Page 15 of Road Trip to Forever
What would Lola look like in my bed, wearing nothing but a smile?
Devastating enough to kill me, probably.
There have been times when we’re out with our friends at a place that’s too crowded, too hot, and we sit beside each other to get away from the masses of people.
Our thighs press together. Her shoulder knocks against mine. My hand drapes over the back of her chair, close enough where I could play with the ends of her hair if I wanted to. Her lips quirk up, like sheknowsI’m hiding something, and she’s determined to figure it out.
A wildfire burns in my chest under her gaze, a raging, unmanageable thing I shove aside, to the place where I keep all my secrets. A hidden compartment deep in the recesses of my brain, somewhere no one can ever find it. It’s safe there, a box I only pull out when I’m sad that she’s gone and missing her like hell.
Because we’re friends.
Justfriends.
There’s no chance of us ever being anything more.
“Patrick?”
I blink, pulled back to the present. “Yeah?”
“Are you in?”
“Of course I’m in. Anything for the happy couple.” I smile and lift my empty glass—when the hell did that happen?—toward Henry and Emma.
I’m about to slip out of the booth and fight through the booze-thirsty crowd to get the table another round of drinks and avoid more public displays of affection when a text pops up on my phone.
A photo with dim lighting. A row of bottles lined up under a big mirror and bar stools made of dark leather. Lola’s in the center, the pink streaks in her blonde hair looking brighter than usual and a twinkle behind her blue eyes.
Her arm is around an older man. There’s a cap on his head and an impressive mustache curling under his nose. They’re both giving a thumbs up to the camera, and it looks like they’re mid-laugh, caught at the tail end of a joke.
This is Harold! A look into your future!!!
No way. Harold is cooler than me. Check out that hat.
I’m buying you one for Christmas.
Ask him if he does the NYT puzzles.
He does. With a pen! You’ve met your match, Patrick Walker.
I save the photo to my collection of pictures from Lola, right next to the one of her cuddling a stray cat outside the Colosseum. The sun is in her eyes and she’s squinting into the camera, but her smile is wide and bright and soher.
That grin is lethal, poison around the edges of her mouth that seeps through the screen and makes me dizzy and lightheaded.
I feel that burst oftotally perfectas I stare at the image, put under her spell.
I can never have Lola.
Not in the way I want her—as mine forever.
I don’t care. I keep loving her anyway.
FOUR
LOLA
“Did your date get any better?”Patrick asks. He pops the tops off two bottle of beer and puts them on a coaster.
“Nope.” I take a seat on his white sectional and pull a blanket over my legs. “I should have gone home with Harold. Probably would’ve had a better night doing word searches.”
