The Heartbreaker's Home

Chapter 2

The First Date

Kelsey smoothed out her blue skater skirt, and then picked imaginary lint off her pink halter neck top as she stood at her hallway. The doorbell had rang not 1 minute ago, and she knew exactly who stood behind the door. Taking a deep breathe, she ran a hand one last time through her loose brunette curls, and then opened the door with a smile.

"What do you have planned?" she asked, closing her door before Seeley or her father could see. She had told them she was meeting Megan at the diner. She was in no mood to entertain Seeley's questions and his overbearingly protective elder brother ways. He smirked the bad boy smirk of his that had plenty of girls in Redwood Creek swooning over him, and offered her his arm. 

"You'll find out."

---

"I can't say, really Kels. UCLA is so huge that if you didn't ask me, I wouldn't have noticed he was gone." Megan's voice crackled over the speaker of my cellphone. I had called her on my drive to campus, now thoroughly curious on what had happened to Declan.

"Same ol'," she yawned and I chuckled. "She gave us an impossible assignment to complete in 2 says. Why did I decide to take a History major again?"

"Because you come up with too many conspiracy theories." I laughed, "I've got to go Megs, meeting him in the library. Talk to you soon!"

"Text me! I want to know everything!" She said before hanging up. I chuckled, missing the bubbly enthusiasm my best friend always seem to have in buckets, before making my way towards the library, leaving my car parked in the almost deserted parking lot. For a small town like where I lived in, not many would come to the library on a weekend. Heck, I usually would be helping my dad and brother in Harrington House had I not been asked to tutor Declan.

Declan Reed was early for a study meet? 

He had been a bright student yes, but I guess back in high school, he had spent most of his time on the football field. In fact, we were all partially mystified and partially jealous at how he could easily ace at being a scholar and an athlete all in the bag. He had worked hard to gain his scholarship, as far as I remember when he shared the late nights he pulled to study after football practices. Even on our first date, he had brought me to the library. He had said it was because I was so engrossed in books back then, that he thought I would've loved it.

The thoughts flew wild in my head as I approached him, finding it odd that I could feel so apprehensive about waking him when a year ago, I was waking up next to him, that one date we had camping in the woods behind our town. Watching his closed eyes, the stray lock of blond that always seemed to be flopping over his forehead, I couldn't help the soft smile that curved my lips upwards. It was undeniable that Declan was very attractive. That was the reason why he was the star quarterback and the one everyone wanted to get with. It was why I was so surprised that he actually dated me, as short as the stint was.

But I found myself surprised that in the few months we were together, I discovered a facet of Declan that I never saw in him, whenever it was just us in a hallway with our schoolmates. In private he was gentle, caring, kind, just as he was rowdy, prideful and egoistical out in the field. I had been confused at the vast disparity between the two, and perhaps that was why I was also not as torn up when he had called it off. It saved me a lot of confusion.

Yet I couldn't help but wonder, as I stood and look at him, what would have happened if we had fought for it?

"No wonder my dreams turned sweet. An angel is looking down on me." His sudden voice, bleary as it may sound, jolted me out of my reverie. I felt a flush on my cheeks when I realized he had somehow woken up with just me staring at him.