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My entire body tensed.
“It’s all water under the bridge.” I shrugged. “Just a bunch of bad high school memories.”
Laughter rose from the bar, but I kept my gaze on Emily.
“You strike me as a guy who would have had a great high school experience. I was surprised when you told me it wasn’t that great a few months back.”
I was surprised she remembered. The comment was an off-handed sentence.
“What makes you think that?”
“Well, you're easy on the eyes, and I’m sure all the girls swooned in your direction.” She laughed. “You were athletic, your family was wealthy, and you’ve got a great personality.” Her brows waggled up and down. “Sounds pretty fantastic compared to a lot of kids.”
I laughed. “Speaking of, how was your high school experience?”
She took a sip of wine and stretched her delicate arms toward the ceiling. Her blouse pulled up, revealing her stomach.
I brought my gaze up to hers, and she cocked her head slightly, watching me. “My high school experience was not as great as my siblings’. Let's put it that way.”
“How so?”
She shrugged. “There were good moments and bad moments. The high school on the island is pretty small, so we all knew each other. One foolish teenage misstep and everyoneknew about it. I think that’s why I love reading so much. I just stayed home and read instead of going to parties. But I think a lot of people thought I was stuck up when I was actually just shy and awkward.”
I shook my head in disbelief. “I can’t imagine you ever being shy.”
She chuckled. “No, you’re right. I wasn’t really shy in that sense. I just learned to keep my mouth shut because whenever I said something, it was misconstrued.” She took a sip of wine. “Or maybe I was just too direct.”
“You? Too direct?” I laughed, shaking my head. “Never.”
“So, anyway… Apart from the normal teenage angst, high school was fine. It wasn’t great, but it was fine. Lonely? Yeah. But I had my siblings. You?”
“I had my cousin and lots of friends, who turned out to be…” I shrugged. “Not so great.”
“Really.” She leaned in, glancing toward the bar. “Spill the tea.”
I chuckled and shook my head. “Nah. It’s all so long ago that it doesn’t really matter. I just learned a lot about people.”
“Women?” she asked.
And just like that, Emily could peel back the layers of my soul. She saw through me in an instant.
“My experience might have colored things a little for me.” I nodded, taking a bite of bruschetta while she piled her plate with calamari.
“I hate these ones with the little tentacles.” She stabbed one and wiggled it around a little, and I laughed before she putit on my plate. “So, tell me what happened with thisClaragirl. “She whispered the name Clara and kept her eyes on me.
“Typical teenage stuff.” I kept my eyes locked on Emily’s. I knew I couldn’t look away, or she’d call my bluff.
But the truth of it was that I didn’t feel like dredging up old feelings, stories, and everything in between while Clara stood fifty feet away. Not because I still had feelings for her. Those went away the moment she betrayed me when I was seventeen.
A smirk covered Emily’s face. “I’m not buying it. You’re a confident guy who wouldn’t let some high school BS define you.”
“It didn’t define me, Emily.” I let out a deep breath. “On the contrary. It’s just not worth my time to even think about it.”
She nodded slowly and stabbed another calamari. “I’ll let you off the hook now because of whom we’re sharing our breath with, but I want to know the details at some point.”
I smiled, wishing tonight had gone some other way. Now wasn’t the moment to confess that I’d been crushing on Emily for the last year, but that was what I’d planned to do.
Her mouth tugged on the side into a deep grin. Yeah, I definitely needed to tell her when there weren’t any distractions or the possibility of things going wrong.
