Tru Love (First Love Book 1) Read online

  Genny mulls that over. For every question Genny asks, she’ll have to return in kind—Serena is a strict score keeper.

  “Have you and Victor. . . you know, done it?”

  Serena’s eyes blink once, but she recovers quickly. “You’re not already thinking about that?” Her voice is slightly scandalized. “What happened to my little wall flower?”

  I’m thinking it plenty, Genny thinks, but says, “We’ve talked about it in terms of something that will happen in the future.”

  “The distant future,” Serena advises.

  “You sound like Truman,” Genny grumbles.

  Serena likes that so much she tips her head back and laughs. “Oh, that’s great. Truman is putting on the brakes.”

  “It’s not like I’m throwing myself at him,” Genny says, and lets her hair fall forward so it covers her blush. Or is she? So far, Truman has initiated their kisses, but Genny has been reluctant to let them end.

  “He wouldn’t stand a chance if you did,” Serena says. “That boy adores you. It was instant for him. From the moment he saw you no other girl exists.” She pauses, thoughtful for a moment, then says, “I’ve heard of that happening. Sometimes it lasts. You know, a life-long thing. Marry your high school sweetheart and you’re still together, celebrating your seventy-fifth wedding anniversary, and wouldn’t have it any other way.” Her look turns to one of concern. “And sometimes it burns out in a few weeks.

  “You definitely want passion with a long fuse,” Serena insists. “You wait and make sure you have that kind of love going on before you open talks about moving battle lines.”

  “I feel like I’ve known him forever,” Genny confides. ”And at the same time, it’s all new and. . .breathtaking.”

  “You are new at this,” Serena points out. “You don’t know yet what you have.”

  “How long did it take you to know you were in love with Victor?”

  Serena purses her lips as she thinks. “Well, I thought I was in love with him by our third date. But that was all the newness you were talking about. My mama calls it the first blush of love. It’s really strong. You have to wait for that to mature before you’ll know for sure that it’s the kind that’s going to last.”

  “How did you know you and Victor were the real thing?”

  “It all catches up with you. It’s not a single moment, but it falls on you in a split second, and you know. The little things he does for you. The sweet things he says. His mannerisms. Victor has this way about him, when he’s not sure of something. He’ll say what’s on his mind, then he’ll tip his head to the side and look at me out of the corner of his eye. He’s looking to me for confirmation, giving me a kind of anchoring power in his life. I like being that for him.” Her smile is shining. “But mostly, it’s the way he treats you—all the time—that cinches it. He never forgets that you’re the one for him.”

  The timer chimes and Serena shoos Genny aside. She picks up a padded mitt and pulls the cookies from the oven.

  “Do you have a wire rack?”

  Genny’s trying to figure out what she means when Serena gives up and pulls a plate from a cupboard. She uses a spatula to move the cookies.

  “Who stocked your kitchen?” she asks. “You have a lot of stuff neither of you have ever used. All top notch.”

  “My mom hired some guy to remodel the kitchen and fill all the drawers and cabinets.”

  “Interior designer.” Serena nods. “I thought about that for a while, but I think it’ll kill my parents. It’s too close to homemaker for them.”

  Serena’s course is decided. “Law school isn’t a very creative place,” Genny points out. Serena is brilliant with color and physical art.

  “Starving artist is even less acceptable,” she says.

  “What about feeding the inner self?”

  “Eating trumps it.”

  Serena picks up a cookie, testing its warmth with her fingertips. “It’s ready. You want to do the honors?’

  Genny takes the cookie and bites into it. Her tongue waters. The chocolate melts. “It’s fantastic,” she says.

  “Don’t sound so surprised. When you give these to Truman you have to do it with confidence. Like, ‘Oh, yeah, I had a few minutes and made these for you.’”

  Serena snags a cookie and tastes. “Yummmm. These are good. Truman will be wowed by your prowess in the kitchen.”

