Siren's Song by Heather McCollum

count the street lamps until he reaches my dark road. “I was thinking that I might want to play for Boston,” he murmurs.
    My head snaps toward him. “But you’re doing great at State. You’re in your second year there.”
    He shrugs. “Boston’s been doing really well this season and they have a strong business program.”
    I feel my throat clog. Would he really follow me all the way to Massachusetts? He pulls into my driveway. “Thanks for the ride,” I manage to whisper. I open the door, but his hand closes around my wrist. I tug against his hold.
    â€œJust think about it,” he says. “Coffee sometime.” And he releases me.

4
    â€œIt’s choice—not chance—that determines your destiny.” ~Jean Nidetch
    â€œYou smell nice—flowers with a hint of chocolate.”
    Luke’s voice is like an epinephrine shot, direct into a main artery. I glare around the open door of my locker and talk over my ricocheting heart. “You don’t do surprises, but you sneak up on people.” He wasn’t in homeroom, so I hadn’t been expecting him.
    He opens his locker without even turning the combination. “And you lose yourself in the details.”
    â€œWhat?” I stare at the dark hair that brushes his strong jaw line. A rough outline of a beard and mustache shadows his face, like he forgot to shave. Testosterone must be cranking in his lean, sculpted body.
    â€œI make the same amount of noise as other people.” He turns to me and shrugs, a teasing grin on his perfect mouth. “You’re just engrossed with the details of life, so you didn’t notice when I walked up.”
    â€œYou mean the thrilling details of my utterly bland locker?”
    He glances inside the narrow metal cage. I haven’t even had time to hang a mirror or pictures. “Perhaps you’re engrossed with whatever is whirling around under that thick mane of rich, dark silk.” He sifts his fingers through my hair and lets it drop. Rich, dark silk? Who says that? I forget to breathe as I engross myself in the minute details of how his lips formed those words when he was looking at me with those midnight-blue eyes.
    â€œVery well. I’ll try again.” He pulls his face back around to his side of my locker. “Hey, Jule,” he practically yells and pokes his head around. “You smell nice.”
    I stare open mouthed. “Uh…it’s lilac something.”
    â€œLike that tree off your porch. It’s lilac, isn’t it?”
    â€œYeah, I like to sit near it when I do my homework. The fresh air after being in school all day is refreshing.” Oh God! I’m babbling now.
    He slams his locker shut with a cocky smile and walks beside me toward chemistry. “Aye, fresh air. Ye should feel it coming off the mountains. No amount of coffee will wake ye up like that.”
    I squint at Luke. Did he just rattle off a Scottish brogue like a Highland native? “Where are you from?” But before Luke can say anything else Matt Kenzie jogs up like he’s been looking for us. His usual playboy smile is muted by a serious set to his jaw.
    â€œHey, Luke,” he calls. Matt looks directly at me and his grin broadens. It’s the grin I’ve seen him release on a girl he’s trying to impress. It certainly worked on Carly. “Hey, Jule.”
    â€œHey,” I mumble back and keep walking. He falls in line with us.
    â€œSo, Jule.” He said my name, so now I have to look at him or be a rude beyotch. I balance on that decision for a moment before turning to him. After all, Carly doesn’t seem to hate him, at least not consciously. I wait impatiently for him to talk.
    â€œYou want to go out this weekend?” Matt asks. Shock must have twisted my face because he chuckles. “We haven’t given us a chance.” In the periphery I see Luke snap his teeth shut. “There’s a