Wild(15)

            “Oh, that bad?”

            “Just no . . . sparks.” I slid a glance to Reece’s polite stare. Polite yet intense. Like his brother. These guys didn’t just look at you. They looked at you. Like they were seeing directly into you. Maybe it was embedded in their DNA or something.

            “Oh, well. Then better not waste your time there anymore.”

            I nodded, noticing then that there was a buzzing energy that seemed to cling to Pepper. Like she was a kid who had just been told she was going to Disneyland, but was trying to keep her act together and not totally explode from excitement.

            I looked back and forth between her and Reece. An elusive smile clung to his lips. “What’s going on?”

            She and Reece shared a look before she blurted out with: “I’m moving in with Reece.”

            I stared for a moment, equal parts happiness and something else filling me. “Wow.” I pulled her in for a hug and then moved to hug Reece. “Congratulations. You’re moving into the apartment above Mulvaney’s?”

            “No.” She shook her head, her beautiful auburn waves tossing around her shoulders. “Reece offered on a house last week and he got it! It’s so cute! It’s this little bungalow over on Smithson Avenue. I can’t wait to show you.” Reece reached for her waist and she moved in closer, sinking down on his lap so easily. So naturally. It had never been that way with Harris and me, I realized. It never felt easy or natural, and a pang struck me in the chest for the four years I’d wasted on something that had been so far from right.

            Reece rested a hand on Pepper’s jean-clad thigh. It was casual, but there was something possessive in the touch. It hinted at a shared intimacy and that sparked a deep longing awake inside me. I had never known that kind of intimacy. I was no virgin, but some things still felt so foreign to me.

            “I can’t wait to see it,” I said.

            “We’re moving in next week.”

            Next week. My stomach dropped. “W-wow. Really?”

            A house. That seemed so permanent. So grown-up. I looked between the two of them, marveling that Pepper had this. That she had found the one. Love. I had no doubt, looking at them, that they were the real thing, and I felt a little foolish for thinking that I had had that with Harris. Now I knew. I never had that.

            Pepper nodded, her arm draped around him, her fingers idly rubbing his muscled shoulder through his T-shirt. “Yeah.” The word slipped past her smiling lips.

            “Congratulations,” I repeated. “I’m so happy for both of you.”

            Pepper looked back at me. “I know we planned on living together again next year—”

            “Don’t worry about that. Emerson and I can put in for a single. Or maybe see if Suzanne wants to join us.” Assuming Emerson wasn’t moving in with Shaw.

            “When are you heading back for the summer?” Pepper asked. “I wish you didn’t have to go.”

            “Yeah. Me, too.”

            “Then stay.”

            “My mom would flip. And I don’t have a place to stay anyway.” Emerson was staying at her dad’s condo in Boston. At least that was the cover story. She would be at Shaw’s most of the time. Her dad was hardly ever in Boston, so he wouldn’t know.

            “Oh! I just had an idea.” She looked at Reece eagerly. “Georgia could stay in your old apartment above Mulvaney’s.”

            He shrugged and nodded at me. “Sure. It will be vacant. You could stay there a couple months.”