HOW I LOST YOU

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Author’s Note: A new chapter of HOW IS LOST YOU – if you like this please check out my other books I’m Not Her, If I Tell and Who I Kissed.

Copyright © 2013 by Janet Gurtler

Chapter Fifteen

So how far did he try to go?” Kya wiped crumbs off her mouth. She’d filled her belly with my mom’s cookies and then came up to knock on my door so I could chauffeur her to the paintball tourney. She picked up a tube of lipstick from my dresser and rubbed the reddish-orange color over her lips, and then sat on my bed and pursed them up and made kissy noises. “Or should I ask how far you let him go?”

I reached over and grabbed the lipstick from her hand. “This is my mine.” Sharing hygienic products with Kya was not at the top of my favorites list. “And you don’t need to get all made up for paintball.”

“Whatever.” She went back to the mirror, picked up my brush, and pulled it through her hair. “I want to look good when I mow down the other teams today.” She turned to me, her eyebrows high up on her forehead. “Well?”

“Well what?” I tugged my hair into a ponytail and avoided looking at her. I tried not to focus on the lump forming in my stomach and bent down to my gear bag, shifting through to make sure I hadn’t forgotten anything.

“Are you saying he didn’t try anything?” Kya sounded surprised.

The lump traveled up to my throat as I groped through my gear bag.

“Not even a kiss?”

“Kya.” I’d lain in my bed last night wondering the same thing. Why he hadn’t kissed me good night when he’d dropped me off. I’d thought about it all the way home, expecting it, and anticipating it, worrying about it. Then when he dropped me off…nothing.

A tremor shook my hand. Did I have the total wrong idea about Levi?

I grabbed a thin Lululemon headband from my bag and wrapped it over my hair. I glanced at Kya’s reflection as she studied me in the mirror.

She squished up her nose. “Well, maybe he’s looking for someone to hang out with? Like as friends? Or, hey, maybe he’s gay?”

I stood up and my expression must have given me away.

“I mean no, he’s probably the type of guy who takes things slow. It’s fine. Don’t worry.”

“You think so?” I fought to keep my voice level, to keep the desperation out of it. “I mean, there were signs it was more than friendly. He held my hand.”

“He held your hand?” She came over and sat on the bed, pulling me down beside her, the brush still in her other hand. She elbowed me in the side. “Oh my God. You really like him, don’t you?”

I grunted and stood up from the bed, thinking about the things he’d said to me. Our emotional connection. The feel of my hand in his warm bigger hand. So why no kiss?

“He’s a nice guy,” I said softly, and opened a drawer to grab some more headbands to toss in my bag in case I got some headshots. I hated when my headbands got covered in paint, and I liked to have fresh ones on hand. I tucked them into a side pocket on my gear bag.

More than nice. He’s amazing. The first guy who really saw me. Not you. The first guy to make me feel special.

“Nice?” She jumped up, reaching for my side, and then tickled me, watching me in the mirror, but I wiggled away from her without cracking a smile.

She grabbed my arm. “Lucas said you should be careful. That he was in trouble with the cops. For beating a kid or something. For no reason.”

I frowned. It didn’t really sound like the person I knew.