Emma Burke.
It takes Trent and me a few extra minutes to find a spot in the main student lot. I would have just driven back home and left my car there, but Trent’s class starts soon, and I didn’t want him to be late.
“Dude, why so many people today? Is there some event I don’t know about?” I ask, wondering if I missed the memo that the President was on campus today or something.
“It’s homecoming. There’s a lot of stuff going on along the main mall, like a carnival or some crap. They’re giving away free food—people show up for that,” he says.
I finally find a spot near the very back of the lot, next to a dumpster, and I make Trent get out while I back in so he can guide me. No way am I scratching my car less than a week since I’ve had it back. Once I’m in, we both grab our backpacks and start the long walk to the heart of campus, the smell of barbecue pork and burgers overcoming us the closer we get and guiding us in.
“You weren’t kidding,” I say when we see the line of tents along the main walkway. Beyond the food vendors, there’s a stage with some third-rate, campus rock band playing Blink 182. It’s slightly appalling, however, the crap band is out-douched by the more pathetic groupies screaming for them along the stage.
“Why don’t chicks do that for us?” Trent asks, handing me a pork sandwich from the tent just to the left of him. I bite into it, talking through my full mouth, wiping the small dab of sauce that starts to slip down my chin.
“They don’t scream for you? Wow, I mean, I make girls scream all the time…I just figured you did too—”
“You make girls scream, hmmm?” Her voice cuts in, and I choke on my bite while Trent grins. Fucker saw her coming.
“I’m Emma, by the way. I don’t think we’ve ever formally met,” she says, shaking Trent’s hand. He looks at me as he does, his tongue tucked in the corner of his mouth with his eyebrows raised. By some miracle, he keeps his mouth shut, but he knows I’m gone when it comes to her. He probably knew the second he put the who and where together over the driver’s license I lifted at the bar.
“Emma, nice to meet you. I’ve heard…” I cough to interrupt him, a warning that he doesn’t break the man code—we don’t talk about when we talk about chicks. It doesn’t work. “I’ve heard way too much about you.”
Asshole.
I pinch the bridge of my nose as Trent excuses himself to grab more of the handouts. I open one eye to the vision of Emma sucking in her bottom lip, her cheeks red. I nod slowly, shrugging to admit my guilt.
“Yeah, Trent’s my Lindsey,” I say with instant regret. Her face falls as she takes a step away; she thinks we’re too close now that I’ve uttered Lindsey’s name. Unlike Trent, Lindsey doesn’t know the details. They’re really nothing alike at all. God, I wish I thought before I spoke. I wish I thought before I acted!
Fuck, I wish I thought before I thought!
Emma’s wearing a dark gray hoodie and tight jeans tucked into boots at her feet, nothing remarkable, yet instantly memorable to me. Her hair is down in waves, the shorter layers up front blowing over her face as she pulls them away, tucking strands behind her ear.
“You know how I first recognized you?” I ask in my haze from looking at her. I’m definitely not thinking now. No…now, I’m feeling.
She shakes her head in tiny movements, her cheeks rounding with a slight smile, her lips closed tight as she works to hold in the effects of my attention. I love her blush. “It was your eyes.”
Her lashes lift as her eyes widen when I say this, the silver shining.
“I was obsessed with those eyes when I was sixteen,” I say. “I could never forget them.”
God, that felt good to say!
We stare at each other for a long moment, and Emma relents to the small giggle building in her chest before looking down at her feet. “Thank you,” she says, her voice meek and beautiful. That’s the same, too—the timber, the inflections…all of it.
I kick at her toe with my shoe. She kicks back.
“I always liked your shoes,” she says, her face falling to the side, her hand coming up to hide her embarrassed look.
My head falls forward, and I stare at my feet, my black Chucks, the same shoes I’ve owned for years, just a newer pair. Maybe a little bigger.
“They really are my best attribute,” I nod, joking. She laughs, her voice a little raspy, maybe sleepy, too, and swings her arm at me, brushing against mine.
“No,” she says. I look up at her. I want to kiss her. Her smile fades from a playful one to a serious one—an honest one. “That’s not your best attribute,” she says, her eyes looking as if they’re about to cry.