Robin Constantine - The Promise of Amazing

WREN

LUKE WAS TEN MINUTES LATE.

I surveyed my house, praying my mother wouldn’t look out the window. She and Dad were having a much-needed “date night in,” complete with the latest rom-com from Redbox and takeout from their favorite Spanish restaurant. And while that hadn’t been part of my plan, having them busy with their own stuff made it much easier to slip out, no questions asked. As far as they knew, I was waiting for Maddie and Zach to pick me up, not having a faux-revenge hookup with Luke at the love shack. I was grateful it hadn’t occurred to them to wonder why I’d stand outside in below-freezing weather.

The plan was simple: entice Luke to the cottage, where Grayson and Andy were waiting to talk to him, sort of like an intervention. Grayson wasn’t into it at first; he thought Luke wouldn’t fall for it. But the more we talked it out, the more he came around, thinking that maybe the element of surprise would make Luke vulnerable. And, okay, I wanted to prove that I could play this game too, to send a message. He had toyed with the wrong quiet chick.

“Wren.”

I startled. “Are you part ninja?”

Luke was in his varsity jacket and dark jeans, mane of hair loose around his face. He seemed pleased with my reaction.

“No, thought I should meet the parents and all that, so I parked.”

This was already not going the way I imagined.

“Kidding,” he said, holding out his hand. I hesitated, then put my hand in his. His fingers wrapped around mine, warming me up. Could I really do this?

“Just trying to be a gentleman,” he said, leading me up the block to his car. “For now.”

I ignored his comment, but it put me even more on edge. He opened the passenger door, and I slid in, trying to work up the nerve to introduce step two of my plan. He got in and put the key in the ignition.

“So . . . where to?”

I took out the key to the cottage from my pocket and dangled it in front of him.

“You got us a room? Eager.”

“Ha . . . It’s for the cottage . . . at the Camelot . . . one of the perks of being the owner’s daughter . . . so we can be . . . alone.”

“There’s no one home at my house,” Luke said, the corner of his mouth curling into a slow smile that made me momentarily forget that being alone was not the goal of this conversation.

I held my breath, grasping for an argument.

“Well, the cottage is the first place Grayson and I . . . you know . . . hooked up, so I was thinking it would mean more if we went there. Kind of . . . poetic, I guess.”

“Hmm . . . poetic,” he said, charging the engine. “The cottage it is then.”

The Camelot was only a ten-minute drive from my house but that night it felt like an hour. We caught every red light. I stared out the window, trying to think of some casual conversation to fill up the time. Just when I was about to ask him about school, he spoke.

“Heard about your catfight with Ava the other day.”

“Really? I’m sure she exaggerated.”

“She told me what you said. About me. Didn’t realize what a dirty mouth you had. Have to say I kinda like it. The blue streaks too. Very, um, Katy Perry.”

I did Luke Dobson .

“Oh, huh, that.” My skin became molten. “I said that to piss her off.”

“Well, it worked,” he said, signaling to turn up a side street. “We’re not speaking.”

“Sorry about that . . . I guess,” I said.

“Ha. Right. Don’t be. I’m a bit player on Planet Ava. When she needs me for something, she’ll be back.” He gunned through a yellow light, then slowed down a bit after we passed the intersection. “It’s Grayson she’s really after, even if she thinks I don’t know it.”

I sat with that information for about half a block. Did he just say that to mess with me? Luke seemed unruffled. He could have been talking about the weather.

“Didn’t she do all that . . . set me up . . . for you?”

He tapped the steering wheel with his index finger. “You don’t get it, do you? She’s, like, bat-shit-crazy jealous of you. She wasn’t helping me; she was helping herself.”

“No . . .” I said, trailing off as I mentally walked through my moments with Ava in the past month. She kind of stalked me last year , Gray had said. Her dis in the hallway; the way she’d looked at me at Andy’s party, being so smug when she’d thought we’d broken up. I thought she was just being mean but . . . jealous?

“But,” I said, “she was with you.”

“With me? Nah. It’s not like that.”

His posture softened as he shifted in his seat. There was something unguarded about his words. Maybe he was good at manipulating people, but Ava wanting Grayson bothered him, I could hear it. He didn’t appreciate being . . . what? Second-rate? Luke, who could probably have any girl licking buttercream frosting off his cleats, couldn’t have Ava, not the way he really wanted.

“Don’t judge me with those baby blues, Wren.”

“Not judging. It’s just . . . you don’t seem like the kind of person who would put up with that.”

“How is it any worse than putting up with a guy who boffed half of New Jersey and gave you a stolen necklace? We’re all willing to overlook a few things when we get what we need, right? Ava filled a need, and we had a few laughs. What’s your payoff?”

“I don’t really look at it that way.”

“Sure you do. I bet Grayson makes you feel . . . special. He was always good at that.”

His observation jabbed me in a raw place. I’d come to terms with Grayson’s past . . . sort of . . . but I didn’t like to be reminded.

“He doesn’t make me feel much of anything now.”

“Where should we park?”

I’d been so caught up in what he’d been saying that I hadn’t noticed we reached the Camelot. A car parked in the empty lot would be like sending up a flare, so I directed him to a spot on the block next to it. He turned off the car and leaned back. I reached for the door handle, felt his hand on my knee.

“How ’bout a little warm-up?”

“What?” I asked, slouching back into my seat.

“Or are you having second thoughts?”

You’re supposed to want to be here .

“No, no second thoughts.”

“C’mere,” he whispered, reaching for me.

This was not real. Luke’s fingertips on the nape of my neck, pulling me toward him, the gentle way he spoke. This was a show, a play. My mind fed me all sorts of ways to detach—Maddie’s notion that this was what being sixteen was all about; Grayson’s warning about the Dobson mindfuck —but my body told me a different story.

Luke swept his lips across mine, soft, surprising, his tongue tracing the curve of my mouth, seducing me to open up. I closed my eyes and let him in, the spearmint taste of his mouth making my lips tingle. Me. Melting into a hormonal puddle of hotness.

This kiss made me want to kiss him back.

And I felt sick. For me. For all the girls who had fallen for him, for this.

Did he feel nothing?

I broke away before my body betrayed me even more.

“Luke, why don’t we take this inside?”

“Why don’t we forget this and go to a movie or get a steak . . . or drive somewhere till we run out of gas?”

I ran my finger down the front of his jacket, tugging on one of his pockets. “Don’t you want to um . . . hook up?”

“I like you, Wren. Not everyone gets in your head, do they? They have to earn it,” he said, snaking his hand into my hair. He kissed the tip of my nose, my cheek, my lips again. “I’d like that payoff.”

He couldn’t possibly be sincere . . . and even if he was . . . this was Luke. This was . . . wait . . .

“You’re doing the Brinker thing, aren’t you? Wow . . . you’re good.”