Page 45 of Like First Love, Again

“So why the hell are you single?” Mia asked, one leg tucked under herself and the other dangling over the back of the Volvo. She swung it like a metronome. Slow, as if to remind Tori how unreasonably fast her heart beat around her.

Tori leaned back against the car’s frame, legs crossed while she looked at Mia. Despite having stayed in the shade most of the day, Mia’s nose and cheeks were bright pink. Her shoulders and collarbones, exposed by her tank top, were just as red.

Tori blinked, belatedly registering the question. “What?”

Hazel eyes—green like fresh-cut grass from the sun—brightened a moment before Mia smiled. Openly amused by having distracted Tori with nothing but her presence, Mia scooted closer.

And somehow, as if they’d done it a hundred times before, Tori shifted to make room. She uncrossed her legs, and Mia nestled into the space between them, back pressed to Tori’s chest. Reaching back, she took Tori’s arms and wrapped them around her waist, then rested her head against Tori’s shoulder.

Chest expanding to breaking, Tori closed her eyes and wished she could stop time. There was no price she wouldn’t pay to stay there for all eternity. To live with her nose nestled in Mia’s messy hair and the warm weight of her body against hers, still buzzing from the aftertaste of her last kiss and drunk from the anticipation of another.

“Are you going to tell me or what?” Mia’s voice was soft and distant like she might drift off to sleep in Tori’s arms.

“There’s not much to tell,” Tori admitted, fingertips lightly skimming the back of her hand.

“Well, start at the beginning,” she replied, nestling into Tori like she wanted to bury herself in her skin. To dig her way past her sternum and curl inside her chest.

“The beginning?” Tori closed her eyes, deep breath full of Mia’s shampoo. She debated making it sound a little less pathetic than it was, but she was tired and dosed with too much euphoria for deceit. “I was down so bad for you when I got to college,” she admitted.

Mia tensed, but Tori didn’t stop gently tracing meaningless shapes over her hand and along her forearm.

“My dorm-mate forced me to join this gay-straight alliance thing,” Tori continued, relieved when Mia relaxed again. “And I met a girl there.”

“Did you date?” Mia prompted like she feared that’s all Tori would divulge.

Tori nodded. “For a few months.”

“What did she look like?”

Tori chuckled. “Why do you need a mental picture?”

“I have a very vivid imagination, Victoria,” she replied with a smile curling around the edges of her words. “You def don’t want it to feed itself.”

“I barely remember,” Tori admitted, without explaining that she’d spent a long time blocking out that first year. Every memory was tainted with how badly she’d missed Mia, and all the doubt that she’d chosen the wrong remedy. “She was tall, sweet, only wore ripped jeans.”

“What a way to remember somebody.” Mia laughed and pulled Tori’s arms tighter around her body. “Did you sleep with her?”

Tori wasn’t sure how to answer the question, so she deflected. “Have you always been this nosy?”

“Literally my entire life,” Mia shot back before she found Tori’s hand resting on her hip and laced their fingers together. “Don’t act brand-new.”

“Yeah,” Tori replied.

By the way Mia shifted against her chest, Tori knew she was holding back from asking something. Probably many somethings. But Tori pressed on. She didn’t want to talk about an awkward first time. Especially not when she was still buzzing from every first with Mia.

“So after her, I dated a guy from my bio class?—”

“Slept with him?”

“What are you? Keeping a running count?”

Mia squeezed her hand, rubbing her thumb in a soothing motion. “I just want to know everything I missed.”

Tori took another deep breath. “Yep.”

“And you weren’t into it?” Mia asked gently, like it was a snowflake on the iceberg of her questions.

“I mean… It wasn’t awful? I’d gotten kinda drunk on purpose so I wouldn’t back out?—”

---