Without You: Book 1 of the Changing Hearts Series (23 page)

Lucas’s eyes met hers as his hand slowly came around to the front of her shirt. First, she felt his fingers brush against her abdomen. Then they were on her chest. Her chest wouldn’t stop rising and falling from how hard she was breathing. Lucas began kissing her again, his hand awkwardly in between them.
 

He moved his hand to her upper back as he rolled with her until he was on top of her.

“Lucas,” she whispered.
 

He stopped and looked at her. “Are you okay?

She made her breathing slow down. “I…am more than okay.”

His mouth moved to her neck, and she finally wondered what time it was. That thought was lost as he moved back to her mouth.

Lucas used his knee to move her legs so his were in between hers. Then his hips grinded against hers, and she gasped. Lucas groaned as their hips touched.
 

Now she was trembling, and she wondered how it was possible for one person to do this to another, make someone feel this.

Ariana wondered what time it was as Lucas kissed her.

“Lucas?” she whispered. “I think I have to go.”

He stopped kissing her neck and took his hands off her hips. He kissed her on the mouth one last time before they checked their phones.
 

“Yeah, I think you’re right.”
 

“Crap.” It was almost 5:00pm. Her mom was probably already home. “I have to go.”

 
She got up, adjusted her clothes, and put on her shoes.
 

Lucas hugged her from behind before she could grab her book bag.
 

She turned around and hugged him back. “I’ll call you later, okay?”
 

“Text me if you get in trouble or something. Sorry I kept yo—”

She kissed him before he could finish. “I love you. I’ll call you later.”

Lucas got up and put on his shoes. “Love you too. Come on. I’ll walk you to your car.”

A few minutes later, Ariana was on the road, but she could hardly keep her focus on it. She couldn’t stop thinking about Lucas, not to mention his touch, his mouth on hers. On her body.
 

It had driven her crazy. In every way that was good. It was a good thing she was still on birth control because she really thought they were going to do it. In a way, she was glad they didn’t. She wanted to wait a little longer and enjoy their relationship as much as possible before they got to that.

Then her stomach sank.

She still hadn’t told him that she was definitely going to UGA. Her acceptance letter was due this week. She had to tell him. She would tell him. Soon. Her decision was pretty much made.
 

She bit her lip as she pulled into Mayra’s driveway and Jimmy ran out the door and hopped in.
 

Jimmy didn’t say anything as they headed down the street to their house, but his look said it all. She was a little late. Their mom was already home.
 

They headed inside. Ariana headed straight for their room as Jimmy announced they were home. She almost ran into her mom as she power walked down the hallway.

“Hey,” she said.
 

“How was the test?” her mom asked.
 

“Oh. Good,” she said, walking past her and adjusting her book bag on her shoulder.
 

“It must have been a long test. It’s five o’clock,” her mom called back as she went into the living room.

“Yeah,” she yelled from her room. “I got stuck on some of the problems so I took my time.”

She changed into some shorts and lay down.
 

She had completely forgotten to tell Lucas about her scholarship. There was no question about it now. She wanted to go to UGA. She had found a way to go to UGA. She was going to UGA.
 

Which meant she and Lucas would no longer be together. Yeah, they’d do the long distance thing, but she thought about how hard that would be. They had to try. Right?

She got up and closed the door to her room. She had to get this out of the way and know how Lucas felt about all of this. It’d be the moment of truth.

She pulled out her phone and called Lucas.

It rang a few times before he finally picked up. “Yeah?” He sounded groggy.

“Oh sorry. I woke you up, didn’t I?”

“It’s okay. I fell asleep after you left.”

“Sorry.”

“No, it’s okay. I’m awake. There’s some stuff I have to do anyway.” He sounded like he was getting up.

“Should I call you back?”

“No. It can wait.”

“Are you sure?” Was she sure she wanted to have this conversation?

“Yes,” he said drawing it out. “You okay? You didn’t get in trouble, did you?

