Life Blood: Cora's Choice #1 by V. M. Black

was fun.  It’s just...with everything I had to deal with....”
    We had reached The Dairy.  Geoff grabbed the door and held it open for me as I went inside.
    “Look, it wasn’t you.  It was just crappy timing.  We weren’t really dating yet, and I couldn’t dump all this in your lap, and I felt like, if we kept going out, I’d be lying to you if I hid it.”  We joined the back of the line.
    “So you thought it’d be better to ignore me,” he said.  “Instead of letting me decide what I could handle.  It wasn’t like we’d just met.  I’d known you for three years.  I considered you a friend.  I still consider you a friend.”
    He had a point.  “I consider you a friend, too.  I didn’t want you to think that I was trying to make you be something more, throwing it all on you after one date.”
    “It still wasn’t your decision,” he said.  “At least, it wasn’t only your decision.”
    By then, we’d made it to the register.  I made my order, and so did Geoff.  He added my food to his tray and led the way to a table in the corner of the dining area, and I took the chair across from him, dropping my bag under my chair.  He set my sandwich and drink in front of me.
    “Thanks,” I said.
    Geoff leaned forward.  “You know, I was beginning to wonder if I really was that bad of a kisser.”
    I felt the heat rise in my face, and I fiddled with my sandwich to cover it.  “Not at all,” I said.  It was my turn to feel awkward.  “It was nice.” 
    He had dropped me off at my apartment door.  The hall lights had been turned to their nighttime setting, only half the fluorescent tubes on so as not to glare into the apartments when someone opened a door.  I was leaning against the door.  The corridor emptied for a moment as we talked, and he stepped up, so quickly that it caught my breath, and he had cupped the back of my head in his hand.
    “I’ve been wanting to do this for a long time,” he had said, and then his mouth came down over mine, and I had tipped my face up to meet him.  His mouth was hot, hard and soft at once, and a warm deliciousness had unspiraled inside me.  Clutching his shirt, I had opened my lips under his.
    When the kiss finally ended and he stepped back, I had looked away, breathless and blushing furiously. 
    “Um,” I had said.  “Whoa.  Sorry.  I didn’t mean to eat your face off.  I hope I didn’t scare you.”
    He chuckled, and I shivered slightly.  My heart was still beating too hard.  “Trust me, Cora.  I’m not scared.”  He took a lock of hair and pushed it back over my shoulder.  “See you?” he asked, and I knew he didn’t mean in class.
    “Yeah,” I said.  “Absolutely.”
    Then he had left me to fumble into my apartment and collapse on the couch, hoping we hadn’t just ruined a friendship trying for something more.
    “Nice?”  Geoff said now, settling back with an exaggerated air of disgust.  “That’s all I get?  Nice?”
    “Okay, better than nice,” I admitted.  “I was looking forward to going out again.”  I took a bite.
    “Well, good.  Because so was I,” he said, shifting with his usual swiftness back to seriousness again. 
    “I’m sorry,” I repeated.  “It just wasn’t a good time for me to get into anything new.”
    “And now?” he asked.  He raised his eyebrows over his slice of pizza.
    It was striking how different he was from Mr. Thorne, I thought inanely.  Geoff was boyish and golden, with light honey-brown hair and a perpetual tan that he got from hours on the lacrosse field.  He was sporty without being a jock, with a self-effacing humor that never failed to make me smile.  Mr. Thorne was cold and remote, arrogant and God-only-knows how much older.  I couldn’t even picture him where Geoff was, sitting in the humming Dairy, legs outstretched and negligent half-grin on his face.
    I shook my head.  Mr. Thorne, I told myself, was not a possible...boyfriend.  I didn’t know what