Emily

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I lasted until four o’clock before I texted Luke. His number was just sitting there on my phone, with that one word, Hi. He wasn’t inviting a conversation, not really. And we had nothing to talk about, because my car wasn’t fixed yet. Except…

I needed someone to talk to. Anyone, really. Lauren left and I sat out front at the shop’s reception desk, answering the phone and cashing people out while the stylists worked. It wasn’t hard—I’ve worked plenty of retail in my life—but I had to act pleasant and normal, like I didn’t feel like shouting. And it wasn’t working.

Luke and I had never had the kind of relationship where we had long heart-to-hearts, but he knew me. Everything about me. He’d gone to school with me, even during my short-hair phase—ugh—and he knew my family. Maybe we were nothing now, but he’d seen me naked and he’d taken my virginity, and to me that was some kind of a connection. I’d made him mad, but he’d insisted on fixing my car. We were friends—the kind without benefits anymore. So during a lull at the front desk, while I gritted my teeth listening to the stylists chatter behind me, I pulled out my phone and texted him: I am having the worst day ever. EVER.

It only took seconds for a reply to pop up. Again?

You asshole, I shot back. I am serious. My parents are splitting, and so are Lauren and Vic.

There was a pause, obviously of surprise. That sucks, Em. I’m sorry.

No one wanted to tell me, I ranted, thumbs flying now. They all kept it secret. Like they don’t trust me. Mom says I overreact.

Well…

Shut up. Do your brothers keep secrets from you?

Em, Luke wrote, I don’t even know where Dex lives. I’m serious.

Okay, so the Riggs family was maybe more dysfunctional than mine. I’d give him that. Though I hadn’t known where my dad lived until a few hours ago. It still stung.

As for my father, Luke texted, yeah, I’d say he has some fucking secrets.

Now this was good. What does that mean?

Just that he’s an asshole, Luke wrote, and now he’s an asshole whose problems are mine.

I stared at the words. I wondered what his father had done—besides get drunk and try to run someone over, that is.

Yeah, Luke’s family was definitely worse than mine.

A customer came through the door, and I had to put my phone down. Then the salon phone rang. I dealt with one thing after another and an hour later I picked my phone up again and saw that Luke hadn’t sent anything else. I felt a shot of disappointment, because I wasn’t done talking to him. It looked like I would have to start the conversation again. Which made me think of a question.

So I texted him: Who started it?

It took him a minute to answer. Who started what?

Us, I wrote. Me and you. Eight years ago. I remember making out the night of the big football game, but I don’t remember who started it.

I smiled to myself. That was a good memory, and I hadn’t let myself think about it in a long time. Westlake High’s football team had made it to the league championship finals, and everyone, literally everyone, had gone to the game—except me and, apparently, Luke Riggs. I’d stayed away out of spite, because I’d dated the quarterback and he’d just dumped me because I wouldn’t put out. Luke had stayed away because he was a badass who didn’t give a shit. I’d run into Luke at the Fire Pit, the spot where everyone usually hung out, which was deserted that night. He was wearing low-slung jeans and a worn dark green jacket, scruff on his jaw. And somehow we’d ended up at Shaunnesy Beach in the dark and the cold, making out in his dirty old truck.

And it was the best thing ever. I could still remember the feel of his hands on my skin that night, how they were warm and strong and I wanted them everywhere. I could still remember how my entire body hummed. I’d dated guys, and I’d made out with them, but I’d never had sex, and that night I knew why. Because none of those guys had made me feel like that.

My phone buzzed with a text. You started it, Luke wrote.

I don’t remember that, I wrote back.

His reply was immediate. Definitely you.

Did I jump him? I didn’t usually jump guys, but then again, this was Luke. But you drove me to Shaunnesy Beach in your truck, I argued. Did I tell you to do that?

You told me you wanted to go somewhere, anywhere, Luke wrote back. You think I was gonna fucking say no?

No, Luke wasn’t the type to turn me down when I suggested something. But he had let me do the suggesting, instead of pushing me in to things. It was one of the things that had made me trust him despite his bad reputation.

Despite the string of secret makeout sessions that followed that first one, he hadn’t even pushed me into sex. That, I remembered. The sex had been my idea, and Luke had happily obliged. And wow, had he ever.

Now, that—that was a good night.

You’re a gentleman, I teased him. Driving a girl around when she asks.

Are you fucking kidding me? Luke wrote back.

I laughed to myself, but the laugh came with a shiver. God, we’d had amazing sex. Amazing. And it had been fun. Since Luke, sex hadn’t been fun. It had been more like a drive toward a goal—for both the man and me. To get laid, to get a boyfriend, a girlfriend, a date to show off, a relationship, even just an orgasm. There was always an equation: What am I getting out of this? What is he getting? Am I getting enough? Is he getting enough? Is someone going to want more? It was exhausting, and eventually I’d just given up and sworn off men, because why have sex at all when there was no fun in it? I could just have an orgasm on my own.

But I couldn’t have a Luke Riggs orgasm on my own. No, I could admit that. The problem was that Luke himself was right on the other end of my phone, and he wasn’t mad at me anymore. And he was still badass. And suddenly I wondered what would happen if I asked. If I started it again.

Probably a bad idea.

Three hours later I was sitting in the stuffy auditorium of a banquet hall, watching my mother get her award. I had Dad sitting on one side of me and Lauren on the other. We’d already done pre-ceremony drinks and appetizers in which we’d all stood awkwardly, trying to pretend things were normal. Mom and Dad always had three feet between them, like they were magnets pointing the wrong way. Lauren didn’t have Vic with her—she told everyone he had to work late. Dad only patted my arm when I saw him and said, “Please don’t make a fuss, Em. Please. Everything is going to be okay.”

