You Make Me (Blurred Lines #1)(45)
Author: Erin McCarthy

He leaned to get a condom and while I was still shivering from the aftereffects, hot saliva in my mouth, he joined us.

There was no hurry, just a slow steady rhythm that drove us both to lock eyes and move together, totally connected. It seemed like each time we’d taken this step, it fused us together a little more. It bonded us indelibly. Permanently.

I held him, my mind completely empty of all thoughts except those of him.

The next morning, Heath opened the door for the diner and I walked in, anticipating a strong cup of coffee. My clothes were rumpled, my hair was insane, and I couldn’t stop yawning. We’d been up half the night. I had wanted to do nothing but stay in bed with him all day but I had to get my ass back to class or I was going to be too far behind to catch up.

“Shit,” he murmured from behind me.

“What?” I asked, glancing back at him.

“Darla is here,” he said in a low voice. “And she’s looking at us.”

We weren’t holding hands or hanging on each other, but it wasn’t going to take a genius to see we were together, together. “Do you want to leave?”

But that made him snort. “No. Of course not.”

He actually went straight over to her table. I followed him, not sure what to do. This seemed like he was just asking for a confrontation.

“Hey, Darla.” He looked at the friend she was with, who I knew from the entrepreneurial club. “Anna, right? Good to see you both. Do you know Cat?”

“Caitlyn? Yes, we’ve met,” Anna said.

Darla just shot daggers at me. But I pasted on a smile. “Hi.”

They both just looked at us pointedly. Heath took the hint and took my hand. “Enjoy your breakfast.”

As he led me away I could feel their eyes on me and on our hands. Awkward.

“I hate upsetting people,” I told him as we sat in the table the hostess had directed us to. I fanned myself with the menu, doggedly determined not to look back over at them. “She looked hurt.”

“She looked pissed. Trust me, her feelings are not hurt, she just doesn’t like to lose.”

“So why did you go out with her?” A thought that had never occurred to me popped into my head. “How did you know I was here, going to UMaine?”

“It’s all on your shit online. Go Bears. It wasn’t that hard to figure out.”

“Oh.” That made sense. Though not particularly reassuring to know anyone and everyone could figure that out about me. “Did you know I’d be at that fraternity party the night… that night?”

“No. That I did not know. Nor did I have a clue Frat Boy was going to pop the question or trust me, I would not have been there.”

“So why did you date Darla then? I mean, if you came here hoping to see me.”

“I came here knowing you were in a relationship.” He ignored his menu, but played with the empty coffee mug in front of him, spinning it in half circles over and over. “If I’m honest with you about Darla I’m going to look like an ass**le and I’d prefer you not think I’m an ass**le.”

“So don’t be an ass**le then. Tell me the truth. Did you hook up with her?” I wasn’t sure why it was important or why I was pressing him. It was highly likely he’d had sex with her. And if not her, then someone before her.

Heath narrowed his eyes at me. “Yes. Did you have sex with Ethan?”

Damn it. I should have known he wouldn’t just reassure me or lie. He never lied. “You know the answer to that.”

“Yes. I do. Just like you knew to the question you just asked. Don’t ask if you don’t want to hear the answer, especially if you already know the truth.”

Sometimes I wished he weren’t so brutally honest. “Fine. Whatever.”

That just made him break into a slow smile. “Cat. There’s no comparison. You do know that, right?

I did. For him, anyway. I knew that I was to him what he was to me and that was irreplaceable. Everything. I wasn’t sure why I was pushing him so hard. “I know.”

“Then don’t let it bother you.” He shrugged. “She’s a nice girl, I don’t mean to imply she isn’t. But she’s not you. No one is you.”

Just hearing him reassure me made me feel stupid. Ashamed. I had never thought of myself as needy. I hated being jealous, suspicious, pathetic.

I wanted to cry. Was this what love always did? Made you an addict, always in need of another fix? Another compliment, another kiss, another promise?

I’d been more sure of myself, of us, at seventeen than I was now.

But we’d had the highest of highs and the lowest of lows together and it seemed to me that maybe I hadn’t figured out yet how to just be somewhere in the middle with him. I did trust his love though.

More than anything else in the world, I believed in that.

Chapter Seventeen

I needed to trust his love, because everywhere we went over the next two weeks, we ran into people we knew or Ethan knew or Heath knew. It wasn’t until we were trying to keep a low profile that I realized how small campus could be, despite having ten thousand students, or how judgmental people could be.

Heath had gotten a job bartending, a skill I hadn’t even known he had, and I had class, so we couldn’t spend every second together, but I was staying most nights at his place. We’d spent so much time apart, we wanted to make up for lost time, and we were filling in the gaps of what we’d experienced apart since high school. Inside his apartment, it was calm, easy, filled with laughter and intimacy. Sex like I’d never even imagined it could be.

But whenever we tried to go to the movies, or for a walk, or out to eat, we were watched. And everyone had an opinion.

Heath was restless, I could tell. He didn’t like the vibe of a college town. But I didn’t bring up the future because I was scared. He wanted to go back to Vinalhaven and I wasn’t ready to give up the vision of a life in Bangor or Portland, in an office. A house in the suburbs.

But we didn’t discuss it. We just tried to enjoy the now.

Unfortunately now was filled with people who wanted to discuss the future. “So where are you living next year?” Janice asked me one day. “Because there’s like five girls who want your room if you’re moving out.”

“I don’t know. It’s only November.” We were in the lounge, and I had been studying while Heath was at work.

“You have to decide by January. I know if you were with Ethan, you’d be staying since he’s graduating and going to law school, but now… I thought maybe there was somewhere else you wanted to be.” She gave me a pointed look and it wasn’t exactly filled with sisterly approval.