If This Isn't Love

1: MAY 2015 -- The Incident

An insistent buzzing sound forced Luisa Cruz out of her slumber. She reached out her arm blindly, trying to find the source of the sound. It was her phone. She shut it off without opening her eyes. With a sigh of relief, she attempted to go back to sleep. A moment later the phone rang again. Sighing, she reached out her arm and grabbed her phone off the nightstand. Her phone wasn't making a sound. Yet, she could still hear the ringing.

She opened her eyes slowly, wincing at the yellowish light seeping in through the blinds into the dark room. The sound was coming from the opposite side of the bed, so she turned her head.

"Oh, my God!" She reared back in alarm. Her scream startled the person next to her.

"Shit! What!" The man stirred. His hand fumbled with the phone until it stopped ringing.

Luisa noticed that he was shirtless, and her heart plunged to her stomach. What had she done? She sat up, but the room began spinning. She touched her temple, trying to stop the vicious thumping reverberating through her skull.

"Lu?" A raspy, masculine voice mumbled.

That sounded like... You've got to be kidding me, she thought.

"Wha...? You...? You're j-j..." She couldn't form a word. It couldn't be.

The young man turned his dark gaze toward her. "What's wrong?" he said with a grin. "You couldn't have forgotten my name. Jin. You were certainly screaming it last night. I don't think your roommates got any sleep."

Luisa brought the bed sheet up to her neck. "What are you doing here?" she hissed.

He ran a hand over his face. "Suffering from a vicious hangover, apparently. And an earache. Do you always make so much noise when you wake up?" He sighed and closed his eyes again. "This might be a deal breaker, Lu."

"Deal? What deal? What the hell are you doing here, Seokjin?" She scowled. "This is my apartment."

"I know," he replied with a yawn. "You invited me over last night."

"Why?" Her brown eyes were wide with disbelief.

"Geez, Lu, we're both, uh, naked here. Why do you think?" He placed his arm across his eyes. "You're supposed to be the smart one."

This was getting worse by the second. Had she really slept with Kim Seokjin? Kim Seokjin, of all people! Her eyes made a quick sweep over him. The bed sheet was tangled around his slim hips leaving his entire upper body exposed. Kim Seokjin, he of the wide shoulders and sculpted abs, the party boy of their university, the one who never studied yet still graduated with a rumored 3.8 GPA.

Graduation! Her mind raced back over the last forty-eight hours. She left her graduation ceremony to celebrate with her parents and her boyfriend. The very next day at a party, she was dumped by her boyfriend of three years. Charlie Ramos was the anti-Kim Seokjin. He was studious, diligent, serious—and he had broken up with her as if he were changing the channel on TV. She felt the hot tears forming at the corners of her eyes.

"Luisa?" Seokjin's concerned eyes were focused on her, and his voice held a hint of concern. "Is something wrong?"

"Of course something's wrong, you idiot!" she snapped. "You're here. We're here. How could this have happened? How in the world did this happen? This whole thing...this is wrong...this is..." She bit her lip to stop her rant.

He sat up. "Hey. Hey, it's okay," he said soothingly.

"It's not okay. It's definitely not okay. How could you even say that? You took advantage of me. I was drunk last night." She closed her eyes.