“No,” she said glancing at her door and lowering her voice. “It’s just…I have to tell you something.”
 

Now she was rushing and talking too fast.
 

“I was going to tell you when I saw you today, but I swear I forgot. Um.” She sighed.
 

“What’s going on? Is everything okay?”

“Yeah. I just—I found out the other day I got a scholarship.”

“Another one? That’s awesome,” he said. His sincerity made it that much harder to keep explaining.

“This one’s kind of different. It changes things,” she said. She looked blankly out the window. “It’s forty thousand dollars.”

“What? Are you serious?” He laughed a little

“Yeah. Ten thousand each year for four years.” She couldn’t decide if she should wait for him to do the math or just say it out loud.

She decided to wait a little bit longer. Just when she was about to explain what that meant, he spoke up.

“You can go to UGA,” he said quietly.
 

“I—” she tried to say.

“I’m happy for you. Really,” he said. The sincerity was still there, but not there was something else as well. Sadness.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I should have told you in person, but I didn’t want you to think I was hiding this from you.”

“No, it’s okay,” he said. “Thanks. For telling me.” He sighed. “I mean, we kept saying that if it’s meant to happen, it would happen, you know? It happened. This is where you’re meant to be. I’m not going to stop you. I don’t want to. I—I can’t wait for you to go because I know this is your dream.”

Tears threatened to escape from her eyes, and Ariana was kind of glad she was in her room instead of with him because she knew there’d be no way she could stop from crying if she was looking at him right now.

“We’re not giving up, right?” she asked, trying to make her voice stay even.

“Right,” he said. “I—I will always be here for you. If we’re meant to be, then it’ll happen. We’ll get through it.”

There was silence, and she focused on her breathing for a little bit.

Lucas spoke up again. “Are you excited? How did you find out? What did your parents say?”

“I got an email. Remember, it was that huge packet I had to fill out that the counselor gave me? She recommended me for it, and it paid off. My parents couldn’t believe it either. They’re glad they’re not gonna go broke sending me to college.”

“Yeah,” he said. The smile seemed to be back on his face.
 

“What about you? Have you found out about your financial aid yet?”
 

“I should find out pretty soon, probably by the time we graduate in a few more weeks.”

“Oh my gosh.”

“What?”

“Graduation,” she said, staring at the ceiling. “It’s almost freakin’ here.”

###

Ariana and Jimmy got out of the car and headed inside. It was Thursday afternoon, which meant it was pretty much Friday.
 

Ariana yawned as she opened the front door and carried her bag to her room. Maybe she’d take a nap.

Both of her parents were in the kitchen. “Ya llegamos,” she said with hardly a glance. She was brain fried.

It had been a busy week. She had stayed up really late finishing up a five-page paper for English and studying for her finals at the end of next week. Plus, one last project for DECA. After that, freedom. A few days after that, Jimmy would be out of school too, and they’d finally have summer.
 

“Jimmy!” she heard her mom yell from the kitchen.
 

She had been about to go ahead and lie down, but her stomach growled for a snack. Snack, then a nap.
 

As she headed out of her room, Jimmy was right ahead of her.
 

“What?” he said, padding into the living room in just his socks. He was already in gym shorts. That boy lived in gym shorts.

“Take a seat,” his mom said. She was standing next to the couch where their dad was sitting. The TV had been turned off. Ariana walked past them and into the kitchen. She went straight to the cupboard where the bread was and popped some in the toaster.

“When were you going to tell us?” she heard her mom say. Her hand froze midway to the button for the toaster. She slowly turned around and padded over until she was just around the corner from the living room.
 

“Tell you what?” Jimmy asked. The stammer in his voice betrayed him.
 

“Are you really going to make us say it?” her mom asked.
 

She heard Jimmy sigh. “Mayra.” Another pause. “How long have you known?”

“A little while. How long have you two been novios?”

“Who told you?” Jimmy asked.
 

