The XOXO New Adult Collection: 16 Full Length New Adult Stories (346 page)

I had to laugh at that. "Okay, Kylie. Let's do that." She really was pretty awesome. I could tell she wanted Dean for herself, but when she saw his apparent interest in me, she was cool enough to back off. It was a good thing too, because I didn't think I would have been able to do the same thing. The way he made my body feel wouldn't be ignored easily. We headed out.

Present

I still remembered that day so vividly. I was smitten with Dean. I still had the napkin he wrote his number on. That day marked the beginning of the rest of my life. Something I could never have imagined at the time. I loved the life that we had made together and I loved my kids, but I had given up so much of myself over the years that I had become depressed and void of the highs that life had afforded me in the past. I craved the butterflies, the laughter, and the deep-rooted emotions. I just craved
something
.

I glanced around the family room and released an annoyed sigh. I could never keep up with the mess. I used to be so organized before kids, and now I all but gave up. It was ridiculous to clean up the same things several times a day. This was my life now. Wake up before I could function, get the kids ready and take them to school, come home and clean, maybe shower, and then pick the kids up from school. More often than not, I opted to sleep instead of clean. Depression had a funny way of making a person tired. The more I slept, the less time I had to spend thinking about my unhappiness.

The sink was full of dirty dishes that I had no desire to clean, and the island still had the kids' breakfast plates on it. I could clean or I could work out, but instead, I climbed the stairs to my bedroom and tucked myself into bed. With Dean not home, I really didn't care if the house was a mess. I was just over it. Over everything.

As I stared at the ceiling waiting to doze off, I tried desperately to remember all the good times Dean and I had shared, holding onto hope that our marriage was worth saving, wanting to reassure myself that I had made the right decision this weekend. Guilt or regret? It didn't matter, because both would haunt a person for eternity. My heart pounded erratically as I thought about the weekend. I was stunned when I walked around the bar at the hotel where Kylie was having her bachelorette party, and
he
was there getting a drink. Somewhere I would never have expected to see him. I had dreamed of running into him again for so many years, but this moment had never crossed my mind. In fact, I had given up hope a couple of years ago when I had a meltdown and almost left Dean. That's when my heart went cold and my feelings became numb, so I could just survive. I had lost touch with reality, and I needed to get a grip. I didn't care about me anymore. I was just living for my kids now. I was just trying to get through it. Get through life.

****

H
igh School Years

I sat on my bed and stared at the napkin with Dean's phone number. My stomach was fluttering in anticipation as I reached for the phone. It seemed juvenile to be so nervous to make a phone call, but I was. I wish I had given him my number instead; then the pressure would be on him. Who was I kidding, though? I was a total control freak and that would have driven me insane waiting around wondering if he would call me. Just as I mustered the courage to call, the phone rang.
Dammit!

"Hello?"

"Hey, did you call him yet?" Kylie asked.

"I was just about to. You know you're coming with me if he wants to hang. I'm not going alone. I barely know him."

"That's cool. I wouldn't mind seeing a couple of his friends again. It'll be nice to meet some new guys. Ours are boring me."

"Okay, I'll let you know what he says."

"I'll be waiting by the phone, so don't make me wait forever."

"Yes, ma'am. Bye." I hung up, cursing her under my breath, because now I had to find the courage again to call him.

****

I
did finally call him. We talked for a bit and then made plans to meet up. Kylie came with me as promised. What I discovered quickly was that his friends were trouble to say the least. My attraction for Dean grew quickly, but unlike other guys I had met, he was standoffish and I hated it. It made me feel insecure, so being the strong-headed person I was, I took matters into my own hands.

It had only been a few weeks since we met, but I liked him and was anxious to progress things from friendship to more. He had mentioned going to the movies with a group of friends, so Kylie and I decided to meet up with them. I didn't know if it was the fact that he was playing hard to get or if I really liked him, but the lack of contact was driving me insane. I wanted to know what it would be like to kiss him. My hormonal teenage body yearned for it.

