Page 47 of Lovetown, USA
She flips it over. “No name. Interesting. Well, whoever this is, he’s laying it on real thick.”
“Or he really means it.”
She doesn’t respond to that, instead keeping her eyes glued to the paper like the words are going to come alive. I wait patiently, expecting…lowkey hoping something sappy comes out of her mouth that lets me know this is working the way it’s supposed to, but instead, she pushes the stack away and says, “I need a drink.”
I watch as she pulls a glittery silver flask out of her bag and takes a long pull. Before she puts it away, she holds it out to me. Irefuse with a shake of my head, my stomach dropping as I realize this might be a problem.
She tucks it away, then puts her soft hand on my arm. “Let’s go to Lover’s Bluff.”
“Oh, for real?”
“For real, Mr. Romance. Show me what you got.”
“That, I can do.”
Twenty minutes later, I lower the top on my BMW. Truthfully, this is my first time at Lover’s Bluff, so I’m just as enamored of the view as Lane is. But I play it cool and watch the reflection of the moon in her eyes, which I thought was a cheesy fucking line in that letter, only to realize right this moment how special it feels.
“Stop staring at me,” she snaps, her smile disarming.
“How can I not?”
She finally tears her eyes away from the stars to rest them on me. “What’s the deal?”
“With?”
“You.” Her smile fades. “Why the romance all of a sudden? You already got some, and I didn’t plan to stop putting out any time soon, so…what’s up?”
My frown is genuine. So is my confusion. “So I can only be romantic when I wanna fuck?”
She shrugs.
“Believe it or not, it was nice making you smile outside of the bedroom.”
She shakes her head.
“What’syourdeal?” I say. “Somebody must have really broken your heart.”
Her eyes narrow. “You don’t know shit about me.”
“Hence, me asking the question.” I turn, angling my body to face her. “That cynicism didn’t develop in a vacuum.”
“I’m a cynic because I’m a student of the world. I know how this shit works.”
“You’re a broken idealist, Lane. And I know this because only idealists can be rocked this hard by disappointment. That means you believed in something at some point. You believed with your whole heart, and something or someonelet you down. It broke your heart, and you’ve spent every day since then self-medicating because the pain of that disappointment is still so acute for you.”
She stares at me until I’m uncomfortable, but I keep my gaze trained on her eyes. They’re glassy now, and I know I’m right on target.
But then she says, “People have sex up here, right?”
“Yeah. But that’s not—“
She’s out of her seat and on my lap before I can finish.
“So then let’s do that,” she purrs as she runs her hands up my chest. “Let’s have fun like we usually do.”
“We can still—“
She cuts me off with a kiss.