Ariana peeked her head around the corner. Jimmy glanced at her, and she quickly pointed at her chest and shook her head quietly but violently. Jimmy looked back at his mom.

“I know you knew too, Ariana,” her mom said loudly.
 

Crap, she thought. She walked into the living room.

“What do you have to say, Jimmy?” her dad asked. He was seated on the couch while their mom stood with her arms crossed.
 

Jimmy shrugged.
 

“Why didn’t you just say something to us? We’re your parents,” her mom said, looking at her dad and back to them. “We’re supposed to know what’s going on in your lives.”

“I was going to tell you—“

“When?”

“I don’t know.”

Her mom glared and pursed her lips.
 

“Soon. I really was. Ariana kept telling me to, but M—I wanted to wait.” Now his arms were folded across his chest, and he kept looking around.

“Wait for what?” Her mom didn’t lose a beat.

“Until Mayra was comfortable with everyone knowing.”

Their mom guffawed. “I don’t even know where to start. We’re not everyone. We’re your parents.”

Her dad spoke up. “And if Mayra didn’t want everyone to know, then you should have waited to become her boyfriend. All of this sneaking around does nobody any good.”

“I know,” Jimmy said. “I’m sorry.”
 

“You’re grounded for two weeks. No going out. No video games. Make sure you put the console in my room.”

“What? Why?”

Ariana didn’t know what to say. The same thing had happened to her last year. At least Jimmy was taking it better than she had.
 

“You know why. You guys go out making us think you two are friends when who knows what all of you are up to.” She looked at Ariana who immediately looked away.
 

“We were sixteen and seventeen once,” her dad continued. “We know the kinds of things that happen.”

Jimmy walked down the hall into his room, probably to unplug his video game console. At least he got to keep his phone.
 

Ariana decided to head into the kitchen to finish making her snack. She was not sleepy anymore. She wondered what was going on at Mayra’s house. Because if her parents knew, Mayra’s mom had to know.

###

Ariana called Mayra after she scarfed down her snack, but she wasn’t picking up.

A few seconds later, she got a text.

Cnt talk. Talking to mom on d fone. Call u later :/

Sounded like her mom wasn’t finished. She was still curious about how all of their parents had found out about Jimmy and Mayra, though.
 

She got up and went to her desk to work on a project in the meantime.
 

Ten minutes later, her phone began to buzz. It was Mayra calling. “Hey,” she said.
 

Ariana had definitely heard Mayra happier. “What happened?” Ariana asked. “How’d our parents find out?”

“Um, do you really want to know?”
 

“Um, yeah, I want to know.” She saved her project and closed her computer, looking out the window in the direction of Mayra’s house.

“Well, my mom kind of found Jimmy in my room last night, like kinda late. We weren’t doing anything except, you know, kissing, but she came home early from work for once in her life, and she absolutely freaked when she saw us.”

Ariana’s mouth fell open. “What?” She glanced at her door. It was closed, but that had been kind of loud. She had no idea Jimmy had snuck over. She guessed it probably wasn’t the first time.

“Yeah, she told Jimmy to go home. Then she got all quiet, and then it was like a volcano exploded. And it just happened again. She told me she told your parents what happened, that they needed to know. So how bad did Jimmy get it?”

“Two weeks.” Ariana still couldn’t believe what she had heard.
 

“I got a month. I’m guessing my mom didn’t tell her the whole story. But she said if we pulled something like that again, she would.”

“You can’t be serious.”

“Believe me,” Mayra said. “I wish this wasn’t even happening. Just when I think things are going good, everything explodes in my face.”

Ariana wanted to say how Mayra and Jimmy shouldn’t have kept their relationship a secret in the first place, but she decided she wasn’t the best person to be offering advice on that matter.
 

She had made the same mistake just last year.

###

Ariana rolled her eyes all during her English class. Wendy was in that class too, but she had left her relatively alone all semester after their incident last semester. The teacher had changed the seating and put them in opposite sides of the room.