Page 15 of Amore
Lucy:Party at Miller’s tonight. You down?
Me:Hell yeah. Need one more party before we leave.
Or at least to get away from my parents, who kept wanting to do things with me since I was moving almost a thousand miles away. They had been acting like they would never see me again.
Lucy:Don’t do that. You’re going to make me cry.
Me:We’re going to cry anyway.
My parents and I were flying to New York the following weekend, and I needed all the time I could get with Lucy because she was leaving for college too, but flying in the opposite direction. We joked that we were both going to be in Manhattan, but she was going to Manhattan, Kansas, and I was going to Manhattan in New York.
Lucy:Don’t remind me. I’ll be over in 30, so we can get ready together.
I peered out my window to look at Lucy’s house next door. I had a view of the driveway where Luke and his friends played basketball all the time. The day I moved into the house I had chosen my room for that reason. I had seen him playing basketball with his dad, and I hadn’t realized then that he was two years younger, but since then, we’d all become friends, and I didn’t care that he was younger than Lucy and me.
Luke was one of us.
And I was going to miss him just as much as Lucy.
If not more.
Sometime in the last four years, I’d fallen in love with him. No one knew, especially him and Lucy. How was I supposed to tell my best friend that I was in love with her brother? The same brother who joined us for movie nights. The same brother who had taught me how to cook spaghetti and meat sauce because it was my favorite, and he’d sworn I had to know how to make my favorite food. The same brother who let me cry on his shoulder when Erik Waterford broke up with me the night of the junior prom because I didn’t want to put out.
The same brother who looked at me as though he was in love with me too.
I was about to turn away from the window when a car pulled up in front of his house. Luke’s best friend, Billy Tucker, stepped out of the driver’s side, followed by two more friends, Dawson Kennedy and Troy Mitchell. Dawson had a thing for Lucy, but she never gave him the time of day because he was younger, and she swore seniors couldn’t be seen with sophomores.
A moment later, another car pulled up. This time it was Daphne Duvall, or Double D as the guys called her, not because of her name but because of the size of her chest. She had a thing for Luke, and I was jealous. He denied they were dating, but they were always together at school—well, with their entire group of friends.
Virginia Hasslebaugh, May Tanner, and Josette Gold got out of Daphne’s car. Something was clearly going on. But I didn’t have time to wonder what Luke was up to because I needed to jump in the shower before Lucy came over.
* * *
I hadto park down the street when we arrived at Miller’s house. It seemed he’d invited our entire small-town school for an end-of-the-summer party. Since I didn’t drink—I didn’t like the taste after me, Lucy, and Luke tried red wine a few summers ago—I was always the one to drive. I didn’t need to get wasted to have a good time. Plus, my parents would kill me if I were to drink and drive or come home drunk. I couldn’t chance my scholarship to the best performing arts school because of beer.
My dream was to be on the silver screen, and I wasn’t going to fuck it up.
“I hope Teddy is here tonight,” Lucy stated as we walked down the street toward the house.
“Yeah? You’re going to make your move or what?” I teased.
She shrugged. “I leave for Kansas in a few days. It’s now or never.”
“But he’s going to Florida State. That’s far from Kansas.”
Lucy chuckled. “Girl, I didn’t say I wanted to marry the guy.”
“All right. You just want to make out with him?”
“Make out, go all the way.” She shrugged again.
I stopped walking. “Go all the way?” We were both virgins.
“What?” she asked dumbly. “I’ve been thinking I don’t want to go to college as a virgin.”
My mouth hung open. “Seriously?”
“Well, with enough beer.”
