Page 53 of Wilds of the Heart

As I pushed my way out the door, I couldn’t help but notice the lavender sky with hot pink streaks as vivid as any wildflower out there.

I put the pizzas in the back and smiled when I spotted what Emily was looking at. She tried to hide her phone under the poodle, but it was too late.

“Find anything interesting?” I asked.

She stared out the window. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Did you like my photos?”

She grunted and turned to face me. “Fine. Yes. You post good pictures.”

A rumble of a laugh escaped my lips, which only made her flash a dirty look in my direction.

As Ipulled out of the parking lot, I could feel Emily’s eyes on me. I looked over, and she looked away.

“Okay. What’s going on between us?” I asked.

“We kissed, Lucas.” She sighed. “And that changed everything.”

“How could it have changed everything?” I asked, feeling the tension rise in my chest.

Just like I’d worried. Something wasn’t right.

“We shared one kiss. You made me promise not to tell a soul.” I cleared my throat. “And we can’t sleep together, so… tell me how anything has changed.”

“They just have,” she said softly. The tenderness in her voice worried me. It felt like a tidal wave of emotions was going to slam down on me at any moment.

After a minute or two of silence, she adjusted herself in the seat and looked at me.

“It’s just not a good idea to date.”

And in an instant, my entire world imploded. I could see it in her eyes. Our friendship had already changed. She’d made sure that happened the moment our kiss ended.

Chapter Thirteen

Emily

It stung that Lucas didn’t even hang around for the pizza. He’d just walked it up to the house, placed it on the kitchen table, and turned around and left.

There wasn’t any playful banter, no hugs, and no text you laters.

That kiss had thoroughly screwed things up, just as I’d worried it would.

I finally had a day off from the store, and Mimi was doing much better. I’d gone grocery shopping for a couple of items like butter and bread and decided to stop by the beach. It was the same place Lucas and I would go sometimes.

There weren’t all that many areas around the island that had public access to a flat area of beach. This little place was like an oasis.

Seagulls swooped around overhead as I traversed the rocky beach until I could make it over to the boulder.

It had been a week since I’d seen Lucas, and the distance had hurt. I missed having my friend. There hadn’t been a day gone by where one of us didn’t send some sort of funny meme or joke. Text something goofy one of us did, or just say a simplehi.

But since the kiss, it had all stopped. It was partly my fault. I didn’t know what to say or how to be flirty with Lucas.

So, I’d just stared at my blank screen and decided to write nothing.

Another thing that changed was my genre preference. I couldn’t crack a mystery to save my life.

I craved poems. I needed the solitude of very few words to convey some sort of meaning.

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