Don’t do it, Lola, I told myself and glanced at the clock on the stove.
12:15 p.m.
Shit. I had somewhere to be at one o’clock, and if I wanted to actually be on time, I had about ten minutes to get my ass out of my apartment. Clad in only underwear and a bra, I stood in my kitchen with my coffee mug in one hand and Reed’s column in the other. It was safe to say, the possibility of tardiness was growing rapidly in percentage.
But despite the multiple mental pep talks, I still found myself setting the paper down on the counter and…
Reed This: Sex Really Does Say
Either Lola Sexton is getting smarter, or I really am in love with her. The smart approach she took to intimacy with her readers buttered me up, and her wise words on welcoming life changes and embracing your natural strengths sealed my fate.
Our battle of wits led to frustration and fuming—on Lola’s part—and a whole lot of amusement on my own, but I didn’t understand how much it’d taught me until now.
Goddammit, Lola. I groaned out loud once realization set in that I was, in fact, reading his column. Again.
Seriously? How many times are you going to read this?
Lola Sexton and I are opposites in almost every sense of human nature. She’s feisty to my calm, judgmental in the face of my lack thereof, and colorful while I’m gray. And her opinion almost always lies on the complete opposite end of the line from my own.
Apparently, a lot. No matter how many times I told myself to just toss it in the trash or set it on fire or tear it to shreds or sell it on eBay—because, I honestly think I could get some money for this unpublished piece—I couldn’t find the strength to actually follow through. Instead, I read.
And read.
And, take right now for instance, I kept on reading.
But something started to change as I got to know her, something that reshaped me from a person who believed in one thing to a person who believed in another. At first, I didn’t understand how it could be possible, how I could be at one end of the line at the same time as being at the other.
But memories of experiences with her reminded me that facts are flexible, just like that line of opinion I used as a measuring stick. Maybe the line was a curve, and as the magnetism between Lola and me built, so did its intensity.
All I have to do to know I’m right about this is look at Lola.
Reed This: Sometimes people can be at two ends of a line and end up next to one another. Because intimacy and love—they’re powerful enough to curve that line into a circle.
It’d been three days since Reed had stopped by my apartment and dropped a bomb in the form of his written words. And I’d probably now read that stupid column that would never actually be a column a good fifty times. I’d read and scrutinized and desperately searched for the paragraph, the sentence, even one single word that stuck out like a sore thumb and told me it was all a bunch of lies.
But I might as well have been searching for a needle in a haystack.
I could only find sincerity and truth. It sounded like the way he would explain things to me, and it felt like the way his eyes melted when they met mine. It was everything I’d thought I’d known about our relationship before the bomb exploded, tied up in one neat little bow.
I didn’t even need to look at the actual column to know what it said anymore. It was memorized. Ingrained. And like a Ferris wheel, it circled inside of my brain, just like the ride, one constant loop without pause. At this point, I honestly didn’t think I knew a single one of my own columns as well as I knew this one.
But I wasn’t sure how I felt about any of it—his column, his words, and the real meaning behind all of it.
Because intimacy and love—they’re powerful enough to curve that line into a circle.
Love. He’d actually used the word love.
Did he really love me?
Conflicted, my heart was split straight down the middle—one side wanting Reed, while the other, out of fear and uncertainty, had built up a wall.
Even as prideful and stubborn as I was, I couldn’t deny that Reed had hurt me. He’d made me feel inconsequential, and I wasn’t sure I could handle a repeat of the emotional toll and agony insignificance delivered.
There was absolutely nothing worse than having the person you love make you feel like you didn’t matter. It was heartbreak in a nutshell, and personally, I wasn’t a fan of nuts.
Where do Reed and I go from here?
He’d said we’re dating, and I’d said I needed time.
But all I’d learned from the last seventy-two-ish hours was that I had no remedy for the pain that was days without Reed’s presence enlightening my world. It might have been pathetic, and I might have been in denial, but I couldn’t stop it. I missed him, and life didn’t feel right without our deep conversations and playful fights and the way laughter was always infinite and overflowing. Hell, life felt more right when we were fighting and I hated him than it did without him at all.
Nothing filled his void.
Still, like any self-respecting woman, I wasn’t sure which was worse—the void or the pain his yo-yo tendencies could inflict.
