel and bawled. How could she face Luke again knowing that she’d, basically, sexually assaulted him?
No wonder he’d acted so weird at the café the next day. Luke had asked to see her at home and seemed rather flabbergasted when she’d asked what he wanted to talk about. He’d questioned her about blacking out, investigating her memories of that night.
“And I acted like such a brat this afternoon,” Ashanti mumbled.
When she saw Luke waiting in her cubicle earlier today, resentment had welled in her chest. Luke hadn’t been there that night, when he said he would come. Even if she could handle his mother, she would have liked if he’d been there after to cheer her up.
But he never showed.
And worse, he hung up on her before she could explain what had happened and how shaken she was.
Ashanti needed her space and figured she would get over it after a few days.
The anger that thrummed in her heart that afternoon said she wasn’t over it. Not by a long shot.
Ashanti sat up straight and brushed her hair away from her face. Whatever her personal feelings about Luke right now, she had made a mistake.
She had to apologize. Clear the air. Bring their friendship back to its original ease.
Luke was too important to her to let this stupid kiss fester the water. Michelle was his dream girl, but she was his past and present and that role could never be replaced.
Ashanti started her car and got back on the road. Luke’s apartment rose in the distance.
Unease slithered in the base of her stomach, but she forced herself to climb out of her car, walk up the stairs and knock on his door.