"Well, are you going to go for it tonight?" Kylie asked as she primped herself in the mirror.

I had swung by her house to pick her up on the way to the movies. I got my license last week with my parents' strong encouragement and also to silence the constant teasing from Kylie. My parents bought me a cute little teal Toyota Paseo.

I was somewhat jealous of how effortlessly Kylie's beauty came to her. "I want to."

"Wow. I feel like I don't even know you. You never get this way about guys. Better be careful. I think you're turning into me."

"I just feel different around him." I hated to admit it, but I was becoming one of the girls I used to make fun of, drooling over boys and letting emotions take hold of their sanity.

"It's okay, you know," she assured me.

"What is?"

"To like someone." She turned away from the mirror to face me. "I know things haven't always been easy for you, but at some point you have to let someone in. We're sixteen, Len. This is our time to have fun, be a little bad, and break hearts."

Breaking hearts wasn't what I was worried about. It was
my
heart getting broken that bothered me. I didn't grow up in the most affectionate family, and school was not easy for me. I was always the loner who tended to sit in a corner at recess and lunch hiding my nose in a book, anything to escape the reality that trapped me. I was habitually bullied by the popular girl and her followers in school for most of my younger years, which left a deep scar on my soul and left me feeling like I wasn't good enough. I had the worst luck when it came to best friends. I would place everything I had into the friendship, and they would stab me in the back in one way or another. The years of rejection, isolation, and pain wore me down until I finally hardened. Kylie was the only friend who never let me down, but unfortunately, by the time I met her in middle school, the damage had been done, so my friendship was guarded. I knew she felt it too, but she accepted me, broken or not.

"How about I leave the breaking hearts to you?"

"Fine by me. I plan on breaking many until I find Mr. Right."

"You really believe there's just one person out there that we are meant to be with?" Skepticism bit at my words.

"I do, and while I can't wait to meet him, I hope it's when I'm in my twenties so I can mess around for a while."

"Kylie, you are the worst."

"Whatever. You only live once, and I plan on living it out to the fullest."

I admired her free spirit. Her life seemed picture-perfect looking at it from the outside. She lived in a beautiful house with amazing parents who were more than affectionate with her and a protective older brother. Her parents were financially stable, so she got everything she wanted. Not that I had it bad in that department, but my parents were so busy that they tended to spoil me with material things to make up for what they lacked in love. It was only recently that I started realizing how much that missing element in my life had affected me.

"Listen. If you want him, take him. If you don't, you'll regret it. A life with regrets is not a life worth living," she said with a mischievous smile.

She was feeding me my own line. "Right. It's not like I have anything to lose."

"Exactly."

She walked into her bathroom, leaving me alone for a moment of reflection. I did have something to lose, though. I knew why I was so nervous, but I felt ridiculous saying it out loud. I felt like Dean was
the one
. Even thinking it now, I felt stupid. How could I find my soul mate this young? It didn't even make sense, but what I felt the first time I saw him couldn't be denied. So, yes, I had everything to lose if he rejected me. I would be crushed, and at this point, I didn't know if I would come back from it easily.

"Lennox, do you hear me?"

I didn't even notice when she came back into the room. "No, sorry."

"Seriously, girl. You barely know this guy, and he already has you daydreaming. I asked if you were ready to go."

Yes and no, but tonight was the moment of truth. I was going to put myself out there and hoped he felt the same way. "Yeah, let's go."

****

W
hen we got to the movies, I was literally a mess. My stomach was in knots. Dean hadn't even officially invited us, so we were essentially stalking. When we pulled into the lot, I saw him in the center of a large group of guys and girls.

"Maybe this was a bad idea. He didn't invite us. He just mentioned he would be here."

"That's enough for me. If he didn't want you here, he wouldn't have told you where he was going to be."

She kind of had a point.

"Stop trying to convince yourself that he's not interested. Give him a chance to come around. He might just be really shy."

I pulled into a spot in the back.

"Take a deep breath and just have a good time, okay? At least try for me." She gave me a genuine smile.

