This Loving Feeling (A Mirror Lake Novel) by Miranda Liasson

help me?”
    “I don’t like watching people turn into roadkill?”
    She laughed, but it came out like more of a very unsexy snort. And that made him laugh. Which was a wonderful thing, because she’d never in all those months heard him laugh. It made his eyes dance and lifted that invisible weight he seemed to always carry with him.
    She followed him up a set of concrete stairs to a studio apartment, the door of which was red, just like the infamous outside doors. “Mr. Clinker owns it,” he said. “I rent from him.” He opened the door and she followed him inside.
    She wondered how long he’d been on his own. Everyone knew he’d been a foster kid who’d aged out of the system, but she had no idea if he had any family at all, and what would that feel like, to be all alone? In a way, she sort of knew, not having parents herself, what it was like to feel that constant lonely ache. But her family loved her. She’d never felt alone until recently.
    He pulled two mugs down from a cupboard above the sink. One was black with the Clinker’s logo and the other was white with a rainbow and said “Best Day Ever.” He poured some water into a measuring cup and set it in the microwave, then dumped packets of powdered hot chocolate into the cups.
    He owned one chair, a beat-up La-Z-Boy with the stuffing ripped out of one corner, and a small television. There was a stack of library books next to the chair. Music Theory for Guitarists , Songwriting for Beginners . She noticed a guitar case in the corner.
    They sat on the floor and leaned against the back of the chair so they could look out the window. He turned off his lone floor lamp and they watched the snow fall, swirling crazily around the streetlight, clinging to the rooftops and covering the grass. He sat close to her, their shoulders touching.
    “So you want to tell me what happened, Princess?” he asked softly.
    She set down her hot chocolate and faced him. Why had he called her that? Almost like he was trying to create a barrier between them. “My name’s Samantha,” she said.
    “Samantha,” he said softly. Hearing him speak her name sent a shiver clear through her. His gaze dropped to her lips. He took up her hands in his big ones. It made her feel—protected, which was weird because he was an unknown, the most dangerous-looking person she knew.
    “You’re beautiful, Princess, but you’d better drink your hot chocolate and go.” He dropped her hands and stood up and flicked the light back on. “Your family is probably worried about you.”
    She stood up right along with him. “Don’t,” she said.
    He looked puzzled. “Don’t what?”
    “Don’t do this. Don’t save me and be nice to me and then push me away. Are you a bad person? Like, should I be worried?”
    His lips curved up in a half-smile. “Maybe. I’m a lot different than you. And a lot older.”
    “I’m eighteen. Except right now I feel like I’m eighty. I could really use a friend. I don’t have many of those left, especially after—”
    In the middle of her rambling, he kissed her. His lips were soft and warm and he pressed them against hers so gently, yet so expertly, she thought she was going to die. She’d been kissed before, but not this way. The boys who had given her tentative good-night kisses were awkward, bumping noses. One stuck his tongue in her mouth and the first thing she did when she got home was gargle with Listerine.
    He reached a hand around her neck and tugged her closer. Rested his other hand lightly around her waist. This time when he kissed her, he teased her lips apart with his tongue. He explored and played, until their kisses grew more frantic and urgent. She clung to him, fearing she might sink into a boneless blob of jelly on the floor.
    “What’s your real name?” she asked breathlessly.
    “Lukas,” he said. He was out of breath, too, and that pleased her. “My name is Lukas.”
    Now there was a name she could wrap her fantasies around. Brief