She shivered at the still-potent memories of the previous night and Lily looked at her with concern.
“Jan, honey, are you okay?”
Working to push Luke out of her head for five seconds, Janica smiled at the kids and pointed to the clock on the kitchen wall. “When the little arm is pointing at the 6, we'll go. Violet, you know how to tell time, don't you?”
Violet puffed up her chest. “Of course I do.” And then she grabbed her brother's arm and said, “Let's go play bakery in my room until it's time to go. You can make me cupcakes and I can eat them.”
Stepping over grocery bags, Lily hugged her quickly, then pulled her over to one of the bar stools tucked under the granite-topped island.
“What's wrong?”
Oh crap. Why had she come here? What was she thinking? Lily was going to kill her. Or Luke. Either way, her big sister was going to be worried sick over the whole situation.
But the thing was, even though Janica knew all those things, she had to talk to someone about what had happened. She needed her best friend. Who just so happened to be Luke's best friend too.
“Something happened last night.”
Lily's worried look morphed into pure fear. “Are you okay?”
Janica wanted to nod, tried to say yes, but the truth was she wasn't sure she actually was okay. Luke had rocked her world so hard she hadn't just seen stars, she'd actually felt like a human kaleidoscope shifting form again and again, from formations of pinks to purples and reds, yellows and oranges, blues and greens. Her orgasm had gone on and on as if it would never end, one easily turning to two beneath his beautifully out-of-control onslaught. And for a moment she'd felt special. Cherished.
But then he'd left, at least as cold as he'd ever been to her.
Colder, even.
“Oh my God, Jan, if someone hurt you we need to go to the pol—”
Janica quickly cut her off. “No, it's nothing like that.” She paused, took a deep breath, knew she needed to spit it out already before Lily had the chief of police on the line.
“Luke came over.”
Lily frowned. “Luke came over?”
Janica nodded.
Lily cocked her head to the side, still clearly confused by what Luke had to do with anything. And then, suddenly, her eyes went big.
“Luke came over,” Lily said again, more slowly this time, as if her brain was too busy working out the ramifications of everything to be able to change the words into anything else.
Jumping straight over the inevitable question—did you sleep with him?—Janica gave her sister the answer with another nod.
At which point Lily's eyes grew even huger and her cheeks flushed, her mouth opening and shutting a couple of times without any words coming out.
Janica was glad for her sister's loss for words because it meant that she could spit out the rest of it as quickly as possible.
“The thing is, apart from the obvious, I did something really stupid.”
Shaking herself out of her shock, Lily put her warm hands over Janica's cold ones. “Okay, so you slept with Luke. I know it's a big deal. A huge deal. But that doesn't mean it was stupid, Jan.”
If only sex was all there was to it.
I love you, Luke. I love you so much.
How could she have said those things to him?
How could she have even thought them?
Or dared to feel them in the first place?