Page 55 of The Love Rematch
He turns away before she’s even done speaking, cutting the contact. Emily takes out her book. She reads the same sentence ten times in a row until he comes back, so she puts it away and grabs her sketchbook while the four of them talk shop. It’s all names she doesn’t know, and shorthand she can’t decipher. Still, every time he speaks, the sound of his voice makes her jump, the pen cutting across the page. Her sketches are normally flirty and fun, like her jewelry, meant to make the wearer happy, confident, strong. This is something else, all jagged lines and rough edges, lightning made of ink, a reflection of her pulse. Part of her wants to rip it out, crumple it into a ball, and toss it in the trash. The artist in her recognizes something worth keeping. It’s new and raw, but there’s potential, a kernel of something great if she’s brave enough to ever revisit this moment and this feeling and the man sitting across the way.
When their flight is called, she finally looks up.
Jake is staring right at her—not her face, but her hands. She follows his gaze, glancing down, noticing the black smudges now decorating her fingertips.
Before she can stop it, a memory resurfaces.
She had stayed late in the art room after school one day, working on a design, and she completely forgot she was supposed to meet Jake after last period. They’d been on three dates. It was still new, still fragile. The second she realized her mistake, she jolted out of her creative haze and swung toward the door.
He was there, leaning against the frame, a soft smile on his lips, one she guessed he didn’t even know was there. A camera hid the rest of his face, but he lowered it the second she spotted him to offer a sheepish grin. Emily didn’t mind.
“I’m so sorry,” she rushed to say. “I got this new idea for a necklace, and I totally lost track of time. I didn’t mean to—”
“Em,” he interrupted and stepped forward. “I don’t care.”
She swallowed and looked up at him through her eyelashes. “Really?”
“As long as you don’t care that I was filming you like a creepy stalker.”
“I don’t care.”
“Real answer?” he asked.
She liked the sound of that, the inherent promise to always be truthful with each other. She grinned. “Real answer.”
“Good, because all I’ve been able to think about since watching you eat those strawberries at lunch was making out with you, so…”
He closed in while she laughed and hooked an arm around her waist. Jake lifted her onto the table and stepped between her legs. Making out with a boy in a classroom after hours wassonot like her, yet with him, it felt like the most natural thing in the world, as if it were exactly what she should be doing, no matter how wrong. The second he put his lips to hers, the rest of the world fell away. Emily kissed him back, running her hands over his cheeks and up into his hair before pulling him closer. When they finally parted, ragged breathing filled the silence. She opened her eyes and a snort immediately barreled through her nose.
“Oh my god, Jake.”
Emily folded her lips into her mouth to try to stop from laughing. He watched her, bemused.
“What?”
“I didn’t realize…”
She looked down at her hands, and his gaze followed. Charcoal and grease stained her fingertips black—the same fingertips that had just rubbed all over his face. Smudges marred his cheekbones. His hair was wild, slick and sticking out from all sides. He looked as though he’d been mauled by an art student in a classroom after hours—which, obviously, he had.
“You can’t leave looking like this.”
She tried to pat his hair down and wipe the marks from his skin, but that only made it worse. After a minute, Jake grabbed her hands and flattened her palms to his cheeks before staring at her intently.
“Do you really think I give a shit what anyone else in this damn town thinks about me?”
“But, Jake—”
“You have no idea how sexy you are if you think a little grease is going to stop me.”
Then he kissed her again, shutting up her protest. They walked hand in hand out of the school half an hour later to catcalls, the evidence undeniable. That night, he asked her to be his girlfriend. It was…perfect.
Emily closes the sketchbook on her lap. She reaches for the napkin under her drink and tries to wipe both the smudges and the memory from her mind. She can feel Jake’s gaze on her face now. He’s pleading with her to look up, but she doesn’t give him the satisfaction.
It hurts too much.
Because it was so incredibly good before he ruined it.
She needs a break, and thankfully, after a moment, she gets one. Jake slips away to check on the guys while the rest of them pack up and head for the gate. Out of his sight, she can finally breathe, but it doesn’t last long. Emily follows Nina, Trish, and Fred onto the plane. The four of them take their seats…and her stomach flips.