  Genny feels a twinge of guilt over the false advertising. “And the jeans are yours. They look much better on you than they ever did on me.”

  Serena places her half-eaten cookie in the trash. “No more of these. I had to lay down on your bed and sweet talk myself into these jeans as it is.”

  Serena hands her the bowl of batter. “Remember, make them bigger this time.” She oversees Genny’s efforts and then, satisfied, starts rummaging through a cabinet. “Where do you keep the Tupperware?”

  Tupperware. Genny’s heard the term and racks her brain for a matching image. Serena looks around the cabinet door.

  “Don’t hurt yourself,” she says and dives into another cabinet. “Any self-respecting interior designer would make sure you had an ample supply of Tupperware.” Coming up empty, she walks across the kitchen to the pantry doors. “How else do you save food?”

  “In the containers they come in,” Genny says. “Remember, it’s all take out here.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Truman walks through the line with her at lunch, ordering her usual apple and Big Grab bag of Doritos without needing to ask her preferences. He does glance at her though when the woman behind the counter announces that the only flavor of sparkling water left is Mandarin Orange. Not Genny’s favorite.

  The frown on Genny’s face deepens. She can feel it bunching up her eyebrows.

  “Diet Coke,” Truman decides and finds a place for it on his tray.

  Next, the woman slides a piece of fried chicken on his plate. She follows through with mashed potatoes and some kind of green vegetable that could be spinach or overcooked broccoli.

  Truman likes real food. She’s never seen him plow through a bag of potato chips or eat a sweet—until she handed him the chocolate chip cookies three weeks ago. He ate two then and there, standing in front of her and smiling like he struck gold.

  She’s baked for him twice since then. The last time, Serena

  let her add and mix all of the ingredients with just small corrections.

  Truman steers her to a table near the back of the room—not their usual, but it’s nearly empty and she can sense that Truman wants to talk to her. There’s a heaviness in his mood and he keeps glancing at her, worried. Her usual sunny disposition evaporated over the past few days and she doesn’t know how to tell him what’s bothering her.

  After they’re seated across from each other, and Genny is making good time staring at her still art lunch, he asks,

  “What is it, Genny?” His voice is soft and inviting, but she feels too deflated to do more than shrug.

  They’re moving steadily through their third week of dating and Truman is good at prodding information out of her.

  She’s worried about Hunter. How does she tell that to Truman? Will he understand? She knows her heart. Does he?

  “Genny,” he chides softly. “You can tell me anything.”

  “Without upsetting you?” she wonders.

  “Without me acting on my feelings,” he promises.

  She lifts her head and gazes at him. His face, which she decides could be traced back to Michael Angelo, is as somber as her heart.

  “I want to talk to Hunter,” she says. “After school. If he’ll talk to me.”

  There’s a good chance he won’t. She passed him in the hall earlier. Their eyes caught for a moment and then he turned his head, walking past her without any kind of acknowledgement. His whole body got tight and when she stopped and looked at his retreating back, she noticed his hands were balled into fists. He doesn’t walk any more like a loping dog. Gone is the easy, carefree guy wi
th whom Genny spent two-plus years sharing jokes and dreams and disappointments. And it bothers her.

  “OK.”

  Truman’s face shows no reaction. His voice is warm and understanding. She waits for him to place a condition on her request, but all he says is,

  “I trust you, Genny.”

  “I’m just worried. Serena says he isn’t looking so good and I thought I should try to. . .I don’t know. . .” she finishes lamely.

  “I saw him today,” Truman says. “And he wasn’t looking good.” He takes a bite of chicken before saying, thoughtfully, “It’d be easy for me to say ‘serves him right.’ But I have the girl, and more is expected of me. So talk to him. See if he thinks you two can be friends with me in the picture.”

  Genny pushes a hand through her hair. The black curls tumble down her back.

  “He shouldn’t care,” she says. “Hunter and I were over before you and I began.”

  “By mere minutes,” he reminds her.

