I went with the solid truth. "I wanted to talk to you."
"We talked last night." Her tone was terse and unwelcoming.
For a moment I thought about walking away. There were plenty of female fish in the sea, so why was I stalking—following—this one? I had never had to chase anything or anyone in my entire life, but that night two months ago woke me the hell up. We'd talked, we'd commiserated, we'd comforted each other, and then we’d proceeded to have several hours of unforgettable sex. So no, I wasn't done with her. Not by a long shot.
I said, "You said things, but they didn't make any sense."
“You mean you didn’t agree with them.”
That was accurate. She’d said we were done, and I disagreed. Ergo, her words were nonsensical.
She pressed her lips together and took a step toward her car, but I moved with her until she realized I wasn't going anywhere.
She paused and turned halfway. Her fine features were in profile. The curve of her cheek she once thought wasn’t sloped enough and her snub nose that begged for a kiss were lightly highlighted by the streetlights. "You ever see the movie The Joy Luck Club?" she asked.
"No, I can't say I have. Should I?"
"In old Chinese culture, the man can take more than one wife. The more wives he has, the lower your status. In The Joy Luck Club, An-mei's mother had no status as the fourth wife."
It took a minute to process her statement. It was about Ivy but not in the way I'd expected. "The fact that Ivy dated me first makes you feel like a fourth wife?"
She waved her hand. "Second wife, fourth wife. Whatever. But yes, I'll always wonder if you should be with her, and I don't want to feel that way."
"I don't see you that way."
She threw her arms out. "What is it that you even want? To hang out? To fuck?"
She sounded frustrated, like me. "Yes to both. I want us to spend time together, as adults. You're twenty-two, and I'm twenty-five. That's a far cry from fourteen and seventeen, and I’m guessing both of us have changed. So let’s find out who we are. And in the meantime, yes, we should goddamn have more sex. I can't forget that night. And I don't want to. When I close my eyes, I still feel you coming apart in my arms."
She made a strangled sound and dropped her chin into her chest. Instantly I felt like an ass. I wanted to make her feel good, knew I could. I wasn’t alone that night. She had been insatiable. She couldn’t get enough, and neither could I. It made no sense for us not to see where a little more time could take us.
"Tell me what’s wrong so I can make it better."
"It wasn't supposed to be that way."
"What way?"
"I thought if we had sex, you'd feel better and I'd be able to forget you."
"A pity fuck?" I stepped back and dragged my hands through my hair, about to detonate at the idea of having the best night of my life be a pity fuck, when the last part of her sentence penetrated my dense skull.
"We had sex. It was done. A one-time thing."
I stuck my tongue to the roof of my mouth and took a breath, searching for patience. "I was fucked up after my dad died. Maybe I still am a mess, but after the fog cleared, I realized the best thing I had going for me in these last three months was you. So maybe I cut it too close, but I'm here, and I'm telling you I want to see you again."
Her face closed down, and the shyness, the embarrassment, and even the spark of memory was shuttered. "It's just not meant to be. Anyway, I need to go."
She moved to the car next to mine. When I’d seen the Donovan's seven-year-old car parked in the lot, I sat for twenty minutes for the next space over to open up. Then I lain in wait for Winter, so I wasn't letting her go until we'd hashed this out, which meant she was going to let go of whatever reservations she had and agree to go on a date with me.
"Ivy and I dated in high school, which is the equivalent of having a play date in kindergarten. It's nothing; meant nothing."
"And your first year of college,” she reminded me.
“Barely,” I muttered under my breath.
“When was the last time you had a girlfriend?"
Her question took me off guard, and it was on the tip of my tongue to lie. After all, what did it matter? But lying is something my old man did, and it destroyed my mom, who always, always found out. I loved my old man, but I didn't want to put that kind of haunted look in any woman's eyes. "Before my dad died, I was dating Verity Michaels. She was a friend of a friend of a friend. We dated about six months."
"Why'd you break up?"
"My dad died." I'd had too much going on in my head, and Verity and I’d had a very superficial relationship that consisted of sex and a few dinners out. She was grateful when I suggested we take a break, not wanting to deal with my sudden change in personality. "You want to tell me what this is all about?"