Take Me (Take Me 1)

Too soon she was back in Noe Valley, letting herself into her tiny rental house. She should have showered, but she didn’t want to wash away any part of her evening with Travis. Stripping off The Dress, she reverently laid it on the back of the sofa chair in the corner of her bedroom and crawled under the covers, wishing that Travis’s warmth was pressed against her instead of her ratty old teddy bear, JuJuBee.

“Hey, Lily!” Luke got up out of their usual booth at the Fog City Diner and gave her a warm hug. “You look great,” he said, holding her at arm’s length, taking in her flushed cheeks and the “I’ve-had-great-sex”

glow that infused her very soul.

“Thanks,” she said with a blush as she slid into the booth and picked up the menu. She was dreading the moment that Luke asked her about Travis. She had nearly canceled their weekly Sunday brunch in a fit of wussiness.

Luke studied her closely. “Did you get a new haircut?”

Lily shook her head and read Bacon Cheeseburger with blue cheese again and again until the words swam in her head.

“Different makeup?”

“The same old me as always,” she insisted as she closed her menu.

“I’ve got it,” he said, pleased as punch with himself for figuring it out.

Lily smiled at her best friend, even as nerves fluttered wildly in her belly. She did her best to project a calm and unworried aura.

“You got laid,” he said, his eyes twinkling. “And based on that glow you’re wearing, he must have really been something this time.”

Alarm flashed in Lily’s eyes too quickly for her to tamp down on it. She had never been wary of discussing her sex life with Luke before, but the situation was so awkward this time that she didn’t know quite how to roll with it.

“Do you think you could say that any louder?” she asked, looking around the full restaurant.

Luke raised his ice tea in a toast. “Do you want me to?” he teased.

“God no. I was kidding.” Maybe if she changed the subject really fast, he’d forget all about it. “Did I tell you what Mr. Slimy Boss said to me last week?”

“So, who was it?” Luke asked, his mind alarmingly single track.

Lily tried another tack. “I’m mad at you,” she lied.

Luke sat back into the plush leather booth, knowing exactly what she was talking about. “I’m really sorry Lily. I got called into the ER right after we got off the phone. I didn’t know what else to do. Was Travis a class-A jerk?”

She fought back the blush that threatened to overtake her again. “No,” she said, “not really. He was actually pretty, um…” Lily searched desperately for the right word. “Nice.”

“Nice?” Luke raised an eyebrow. “That doesn’t sound like my twin. Not at all.”

Oops, Lily thought silently. She should have said he was a jerk. But last night he had been so far from a jerk, he had done such wonderful things to her, that she couldn’t blaspheme him like that.

Lily kept her expression bland. “You know him. He had all of the models swarming around like flies.”

“Uh-huh. And what did he do to you?”

Lily swallowed, but her mouth had gone completely dry. She downed half of her ice tea in one gulp. She slammed the glass down a little too hard on the retro fifties Formica tabletop.

“Oh you know, the usual,” she said, but it was hard to lie convincingly as she was faced with vision of Travis’s hard, slick body above hers, his tongue in her mouth, his c**k so deep within her.

“I’ll kill him,” Luke said.

Lily gasped with alarm. “No really, Luke, he was fine.”

Luke didn’t look happy, but thankfully, he let it go. “So,” he said, leaning over conspiratorially, “tell me about your new lover boy.”

Lily couldn’t stop the smile that stole across her face. “Nothing much to tell,” she said, trying for nonchalance. “Just a one-night stand.”

“You? A one-night stand?” Luke said, clearly incredulous. “That’s a first, isn’t it?”

It was unreasonable, but Lily felt slightly insulted by that. “Oh, I see. I’m the have a dozen kids, bake a zillion chocolate chip cookies for PTA meetings, drive a minivan to soccer practices type, aren’t I?”

Luke’s eyes widened, and he backed off the table a couple of inches. “I didn’t mean anything by it, Lily.”

She immediately felt guilty for laying into him. Luke had to be shocked by her strange behavior.

“Sorry about that. I didn’t mean to snap at you. I guess I’m a little tired from the late night. Can we talk about something else?” Lily pleaded.

Besides, if Luke ever found out about her and Travis, she wasn’t sure whom he’d kill first—her or Travis.

Unfortunately, Luke’s sixth sense that something was irrevocably changed about Lily was too strong for him to ignore, and he was like a dog on a hunt for a bone.

“Okay, I’ll stop bugging you. But only if you tell me the guy’s name. Just in case I know him. That way I can see if you need to make it a two-night stand or if he’s a loser, and I need to get rid of the guy for you.”

Lily flushed a thousand shades of red as she desperately tried to come up with a name. “Um, it was, um…”

Luke looked shocked and not a little concerned. “You don’t even know the guy’s name? What happened to you last night?”

“Tony,” she blurted out. “His name was Tony.”

Luke stared at Lily with the oddest look on his face. Any second he was going to see through her lie.

Five, four, three, two…

“Oh no,” Luke said. Lily’s heart sank to the shiny black-and-white-checkerboard floor. His voice dropped low and scary. “You slept with Travis.”

Lily looked up at her best friend, caught just like he had caught her passing her test answers to Melanie Frost in sixth grade in a bid to be accepted by the popular girls. Bright stains of pink on her cheeks, she tried to shake her head in denial, but she couldn’t pull it off. She nodded and waited for the fireworks.

“How could that have—” Luke began but broke off when he clearly realized how it might sound to Lily.

“What?” Defensive was so much better than guilty. “You don’t think I’m pretty enough for Travis to want to sleep with me?”

“Lils, you know I think you’re beautiful. Too beautiful for my brother, in fact.” Back on the offensive, Luke said, “How could he? How could you?”