Caroline
"What?" I ask breathless, laughing at the look Luke is giving me. We're on the floor under an old blanket, our clothes tossed all over place. He's laying over me resting his forehead against mine. I have one hand at the back of his head running my fingers thru his soft dark brown hair, the other rubbing mindlessly up and down against his back.
"I just can't believe you're here." He says lifting his head and running his hand down the side of my face to move a strand of hair from in front of my eyes and tucking it behind my ear. "I missed you, Caroline. These lips, these pretty blue eyes, your touch, your laugh, I've missed everything."
I can feel my face burning as the blush spreads across my cheeks. "Yeah, I missed your face too." I say smiling.
"Just my face? Are you sure you didn't miss anything else?" He says wiggling back and forth on top of me.
"Oh my gosh! You are so...ugh...I swear Luke." I manage to get out between laughs. I give him a push and he rolls over next to me a huge smile on his face. I missed him. I didn't realize how much until he had his arms around me again. In that moment I knew there was no feelings for James other than the love I have for him as my oldest friend. My heart belongs totally and completely to Luke, I'm sure of that now.
Which only makes all of this harder. I have to tell him about James and I kissing. We have to talk about all the things that keep coming between us and making us argue and fight. And most importantly we have to talk about the possibility of me going to school out of the country next year.
Luke is sliding his finger down my neck to my collar bone, following the trail his finger is making with soft kisses. He's not going to make this easy. Part of me wants to forget all of it right now and just spend the rest of the night laying with him here under the bright Georgia night sky. Letting him hold me and kiss me, the world and all our problems disappearing with his touch.
Luke noticing my distracted look and knowing exactly what I'm thinking leans up on his elbow and asks, "Has too much happened to just say forget it and start over? Do we really need to talk about it all?"
"I think it has and we should." I say sitting up slowly leaning over and kissing him one more time before reaching around gathering my clothes.
I smile feeling his eyes on me as I get dressed. I see his jeans on the floor in front of me. I reach down, grab them and toss them over my shoulder at him. I laugh when I hear them hit him with a soft thud. I get dressed and stay turned away. If I turn around and see him undressed we're going to end up back under that blanket again.
He comes up behind me wrapping his arms around my waist. "Let's go talk down in the truck."
At his truck he pulls down the tailgate and we sit down. Both of us looking everywhere except at each other. Neither one of us knowing where to start. I know it has to be me. Things went from bad to worse when I refused to talk to him or respond to his texts.
I take a deep breath and silently pray that we'll get thru this. "The first thing I should do is apologize. I'm sorry, Luke. I'm sorry for not letting you explain that whole Jen thing. For ignoring your calls and texts. I handled that so bad."
"Things were getting tough before that, it's not all your fault."
"I know but I made it all worse. I was hurt. Afterwards I felt stupid and embarrassed that I acted that way. Then James was here and I saw the opportunity to forget it all and have some of my old life back for a few days and I took it."
"Did you ask him to come?" Luke asks, his voice raising a little.
James is such a sore subject for him even though he's always tried to act like my friendship with him doesn't bother him. How is he going to feel after I tell him James and I kissed? "No, I mean not really. I talked to him that morning and he could hear that I was upset. When he left for Arizona he told me that he'd always be on the first flight out to see me if I needed him. I made some comment about it, joking around and the next thing I know he's sitting outside Jackson's waiting for me."