  But she’s shaking her head. “No. Hunter and I never had. . .this.” She waves a hand back and forth between them. “We were friends.” Even when they were trying to be more.

  The more was doomed from the beginning. Genny thinks Hunter is as aware of that as she is.

  “I think the shock comes from seeing you with someone else so soon.”

  Proof, as Serena put it, that they are so over. Not to mention the skinning his pride took.

  “So,” Genny says, “I’ll walk home today, OK?”

  “You don’t want me to wait for you?”

  “No.” If things go well, maybe she and Hunter can sit down and talk over a cup of coffee. She doesn’t expect things to return to their pre-dating normal, but maybe, if he’s ready, if he realizes that what they lost—their friendship—is worth redefining, they can find a new place where they fit. “I’ll walk.”

  He nods. “Call me if you change your mind.” After their first date, Truman programmed his cell phone number into her Blackberry. She has since memorized it.

  He reaches for her diet Coke and pops the can open for her. “Now eat,” he says.

  Genny finds Hunter outside the band room, standing with friends and tapping a rhythm with his sticks against his legs. His back is to her but Genny knows the exact moment his friends whisper news of her arrival—Hunter’s shoulders grow stiff and his hands still. He doesn’t turn around, not even when his friends back off and exit through the auditorium.

  Genny doesn’t falter. She’s on a mission and if this attempt to make contact doesn’t work, then she’s done.

  “Hunter?” She steps around him, positioning herself so that he’ll have to walk through her if he wants to escape. “Do you have a few minutes?”

  He makes a show of turning his wrist over and raising it toward his face. He doesn’t wear a watch, but says, “I’m late. For a very important date.”

  His mouth curls into a smirk. It does strange things to his face—makes his blue eyes look like stones and his teeth like daggers.

  “That’s a very bad white rabbit impersonation,” she says.

  “You’re not a very good Alice, either,” he charges. “The way I remember that story, she was annoyingly loyal.”

  “Loyal?” Genny challenges. “You mean like a boyfriend whose first reaction to commitment isn’t to turn deaf and dumb? I tried to connect with you,” she says. “I remember a long walk through these halls with you ignoring me every step of the way. How’s that for loyal? Or would you call it pathetic?”

  His face flushes and he finally lets his eyes meet hers.

  “I was stunned.”

  “You were stunned on Wednesday, when I told you my mother wanted to meet yours. But on Friday you were running. You wanted nothing to do with me. It was like I never existed. Be honest, Hunter. You knew we weren’t going to make it.”

  “I wanted us to,” he admits. His voice curls sharply.

  “But you had your doubts,” she insists. She was there. She felt them. And she can hear it now in his voice, beneath his anger. “What were you thinking about when you kissed me? When you held my hand? Did it ever feel right to you?”

  “Yeah, Genny, it did.”

  She shifts on her feet. His admission is a burden. “I’m sorry, then,” she says. “It never felt right to me,” she admits. “I wanted it to, too. I tried to make it feel right, but that’s not possible.”

  “It’s not possible now,” he asserts.

  “No, it’s not,” she agrees.

  “Because you’re with him. How did that happen, Genny?” he demands. “We never even broke up. Not officially. And you’re dating some guy you don’t even know.”

  “We broke up before I started dating Truman,” Genny corrects. “We were officially over when you blew me off. When you couldn’t even remember how long we were dating. When you told me we weren’t serious about each other. When you stopped talking to me, stopped hearing me, stopped seeing me. Don’t delude yourself, Hunter. You broke up with me, you were just too much of a coward to say the words.”

  Genny didn’t mean to resort to name calling, but his accusation really burns her.

  “I made some mistakes,” he admits. “But even consumers get a cooling off period.”

  “I’m not a car, Hunter.” Genny’s never been big on beating around the bush. “The real issue here is your pride. If I didn’t start dating Truman you would still be dodging me in the halls.”

  “Probably,” he admits. “You didn’t give me a graceful out.”