"You're right."

"Okay, then out we go."

She hopped out of the car excitedly while I crept out slowly. She hooked her arm in mine and dragged me through the lot to the front of the theatre. While she pretended to look at the movie times, my cheeks began to burn with embarrassment.

"You came."

I turned around and came face to face with Dean. "I did."

"Cool. Come hang out with us."

I looked over at Kylie.

"Go, and I'll get our tickets."

I walked behind him and stood self-consciously in his crowd of friends as they boasted jokes loudly. I could feel the glare of the girls and the curiosity from the boys. I stared back at the girls and ignored the boys. I focused my attention on Dean who seemed to be the center of everyone's attention. He really was endearing to be around. He had a way of making you feel at ease.

Kylie joined me a minute later and instantly had the attention of all the boys. The looks from the girls were entertaining. They couldn't stand that two new girls had stripped them of their presence. The only one who seemed to ignore Kylie was Dean. He kept his attention focused on me. At least I thought he was watching me. My desire to know how he felt and to stop the nagging question pounding in my head was getting stronger.

As we filtered into the theatre, I took a leap of faith. We fell behind the pack, so I grabbed his hand and pulled him off to the side. Without saying a word and before my courage faded, I stood on my tiptoes and planted a light kiss on his lips. I waited for a moment for him to respond, and just as I was about to pull away in disappointment, he clutched me gently by the back of the head and kissed me back. His lips were soft, and his movements were gentle. My body tingled with intensity. Leaving me breathless, he pulled away slowly and locked eyes with mine.

"What was that for?" he asked quietly.

I wasn't sure what to say. I was starting to feel foolish and embarrassed.

"Not that I didn't like it," he said with a wink.

Kylie found us. "Are you two lovebirds going to watch the movie or just make out in the hallway all night?"

I started giggling under my breath, which was unlike me. Dean had me giddy. I was already in too deep to walk away without a permanent scar when this ended. As we walked into the theatre, Dean grabbed my hand and intertwined his fingers with mine. Goosebumps rushed over my skin. I couldn't wait for the next kiss.

****

P
resent

I found myself smiling in bed as I remembered our first kiss. Not only did I make the first move, but I found out later that he was actually on a group date with one of the glaring girls. I should have been mad that he was on a date, but really we had only just met and never really talked about being anything more than friends, so I brushed it off. Besides, he was with me that night, not her.

It was weird to think back to that moment and to see where we were at now. We hadn't kissed like that in years, and our physical intimacy was lacking to put it mildly. To be honest, when we touched, it felt awkward. We had become more like best friends or even roommates over the years. I'm sure every married couple went through these times, but not many made it through, and after this weekend I wasn't sure I wanted to fight for it anymore. Not when something was so easily there with someone else. Someone whom I had thought at some point was
the one
and not Dean.

I needed sleep to take my thoughts away. I was feeling overwhelmed by depression and the after buzz of excitement from the weekend and the confusion of totally opposite emotions was poisoning my sanity. I set the alarm on my phone to wake me in time to pick up the kids from school, threw my pillow over my face, and closed my eyes.

His crystal blue eyes bore deep into my soul as the music blared in our eardrums. Our friends surrounding us at the table faded, leaving us alone with a quiet intensity that didn't need any words to translate the feelings spoken between us. I wanted him with every fiber of my being. All thoughts of Dean had disappeared, and it was just us. How could something that seemed so wrong feel so right? How could I love two boys so passionately, yet so differently? My heart belonged to one and my soul to another.

My phone alarm broke me free of my dream, but not of the dull ache that it left in my heart. I tossed the pillow aside and turned the alarm off. I was groggy from sleeping a little too long. I scrolled through my text messages. The last one was from Dean saying he loved me. I responded back with a heart and sat up. I scanned the room, taking in the mess that followed me everywhere. Clean laundry was sprawled over the footboard waiting to be hung before it wrinkled while piles of dirty laundry littered the floor begging to be washed. It was the endless cycle of laundry hell that I could never seem to avoid.