I glanced at the clock on the stove again. 12:25 p.m. Uh-oh. Unless I moved like a son of a bitch, time wouldn’t be on my side. I made a beeline for my bedroom and threw on jean shorts and a T-shirt, tossed my hair into a messy ponytail, grabbed my skates, and headed for the door.
Just like I’d told Reed, I planned to use our time apart shrewdly and for the betterment of myself.
And I hadn’t delayed my start—even if I hadn’t decided precisely how long our time apart would be.
Like a fucking pro, my skates slid across the shiny wooden floor in effortless movements. If I hadn’t been surrounded by the rest of my classmates, I probably would’ve fist-pumped…patted myself on the back…something, but I had a rep to protect, so I settled on smiling to myself and continuing my fluid rhythm around the rink.
I’d come a long way from falling on my ass outside of Gus’s.
“Lola, honey, your form is looking so much better this week.”
“Thanks, Miss Misty,” I called proudly over my shoulder as I finished up lap number two of our warm-up.
“Two more laps and then we’ll play a really fun game!” Miss Misty shouted with cupped hands around her mouth.
The other girls in the class cheered.
Well, besides one. Fucking Lauren. She always had an opinion about something.
“Oh! Can we play the same game we played last week?” Lauren asked as she gracefully skidded to a stop beside our instructor.
“We’re actually going to play a different game, sweetie,” Miss Misty responded with a soft smile.
“But…but…I loved the one we played last week!” Lauren whined. “It was so much fun.”
“I promise you’ll have fun.” She gave one of Lauren’s pigtails a playful tug, and I self-consciously reached up to twist one of my own around my finger. “Now, go finish your last two laps so we can get the rest of the lesson started.”
Lauren put a hand to her hip. “But I already did four laps, Miss Misty.”
I fought the urge to roll my eyes. Lauren was such a brownnoser, and if I was being honest, I had a feeling this wasn’t her first rodeo with roller-skating lessons. No seven-year-old should be that good on wheels without some sort of professional training.
I guess I should probably explain here, huh?
Since I’m determined to get really, really good on roller skates, I decided to take some lessons. And, well, the only lessons available in the San Francisco area are for a bit of a younger crowd.
Okay. Fine. I’m in a roller skating class with seven-year-olds.
And it should be noted that little Lauren is the biggest suck-up in the bunch.
She’s also a real fucking mean girl, Regina George style, but that’s another story for a different day.
“Okay, class.” Miss Misty clapped her hands like a cheerleader. “Everyone skate to the center, and take your spots at the circle so we can stretch out! We want hap-hap-happy muscles!”
God, she was a peppy freak of nature. If you pictured Bob Ross but took away his paintbrushes and winter landscapes and added methamphetamines, roller skates, and spandex, you’d have a pretty good idea of Miss Misty.
I maneuvered my skates toward the center and skated to my assigned spot without a single wobble. See what I mean? Only three lessons in, and it was obvious these babies were paying off.
I sat down beside Lauren—not by choice—and waited patiently for Miss Misty to take us through our stretching routine.
“Lola,” Lauren whispered beside me, but I ignored her. The last time I’d fallen for that trick, Lauren had acted like I was the only one talking, and Miss Misty had scolded me for interrupting the class. Fucking Lauren.
“Psst, Lola.”
“Shut up,” I whispered back through gritted teeth. “You’re going to get me in trouble again.”
Miss Misty was all rainbows and unicorns until you interrupted the class. And if I was being honest, she was kind of scary. She might’ve been ten years younger than me, but she had one hell of a glare. For a twenty-one-year-old chick clad in spandex and leg warmers, she sure took her roller skating lessons seriously.
“Psst, Lola,” Lauren repeated. “I need to tell you something really important.”
“What?” I shot back with my best impression of a ventriloquist dummy.
“That boy is looking at you.” Lauren giggled.
I peered at her out of the corner of my eye. “What boy?”
“That boy,” she said a little too loud, and Miss Misty glanced in our direction.
Fucking hell, Lauren.
“Girls.” Our instructor quirked a skeptical brow in our direction. “Mind sharing with the class?”
Jesus. Chill out, Miss Misty.
“That boy over there is staring at Lola,” Lauren announced, and the rest of group started to giggle and point.
