Take Me (Take Me 1)

Lily bit her lip. “It just happened.”

“Don’t lie to me, Lils. Look,” he said, reaching for her hand across the table, his eyes gentle, “I know you’ve had a crush on him for a long time.”

Lily snatched her hand back as if Luke had burned her. “Shut up,” she hissed.

Going on as if she hadn’t spoken, Luke said, “But you know how he is. He’s never going to settle down with one woman. Ever since our mom died…” He let his words drift away and looked her in the eye. “I don’t want to see you get hurt. You deserve better than Travis. But now that you’ve gone and had sex with him, we’d better figure out what we’re going to do about it.”

“Nothing,” she snapped. “We’re going to do nothing. I had fun, and I never thought for one second that he would want to date me or be my boyfriend or anything. It was a crazy, one-night, fluke. So don’t make such a big deal out of it, okay?”

Luke looked stunned by her monologue. Lily knew she wasn’t usually so forward, but maybe something inside of her had really changed. Maybe it was something bigger than The Dress.

Unexpectedly, Luke changed tacks. “I’ve got an idea,” he said.

Lily groaned. “I don’t think I want to hear it.”

Her best friend smiled. “I think you do, Lils. It’s time to beat Travis at his own game. And now I can see that you’re exactly the one who can pull it off. He’ll never see it coming.”

Curiosity might have killed the cat, but Lily couldn’t help herself from asking, “How?”

As their bacon and eggs were delivered, Luke talked while Lily listened with a laserlike focus to his advice, committing everything he said to memory.

Travis had been on the basketball court for thirty minutes by the time Luke showed up. He hadn’t been able to think straight all day, and the only thing he could come up with to fix it was hard physical exertion.

Too bad it wasn’t working. All he could think about was Lily.

How good she had tasted.

How kissing her had stolen the ground from beneath his feet.

When he woke up and realized she was gone, he was angry. Angry with her for leaving before he could take her again. Angrier at himself for caring.

Travis was always the one to leave, never the woman, who was always begging him to come back. He couldn’t believe he had actually considered getting on his motorcycle and riding to her house. He didn’t chase women.

And he certainly wasn’t going to chase Lily.

All of a sudden Travis was back in fifth grade, trying to make it through another day. His mom was dead, and the world had gone from yellow and blue and green to black. I don’t care, he had told himself, over and over, which seemed to work. Except around Lily. Those blue eyes of hers saw right through him, and it killed him. The more uncomfortable she made him, the more he closed himself off from her. He needed her to leave him alone before he did something childish like cry. No one, not even his brother, was ever going to find out how much he had cried alone at night. Lily’s mom had died, too, Travis knew that, but it didn’t mean he had to be friends with her anymore. It didn’t mean he had to accept her comfort.

Comforting was for babies.

Travis emerged from his memories as a picture of Lily naked flashed before him. Forget her, he told himself. Sleeping with Lily had been a humongous, idiotic lapse of judgment on his part. He hated how uncomfortable he’d been in his own skin since he’d been with her. He needed to get back on his usual in-control even keel.

The more he tried to erase her from his mind, the harder he played. By the time Luke joined him on the court Travis was soaked with sweat, and his legs felt like jelly. Without a word, Luke grabbed the ball from him and started the meanest game of one-on-one they had ever played.

No shove was too hard, no foul was too big. It was every man for himself on the court. In the back of his mind, Travis wondered if Luke knew about Lily. Was he trying to make Travis pay for it? But Travis was glad for the distraction of gasping for breath and getting his limbs to obey him, because it meant he didn’t have time to think about her.

Luke sank the final basket, thirty to twenty-nine, and headed straight for the showers. Travis picked up the ball and stripped off his dripping T-shirt. A woman on the treadmill on the way to the locker room licked her lips, and said, “You have the most amazing six-pack I’ve ever seen.”

But Travis couldn’t have cared less what the woman thought about his abs. Without sparing her a glance, he pushed through the thick locker room door. Stripping off his shorts and shoes, he stood next to Luke in the communal shower stall.

“What’s your problem today?” Travis asked.

Luke shrugged. “Nothing. Just whupping your ass like I promised.” Silence fell between them. “So, you screw any hot babes last night?”

Travis couldn’t miss the venom dripping from Luke’s verbal blade. He knew he had to step very carefully or he was likely to get his skull cracked on the tile of the locker room. “Why do you ask?”

Luke pinned him with a glance that let Travis know he was being laughed at. “I had brunch with Lily this morning at Fog City.”

Travis tried to look like he didn’t care. “So?”

Luke washed away the rest of the soap and turned off the faucet. Reaching for a towel, he said, “Looks like her debut as a model turned out pretty good.”

Travis put his face under the faucet so that Luke couldn’t see his expression. What would he normally say to Luke about Lily? Travis tried to get his muddled mind in gear as he turned off the water and reached for a towel.

“She didn’t fall down or anything, if that’s what you’re talking about.”

Instead of looking like he was going to punch Travis, Luke looked suspiciously like he was trying to hold back laughter. “That’s for sure,” Luke said. “Turns out Lily went home with some guy in the audience.”

Travis dragged a clean T-shirt over his head. He couldn’t tell yet if Luke knew it was him or not. He wanted to inquire without coming right out and asking, but he couldn’t think of anything better than,

“Anyone we know?”

Luke shrugged. “She didn’t have much to say about him.”

Travis spun around. “Some guy took Lily to his place for sex, and she didn’t have much to say about him?”

“She didn’t mention going to his place,” Luke observed, with a raised eyebrow.