  “I didn’t know that was my responsibility.” But she would have liked a little of that herself. She takes a step back. “I can see this was a mistake. You want someone to blame. I guess our friendship meant as little to you as I did as your girlfriend. If that changes you know where to find me. It’s on you now.”

  “He’s where I can find you.”

  “Yes, he is. You need to see if you can live with that.”

  She turns and walks to the end of the hall. She pushes through the door and out into a cool spring afternoon. She left her jacket in her locker and so does not want to go back in there. She tosses her back pack on a bench and sits down next to it. She could call Truman. She wants to call Truman. He’ll pick her up. They can go to that Spanish restaurant in Knob Hill. It’s small enough it’s cozy and they like the tapas there.

  She pulls her Blackberry out of her bag and presses the wolf icon on the screen to speed dial Truman. He asked her about that, “Why a wolf?”

  “Shared characteristics,” she confessed.

  “Yeah?” His smile curled slowly into place. “Name a few.”

  “Why? So your head can grow a little bigger?”

  “Actually, you’re really stingy with the compliments.”

  Because she feared he was right, she began to list the most obvious traits first, “Well, the hair of course. But you also have this intense stare and you’re slightly more dangerous than a fox.”

  “How does a fox come into this?”

  “That was the first image I got off you,” she admitted. “Again, because of your hair. But a fox is a herbivore.”

  “I’m not a fox,” he agrees.

  “No. But a wolf? Definitely.”

  “Because my hair is almost this red color and I have a mean stare.”

  “Intense,” she corrected.

  “And I’m dangerous?” He didn’t seem to like this perception.

  “Sort of like when you see a wolf in the wild. Your first response is excitement, but that’s quickly followed up with the ‘be careful, dangerous’ voice in your head.”

  “Why am I dangerous, Genny?”

  “I think you could end up hurting me,” she admitted on a thin breath. You could realize, after all, that it was all about saving me, not loving me.

  But he was shaking his head. “No. No way. You’ve got me, for as long as you want me.”

  “What if that’s forever?”

  “I’m hoping it’s forever.”

  Genny hope
s so, too. She’s getting more and more comfortable with the idea of longevity. She can’t imagine a future without Truman.

  The call connects on the second ring and Truman’s deep voice is first a sensation before his words begin to make sense.

  “Where are you?”

  “School.”

  “You want me to come pick you up?”

  “Yes.”

  “What changed your mind?”

  “Hunter isn’t ready,” she tells him. “And I miss you.”

  “I miss you, too.”

  “Tapas?” she asks.

  “And you accused me of reading your mind.”

  She can hear the smile in his voice and lets the warmth it triggers spread as deep as her fingertips and toes.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Genny scans her planner and waits for Ms. Marble, her advisory teacher, to finish with the girl seated in front of her. Genny thinks this time is wasted. It’s twenty minutes of do you have your assignments written legibly into your day planner and did your parent sign it? Which really translates to less than a minute spent with the teacher and nineteen minutes of chatting with her BFF, which is never a waste, except that something is up with Serena and Genny has spent a lot of time trying to ignore the deep gash that’s settled between Serena’s brown eyes. Her friend has been frowning for days and won’t give up what’s troubling her. Every time Genny asks her, Serena waves a hand like she’s trying to erase a memory that’s haunting her. Then she plasters a smile on her face and says something like, “Focus on the positive, right?” And when Genny prods further, Serena just shakes her head and changes the subject.

  It’s not Victor. They’re their usual, sweet selves.

  It’s not her grades. They compared progress reports last

  week and Serena’s had nothing on it lower than a B-, and that was in PE, which was an improvement over last marking period.

  Genny wonders if Serena’s family is OK. In addition to both parents, Serena has an older sister and a younger brother. The sister, Carmel, has had a stretch of good after getting into trouble in high school, dropping out and mixing with partiers.

  “Is Carmel still in beauty school?”