ORPHIC

one piece left of this broken heart

When you love me, oh, my heart bleeds

Till I can't breathe

So I'd rather be alone than let you hold me

And leave me lonely

^.^.^.^.^.^.^.^.^.^.^.^.^.^.^.^.

HARPER

With the little bit I've seen so far, you should be. Dude, what the fuck?!

Luke stares at my face like he knows exactly how stupid I find that last sentence myself. I avoid his eyes stubbornly and excessively.

The thing about my mother this morning had slipped out and I had regretted it instantly. But then I had accepted the dinner invitation and my own brain had grown frustrated with the mixed signals. The only thing that made everything bearable was that this wasn't going all that bad.

Rick and Maggie were nothing short of incredible and Tristan, with each sentence that left his mouth, was solidifying his place in my heart as the only guy I was ever going to love.

And then the current bane of my existence. Skywalker.

I watch his hands, fascinated and definitely inching into creep territory.

Calloused palms, tan skin and a black ring on the middle finger of his left hand.

A ring that he loves to play with and twist around whenever he laughs. Which, funnily enough, has a similar effect on my genitalia.

Jesus, watching him eat is borderline pornographic.

I shake my head out of the gutter and shift my elbow away for added measure, removing the very source of my...longings.

His head turns ever so slightly towards me, a small frown on his lips as he chews. I wonder if he feels the loss of contact as harrowing as I do. Before I can stop myself, my leg tilts over and mashes from the knee down, with his.

But just so that nobody would suspect anything from his suddenly sour face. Just to turn his frown around. No other reason.

Besides this was just a one-time thing. One night, this dinner, and I'd get him and whatever curiosity my brain had surrounding him, out of my system. For good.

One night and I'd be able to not think about him whenever another guy was under me. Not imagine how he'd feel under me.

Just one night and I'd be able to flush this whole town out of my mind.

Tristan says something that makes Luke laugh and the sound reverberates from my head to my toes like a train wreck. God, he's infuriating.

I am busy spacing out for the hundredth time in the past minute when the word relationship, and his touch, drags me from the depths of my mind, which is, by now, full of not so innocent thoughts.

"Are you seeing someone?" Maggie asks and Luke chokes on the last bite of his chicken.

I reach over and pat him on his back but that seems to make it worse so I retreat my hand with a grimace. He coughs until I think he's about to pass his lung out and then just stops. He also moves his leg, whole body really, away from me as he scoots his chair away like I'm the one that sprouted the bout of crazy coughing.

Concerns are exchanged, water is drunk, teary-eyed apologies are made in a wheezing voice and their eyes are on me again.

"No. No. I'm just..." Having wild bang sessions with crazy hot surfers.