Page 27 of Homecoming

She deserved it.

I wished I could be that carefree, but I still hadn’t told her what happened.

What I’d done.

The simple truth was, I was scared of losing her if I told her. That she would look at me and not recognize me anymore. That all she could see was a screwed-up kid who made one mistake that cost two boys their lives.

I knew I had to do it. I had to come clean.

But after keeping silent for so long, after not telling anyone ever, I didn’t know how.

No one knew that I was in an accident fifteen years ago. An accident in which two of my friends died after I wrapped the car around the light pole.

I wasn’t driving fast, I wasn’t drunk-I just took my attention off the traffic for a mere second.

It was a cold night, and a thin sheet of ice covered the road. That, and the fact that it was absolutely essential to have the right song playing over the stereo was all it took.

In a single second, a single blink, two headlights going straight at us, an inexperienced sixteen-year old behind the wheel. That was all it took to extinguish two lives.

A debt I could never repay.

A debt I would try to repay for the rest of my life.

She turned my way, and some of her fringe fell over her forehead, concealing her eyes from me.

My hands twitched at my sides from the need to brush it away.

I looked around and saw that most men looked like they had the same exact thought playing on their minds.

That was the power Lola had. She could have a male wrapped around her finger in seconds.

And her eyes? Fuck, I saw them glinting with mischief, marred with worry, and even strained with pain.

But not ever, not ever before, had I seen them as they were then.

She was a girl then.

But now, being older, they were the eyes a man would crawl through deserts for.

The come-and-fuck-me eyes.

Just looking into them, I felt her pulling the strings inside me. Luring me to her.

They were whispering about how I needed to grab her and fuck her right then and there.

Fucking hell.

Reaching for her, I yanked her to me. She threw her head back and laughed. Normally, the sight of it was something I would gladly step back to watch and enjoy, but at that moment I was too far gone.

I righted her head with a hand behind her neck and kissed her.

It wasn’t a gentle kiss. It was a ferocious one.

Full of teeth, nips, licks, moans, and grunts.

I didn’t give a fuck we were standing in the crowded lane, or that our picture could be taken even though we agreed to keep our relationship under wraps for now.

I was in the middle of the season, and she was working on a huge public project. Neither of us wanted any attention diverted from our work.