Two Truths and a Lie

Chapter One

Keeping this short because I can. Please read the note at the end!  Enjoy! xoxo (:

“You know, hunter green really is my color,” Gemma says as she adjusts the scarf around her neck in the reflection of the Starbucks window, a slight European accent lacing her words.

I move up a few steps as the line of people in front of us starts to move again.  “We’re going to be late.”

“Make that fashionably late,” Gemma corrects me with an airy laugh.  With one last fluff of her hair she turns to stand next to me in line.  “And besides, since when does badass Kadence Greene care about her perfect attendance, Ms. School Skipper?”

I grit my teeth, “Since Kadence Greene is skating on the thin ice of being expelled.”

Gemma was quiet for a moment before she quickly shook her head.  “They can’t expel you,” she assures me, “not with the 4.0 GPA you’ve held up.”

I ignore her words although I can tell she’s only trying to help.  Instead of answering I focus on the flashing Christmas lights lacing the doorway across the coffee shop that the workers have yet to remove even though Christmas has been over for the past week.

A man I don’t recognize walks out from behind the counter and makes his way through the busy crowd of customers tapping on their iPhones while waiting for their orders.  He comes to a stop in front of the bulletin board hanging next to the Today’s Specials chalk board, a garbage can in his left hand.  Ripping a sheet of paper from the board, he begins to clear out the signs from last year, replacing them with new ones for 2013.

Without thinking I take another step forward in line, my eyes traveling along the posts on the board.

I hear Gemma mutter something about a Caramel Macchiato but her words dissipate with the rest of the noise around me when my eyes catch sight of a poster tacked onto the corner of the bulletin board.

The defined jawline I remember running my fingers across while standing in his bedroom, before I grabbed his chin, pulling him in for a kiss.  The mop of dark brown hair that just skimmed the bottom of his brow bone at the time; that he always said needed to be cut but was to careless to make an appointment.  The green eyes that could see right through me, knowing exactly what I was feeling at any and every moment. 

How the slightest touch from him would drive me crazy, leaving me needing more.  How even at the worst times his voice would calm me, make me feel safe.  How he made me feel wanted.

I still remember the night perfectly.  The loud music coursing throughout the house, the walls vibrating from the speakers.  The loud shouts from down stairs as Thayer Knight beat a freshman in beer pong.  The splashing from outside as people were thrown into the pool. 

But what I remember most was how the music was muffled from inside his bedroom.  How the only thing I could truly hear was my heart beating like a drum inside me as he came closer and closer, his eyes never breaking contact with mine.

“Want to play a game?” He asked huskily, his words slurring the slightest bit as he walked towards me. 

I took a long sip from my plastic cup, enjoying the burning sensation the liquid left in my throat on its way down.  Bringing a finger to my chin, I taped it as if in thought.

“What kind of game?” I asked slyly, my lips curving into a smirk that seemed to make his own grow more pronounced.

Coming to a stop in front of me, he looked down, his emerald eyes blazing with undeniable lust.  He ran a hand through his chocolate brown hair.  “It’s a little game I like to call two truths and a lie.”