An Optimist's Guide to Heartbreak (Heartsong #1)(36)

Smile still in place, I type back a reply while Alyssa hovers over me, trying to peek at our messages.

Me:



Much better! I got my stitches out on Friday and everything looks good. I’ll be back tomorrow. I hope you haven’t missed me too much. ;)





“Oh my God, you’re flirting, Lucy. I knew you had it in you,” Alyssa says. The subsequent whip of straw-blond hair tells me she’s proud.

My face sours. “What? Did that sound like flirting?”

“Uh, yeah. You even added the wink emoji.”

“Oh God…I didn’t mean to. I was just being silly.” The message shows “read,” and I promptly blanch.

Alyssa settles back into the couch, shaking her head and swallowing down a few sips of wine. She likes red wine, opposed to my preference for white, paralleling our contrastive personalities. She’s the sexy siren to my wholesome modesty. Deep down though, we both still love wine.

The Merlot swishes around her glass as she twirls the stem, matching her ruby-tipped fingers and red lips. “Why not? He’s hot. You’re hot. Flirting is appropriate—and rough, dirty sex is inevitable.”

I stuff the phone between my thighs, too scared to see his response. My neck burns at her analysis, reminding me of the fire-raising moment Cal and I shared in the storage room when he looked me dead in the eyes and said God help the woman who broke his two-year bout of celibacy.

Not that I need the reminder.

His words have been on auto replay for two weeks, loud enough to wake the dead. The dead being my libido.

Worrying my lip between my teeth, I glance at her. “I won’t lie and say I’m…immune,” I admit softly, feeling the heat climb up my neck and commandeer my ears. “But…I’m not a rough, dirty sex kind of a girl, and that’s probably what he likes.”

She just laughs at me in that Alyssa way. Floaty and feminine with a touch of audacity. “Lucy, you are that girl. Every one of us is that girl with the right man.”

I reach for my own wine glass and chug the whole thing. Then I blurt with my lips folded around the rim, “I’m a virgin.”

Her head swings toward me so fast, she eats a piece of her hair. “What?”

“Yeah, I know. It’s mortifying.”

Extending a hand as if to stop me right there, a frown steals her sandy eyebrows. “Hey, no, that’s not what I meant.” She pulls her lips between her teeth and sits on the confession for a beat. “I just didn’t know. I’m surprised because you’re—”

“Twenty-two.”

“Again, no,” she sighs, tipping her head back. “I was going to say gorgeous. A straight-up ten.”

Warmth blossoms in my cheeks, a fusion of guilt and timidity. While I’ve never bold-faced lied to her about my chastity, I have skirted around the subject whenever it’s come up, possibly implying otherwise with ambiguous responses and quick subject changes. “Sorry I never told you,” I tell her, reaching for a pillow. The pillow is bright and happy, free of disappointment. “You’re this total sexpot, so I was embarrassed to admit the truth, and I didn’t want you to feel like you couldn’t share your spicy stories with me. I live for those, you know.”

She rubs her lips together, then gives them a pop. “Is it a religion thing? Nerves?”

“Personal reasons, I guess.”

“Okay,” she nods. “I won’t pry.” In a contrast to her claim, she pries the pillow from my lap and points at my cell phone still tucked between my thighs. “However, I will pry in this department. Read his text.”

I pull my legs apart, marginally, allowing the phone to slip deeper into hiding.

“Lucy!”

“Okay, okay,” I relent, reaching into the dark cavern of my sweatpants and fishing out the phone. My gut bubbles with anxiety and inexperience as I spot the new notification.

One eye open, one snapped shut, I swipe at the screen.

Cal:



I have missed you. You miss me?





Omigodomigod.

Is he flirting? Is he drunk?

Either way, the juncture between my thighs throbs, my pulse revving with something entirely foreign to me. I’m not even sure what I should say, but my fingers have a mind of their own.

Me:



Yes.





Then I chuck my phone across the room, terror seizing me. “I don’t know what I’m doing, Lys. I’m an awkward mess of a human being.”

Alyssa looks far too giddy for such a dark moment, but then her tipped lips soften. “You’re not a mess, babe. You have the biggest heart out of anyone I know. You’re kind, generous, funny, and absolutely stunning. That’s what he sees. That’s what we all see.”

I bury my face between my palms, hiding my fear, my misplaced insecurities, my soul-deep worry that sex equals love and love equals loss and loss equals being stripped of everything golden.

Loss gives the scatheless scars.

Loss is a vitality sucker.

People mostly just exist after loss and sometimes they don’t even realize it. They stop noticing when the leaves change. One day, those leaves are green and vibrant, drinking in the dayspring, and the next moment they’re rusty brown, and then they’re dead.