Girls in Love Read Free Page B

happiness with her new husband, Mike Tuttle. After half a dozen failed marriages, Lonnie Pressman-Tuttle was finally in a relationship that seemed to be working. And for that, Lara was extremely grateful. She’d spent enough nights sitting on the couch with her mother, watching bad Chevy Chase movies andeating Häagen Dazs out of the container, as Lonnie moaned about her latest romantic failure.
    Lara picked up the Wet n Wild lipstick she told Greer and Jessica she didn’t own anymore and put some on her lips. She made a kissy face, decided it looked too pink, and wiped if off again. She considered calling Greer into the bathroom for assistance, but then sighed and went back to work, shuffling through the metal tubes and plastic cases marked Stila, M·A·C, and L’Oréal.
    She’d seen Drew often during the school year by flying to Ithaca over holidays and vacations. She’d told her mother that she wanted to visit Jessica, and Lonnie was more than happy to encourage a good relationship between her daughter and her daughter’s new cousin. Of course, Lara thought with a smile, just which cousin and what sort of relationship was blossoming—well, what Lonnie didn’t know wouldn’t kill her. Anyway, Jessica knew about Drew and Lara, and, after a brief period of disgust and annoyance (“My own brother?” Jessica had wailed. “How could you not have told me?”), she had given the relationship her blessing. And she was always happy to meet Lara at the air-port, right beside Drew, who stood there tall and slender, with appealingly shaggy hair, clutching a bouquet of peonies, her favorite.
    Drew’s parents didn’t suspect anything because Lara slept on the air mattress in Jessica’s room. Lara and Drewcarefully planned their alone time around when his parents would be at work or out for dinner, and they managed to sneak in some pretty magical moments.
    The last time Lara had visited, she and Drew had walked along the shore as the sun set over one of the Finger Lakes, turning the water pink and orange. Drew brought her hand to his mouth and kissed it, which made Lara giggle. “It’s like we’re in some cheesy romance movie or something,” she said. “I mean, look at this sunset; it’s so bright it looks totally fake. Like Brad Pitt should be riding off into it with Angelina Jolie or something.”
    Drew smiled. “Go ahead and laugh,” he said. “ I’m not afraid of romance.”
    “You are, too,” she said, poking him in the ribs. “You’re, like, allergic to it.”
    As if to prove her wrong, he kissed her then, gently at first, and then more insistently, and suddenly she’d felt breathless. Her mood became more serious.
    “I think we should tell everyone,” she whispered when he pulled away, “about us.”
    Immediately Drew frowned, and his emerald eyes seemed to go dark. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
    Disappointment welled up in her—disappointment and confusion. What was the big deal? They weren’t related by blood! And if Jessica could handle the truth, Lara was pretty sure everyone else would be able to, too. She’d onlymet the rest of the Tuttles last summer, but they seemed like reasonable people.
    Lara had reached out to touch him arm. “But Drew—”
    He shook his head and smiled gently. “Not yet,” he interrupted. “Let’s just be a little patient.” Then he kissed her again, and the sweetness of his lips made her forget about her request for a while.
    That trip had ended on a good note. But the last phone call they’d had—well, that hadn’t gone so great. She’d pressed Drew again to tell his family about their relationship, and he had responded by clamming up. The silence on the other end of the line was deafening.
    After a while she couldn’t stand it. She was annoyed and she let herself sound like it. “What, so you’re just planning on keeping this a secret for the rest of our lives?”
    She could hear Drew inhale and then slowly exhale. “No one said