Know Me (Truthful Lies Trilogy - Book One) by Rachel Dunning Page B

loud slurp. Maybe his mind is on this statement about his pops ...
    I feel I must mention something
here before we go on.
Maybe you noticed I used the word Love earlier. Don’t misunderstand me there. Of course I love
Declan, just like I love Trev (at this stage I guess I only like Skate.) Doesn’t mean anything
necessarily. Deck makes me feel warm, welcomed. He makes me feel
something entirely new. Something I don’t fully understand if I’m
being honest with myself. No matter what’s happening in my life, I
try and tell myself things straight. Beating around the bush gets
you nowhere.
    So, lacking a word for it, I call this emotion love. I guess
I’m thinking, I love him, just like I loved Savannah, like I loved
Patryk.
    L ove is an all-encompassing word in English.
“ There are
many words for love, and many nuances to those words, in
Polish ,” Mamah said to
me once. This was when I was sixteen, crying on my bed because I’d
caught Eliasz Piscor (“ The totally coolest guy in all of Greenpoint High,
Mamah! ”) kissing Zuzanna
Osik (“ A
total skank lying bitch if I ever saw one! She’s no good for
him! ”) behind a school
dumpster. At that stage, I thought his tongue in her throat and his
hand on her tit under her sweater was the worst thing a person
could ever see in her entire life.
    Fast forward to today, Tom’s Restaurant. Is it my subconscious using this word
in a very calculated way?
    Or is it, you know , someone— or something —else...?
- 6-
    Moments of unbelievable silence go by
while Declan and I sit
here, me playing with my empty coffee cup, him turning the straw in
his empty Egg Cream glass.
    I look up at him, instantly smile at his
beauty. If I don’t know where this is going, at least I’ll
have that —a memory of
just how innocently bad and troubled he looks.
    The heat of him pressing against me and that wall is
gone. Not that I don’t find him sexually attractive, it’s just that
I don’t know shit about that area. I’ve been with one guy in my life Like
That . And the other, who
came close to Like That , was,
well, we’ll get to that later...
    “ Uhm,” I say, “Just FYI, I don’t
usually...uhm...take guys home...after— I guess what I’m trying to
say is...that I’m more of a
go-out-for-coffee-and-get-to-know-each-other-first kind of
girl.”
    He can’t help himself smiling. “Did you
think I was going to jump you and race you to bed?” His eyes glint
mischievously.
    I like the flirty comment, and I like the
prickliness it brings to my cheeks. But it also makes me a little
nervous. “No, uhm, well, I don’t know—”
    “ May I remind you, that it was you who kissed me—”
    “ I don’t regret it.”
    Pause. Then, “I’m glad you did it. I have
to confess...” He eases a hand to mine, caresses it. It sends
lightning all over my skin, makes my insides bubble like boiling
water. “...I was a little”—he chuckles—“I don’t know how to put
this—”
    “ Put it any way you like.”
    “ I was a little...taken aback by you...when
you mixed tonight. I...wouldn’t call it
‘infatuated’...but—”
    I start laughing. “Are you going to tell
me you were idolizing me and couldn’t imagine ever matching your
lips to mine?”
    “ That’s exactly what I was gonna
say.”
    All time stops. The protective walls I’ve
erected around me crash. I process the statement, swallow
hard.
    That’s exactly what I was gonna say...
    “ Declan”—I feel my insecure lips
tremble—“I’m just a regular girl. You might get disappointed if you
put me up on a pedestal.”
    “ I’m not disappointed yet. And FYI, I’m
also a coffee-first kind of guy...when I have to be...” he squeezes my hand harder.
    “ What—”
    “ Coffee?” A bubbly and happy Clarissa
arrives at our table, holding a pot of it. I nod, so does Declan.
She pours, then leaves.
    “ What do you mean ‘when you have to
be’?”
    “ Never mind, I don’t wanna scare you
off.”
    I look up at him.