If one more person told me not to make a fuss, I thought I might scream.

My jaw hurt. I was wearing a navy blue sundress with small white dots on it, paired with a white cardigan over my shoulders. I’d put my hair down and curled it, added understated makeup and silver hoop earrings. The people who came by—Mom’s coworkers, other officers and their families, the chief of police, a few other big Westlake dignitaries—looked at me with polite surprise. Why, you’re Lauren’s sister! The other daughter! We thought you’d left town! I’d explained twenty times that I was back now, helping out at Lauren’s salon. There were a lot of covert glances at my left hand. One woman, who worked as a file clerk at the police station, told Lauren and me, “You have to give her grandkids. She’s waiting!”

I stiffened, thinking about Lauren, but she reached behind me and pinched my ass, making me jump. “Let it roll off, sis,” she whispered.

I could do that. I could sit in the dark and watch the boring speeches until Mom was called to the podium. I could stand and clap with the rest of the room, giving her a standing ovation. She was my mom. I could do that.

But the minute it was finished, I snuck off to the hallway by the ladies’ room and pulled out my phone.

Where are you right now? I texted Luke.

This time it took him a few minutes to reply, long enough for me to start to panic. Maybe he was bored of me, or still mad. Maybe he was out with someone else. Maybe he had someone and hadn’t mentioned it? Who the hell was Luke seeing? I mean really, who was she? Was she pretty? I had to know.

Sorry, he wrote, the text popping up while I sweated. I was out behind the garage.

It was late, and the body shop was closed. What were you doing there? I asked.

It doesn’t matter, he replied. Where are you?

Mom just got her award, I told him.

Okay then, Luke wrote. That’s nice.

The Riggs brothers had no reason to love the Westlake PD, so for some reason Luke was being pleasant. Polite, even. So I texted: Are you trying to get laid?

Well, shit, he wrote, and I could hear his slow, sexy drawl in the words. I am now. You offering?

That was a good question. The million-dollar question, really. I knew it was a bad idea to start this, and yet I was doing it. Why?

He was hot—that was one thing. Good God, was he hot. College didn’t produce any specimens like Luke Riggs, and the corporate world afterward sure as hell hadn’t either. Any girl would think Luke was sexy, but his particular hotness drove me a little crazy. I went out of my mind. I became a girl who would jump a guy she wasn’t supposed to in his truck and offer up her virginity. A girl who would sneak into his room after that, with no one knowing, to get as much of him as she could.

I hadn’t been that girl in eight years. I hadn’t thought about that girl in eight years, and I realized now that had been on purpose. I had pushed her away, silenced her, pretended she’d never existed.

I looked around the banquet hall, at my family and the people of Westlake. To them, I was one version of Emily Parker. Everyone saw Emily Parker, cop’s daughter and all-around decent—if a tad dramatic—young woman. Someone who should settle down and get to producing grandkids. College and work had seen Emily Parker the go-to achiever who couldn’t quite get as far as she wanted and eventually gave up. Probably to go home and start making grandkids.

But Luke Riggs was the only one who saw wild Emily. The girl who broke the rules and wasn’t cautious. The girl who pursued pleasure because she liked it, and she didn’t apologize for it because Luke never expected her to. That girl had been exciting and fun, and I didn’t want to silence her anymore. I wanted to be her, even if it was just for a few hours.

I knew what eighteen-year-old Emily would do in this situation, so I texted Luke: Fine, I’m offering. Then grown-up Emily added: I’m so weak.

Seven months without dick, Em, Luke wrote. You should know better.

He knew me so well.

You’re right, I’m not thinking straight, I wrote. Help me make a good decision here.

His reply was: Get over here and take your clothes off.

My body decided for me, with an all-over shiver that went straight down my spine and tingled up between my legs. Cold sweat started on my lower back, and I tugged the white cardigan tighter around myself to hide my hard nipples.

I walked calmly across the room and found Lauren. Mom and Dad were in the middle of a knot of people congratulating them, so I said to Lauren, “I’m taking off. Tell Mom and Dad, okay?”

She looked at me with her terrifying twin sister X-Ray vision. “You don’t have a car,” she said, like she was Sherlock Holmes and she was pointing out a clue.

“There are cabs in Westlake,” I said. “At least there used to be. I’m going to take one.”

“Really?” The X-ray turned up a notch. “Where are you going?”

“Going out for a drink with a girlfriend. That’s why it’s best I don’t drive.”

“What girlfriend?”

Damn, she knew all the same people I did. “Tracy Harding,” I said in a flash of inspiration. Tracy and I had hung out a few times in high school, and Lauren loathed Tracy—something to do with Tracy coming on to Vic at a party.

Sure enough, Lauren looked like she smelled something awful. “Tracy Harding is your girlfriend?”

I shrugged. “I’ve been in town four days. Beggars can’t be choosers. See you tomorrow.”

She narrowed her eyes and stared at me harder. “You’re lying about something, but I don’t know what, and I don’t have time to get it out of you right now.”

That was rich, coming from the woman who had participated in the Great Dad Deception, but I shrugged. I was going to get laid, incredibly, by the hottest guy in Westlake, and nothing could touch my bubble. “See ya,” I said, and left her there, staring after me.

It was a warm June night, and as I waited for the cab I pulled off my cardigan. The summer wind blew my hair, cooled the heat in my neck and my cheeks. I was going to the wrong side of the tracks, and I didn’t feel a damn bit sorry.