Page 48 of Still Love You

"Lilly, I know what I want to do. You know how committed I am to this."

"Yeah, but I don't know why. My dad was a CEO for years and it wasn't that great. He was never around for my brother and me. We never even saw him."

"But all his hard work paid off. Your dad is a huge success. People pay thousands of dollars just to hear him give a speech. And it's not like he didn't have a life. He got married, had kids. He always seems happy when I see him."

"Because he sold the company. But when he was the CEO, he wasn't happy. He never slept. He was always stressed. He had to work holidays and weekends and didn't get home until after I'd gone to bed. You know, maybe you should talk to him."

"I don't want to bother him. Besides, I'm kind of afraid to talk to him. He's very intimidating."

"If you want to be a CEO, you can't be intimidated by powerful people. Let me talk to him and see when he has time."

I agree to it, knowing it'll never happen. Pearce Kensington is a well-known billionaire. He won't take time out of his busy schedule to talk to his daughter's friend, who he barely knows.

"So tell me more about what happened last night," Lilly says.

"We went to dinner, then out for coffee, then he took me to the farm and we laid in the back of his pickup and gazed up at the stars. Then we started making out and ended up having sex."

"Have you talked to him since this happened?"

"No, because I don't know what to say to him. I don't know how to act. I keep telling him we can't be more than friends, so does that mean we're friends who have sex?"

"You're going to keep having sex with him?"

"I want to, but that would be wrong, wouldn't it?"

"It would if you're just leading him on, knowing this isn't going anywhere."

"He already knows that and it didn't stop him from doing it with me last night. And he's been flirting with me since he saw me at the dorm."

"Because he wants to date you. He wants you back in his life. So acting like his girlfriend all summer, knowing you're breaking up with him in the fall, isn't right."

"I know. It's just that I really want to be with him, and I'm not talking about sex. I mean that I want to spend time with him. I miss him. It feels like I haven't seen him in weeks but it's only been a day. I miss him after just one day. That's so pathetic."

"No, it's not. I miss Reed like that."

"How are you guys doing being apart?"

"It's hard. I really miss him, but we talk on the phone a lot. And it helps knowing he's spending time with his dad. Right now, he needs to be with his dad, not me."

That's one of the reasons I like Lilly so much. She cares about others more than herself. Her boyfriend, Reed, didn't really know his dad for most of his life, but now he's living with him for the summer. Lilly really wants Reed to form a relationship with his dad because his mom is a loser who doesn't treat him well. Some girls wouldn't care about that, but Lilly does. So as much as she misses him, she encourages him to spend time with his father instead of her.

"Going back to you and Silas," she says. "I think you need to slow this down until you figure out what you want."

"I already know what I want."

"For a career, but not for your personal life. You've never even talked about that with me."

"That's not true. We've talked about it."

"But you never give me an answer. You always change the subject."

"Okay, fine. What do you want to know?"

"Do you want to get married someday?"

I hesitate, then say, "Part of me does, the other part doesn't."

"But the part that does want to get married wants it to be to Silas."

---