I followed their little fingers and found none other than Reed Luca staring back at me. His blue eyes shone with amusement, and his lips were fixed into a smile.
Just the sight of him made my heart skip three beats and then, as if defibrillated, jump-start into a pounding rhythm. Stupid heart.
But seriously, what in the ever-loving fuck was he doing here?
“Lola?” Miss Misty questioned, and I silently cursed Reed for showing up and getting me in trouble. “Do you know him?”
I sighed. “Yeah.”
Yeah, I knew him, all right. It was the guy who’d forced himself into my life like a fucking hurricane, and then, once I’d finally opened up and fallen head over heels, he pulled the rug straight out from under me.
The guy I’d told I needed time and who apparently didn’t understand the concept.
The guy you’re in love with…
“Will you go ask him to leave so everyone can stay focused?” Miss Misty suggested, but her words were the opposite of suggestion. They were as firm as her twenty-something ass in spandex. “We really need to get back to our lesson.”
“Yeah. Okay,” I answered and promptly got on my skates and started rolling toward the other end of the rink.
Reed continued to watch me with that stupid smile and those stupid shining blue eyes and I really just wanted to tell him to fuck off, but I didn’t want to find out the kind of power Miss Misty’s glare held when it was addressing foul language.
“Hey, Roller Skates,” he greeted once I’d reached the waist-high wall that separated the rink from the seating and concession area. “Looking good out there.”
I ignored the compliment. “How’d you know where to find me?”
“I’m stalking you,” he teased, but his joke fell like a lead balloon.
I didn’t want his jokes or his smiles, and the two of us knew all too well he hadn’t been anywhere I had been in the last week and a half.
I wanted clarity.
My lack of enthusiasm over his presence didn’t deter him. He reached across the wall, almost as if he couldn’t help himself, and brushed a loose strand of hair behind my ear before wrapping one of my pigtails around his finger like I’d done only moments before. Goose bumps pebbled my skin, and immediately, I hated how much I missed his touch.
“When did you start taking lessons?”
I shrugged. “A week and a half ago.” Around the time he’d broken my dreams of forever being a party of two.
His eyes looked out toward Miss Misty and the class who were halfway through our stretching routine, and that familiar smile started to settle into the corners of his mouth again.
I didn’t want his smile—it hurt too much to see it. “Seriously, Reed, what are you doing here?”
“I miss you,” he answered, gaze jerking back to mine, and it sounded like the most honest thing he’d ever said to me. “And I want to talk to you.”
He wanted to talk to me just like I’d wanted him to go to Santa Cruz.
The words you can’t always get what you want were on the tip of my tongue, but my mind put the kibosh on that, countering, but deep down, you want Reed, and he wants to talk to you…
Obviously, my bitterness had yet to fade.
“Lola!” Miss Misty called toward me. “Are you about finished?”
God, Miss Misty was a pain in my ass. Couldn’t she see I had some serious adult shit going on over here?
“Just a minute!” I yelled over my shoulder and then turned back toward Reed. “Uh…I’m kind of in the middle of something here.”
“I can see that,” he responded without argument, but a little sadness crept into his eyes. “Are you free after this?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “And more than that, I’m not sure I want to talk to you. I told you I needed time.”
“Please, Lola,” he begged and pulled both of my hands into his. “I know you said you needed time, but I don’t like the way our conversation went the other day. I had so much to say, and like a fucking idiot, couldn’t figure out how to say it. I hope you’ll give me a second chance to explain. I just need five minutes of your time. Name the time and the place, and I’ll meet you, whenever, wherever.”
It was so unlike Reed to put the ball in my court. He never wanted to live by anyone else’s schedule but his own, and now, he was leaving it all up to me.
Something about the gesture broke through my fortifications. “Fine,” I agreed on a sigh. “I’m free tonight.”
“What time?”
“Seven.”
“Where?”
I thought about it for a second, and then gave the best answer I could on the fly. “Golden Gate Park.”
He nodded a soft, thankful smile. I tried not to notice the way it transformed his face and failed. Before I could turn on my skates and head back toward the center of the rink, he leaned forward and pressed a soft kiss to my cheek.
Lingering, right there, against my skin, he whispered, “See you tonight, Roller Skates.”