Lowe shrugged. “I don’t mind Thanksgiving. Mom passed a while ago, so it’s just me, my older brother, and my dad. My dad is a litigator and always working. So Josh and I just get takeout and sit back, have a beer, and watch the game.”

I hadn’t known that about Lowe. Although he’d spoken casually about his mom, there was a definite tightness in his tone. Since he was sitting beside me, I felt the tension in his body. So no one would notice, I put down my cutlery, lifted my wine glass with one hand, and gently squeezed Lowe’s knee under the table with the other.

Two seconds later I felt his warm hand cover mine and he gave me a squeeze back. I looked at him out of the corner of my eye and saw he was giving me a small, grateful smile. His muscles relaxed and I let go of him as Beck started sharing.

“My mom and stepdad always go on vacation at Thanksgiving because Mom hates the cold. That leaves me either stuck in the house by myself, much like Claud, or if my dad’s coherent, I’ll drop by his place with some food.”

I wondered what the comment about his dad meant and as I looked around the room, I knew only two other people understood exactly what it meant—Jake and Claudia had hard looks in their eyes, the kind of look a person gets when someone they care about is mistreated.

Shit. Beck didn’t have it great at home. It didn’t surprise me that Jake knew … but Claudia? I was beginning to think she and Beck were a lot closer than any of us realized.

“Well,” Matt smiled, breaking the tension, “Thanksgiving at home is awesome for me. I live with my aunt and uncle because my parents died when I was little, which isn’t awesome obviously, but my aunt and uncle are cool and my aunt can cook the shit out of anything. Seriously, our table is, like, immense. We’ve got three different types of bird, three different types of potato, gravy that I think I’d kill for, chocolate pie, and pumpkin pie. Neighbors try to get an invite every year, it’s that good. There’s always so much food, my aunt invites a different couple of people every year. I swear it’s like they’ve won the lottery when she chooses one of them. And she’s got to be careful she doesn’t show someone too much favor because that drama lasts a whole f**king year.”

We smiled at him, imagining a table piled with food and neighbors clamoring to get to it.

“Thanksgiving is good for me too,” Melissa smiled contemplatively, leaning closer into Jake. He smiled at her and put his arm around her chair. The turkey in my mouth turned to ash. “It’s usually just me and my dad, my stepmom, and two stepsisters. My stepmom isn’t the greatest cook, but she always insists on doing it. I go behind her, fixing her mistakes, and she doesn’t have a clue,” Melissa laughed. “She’s sweet. So are my sisters.” She shrugged. “We just laugh a lot.”

“It sounds nice,” Claudia smiled. “It sounds really nice.”

“Well, you’re more than welcome to come to Thanksgiving at my house next year,” Melissa offered kindly. I wanted to stick my fork in her eye. She had my ex-boyfriend. She was not getting my best friend.

Claud looked ready to burst into laughter, as if she knew exactly what I was thinking. “Thanks, Mel, but I’ve forced myself onto Charley’s family and I’d feel rude if I stopped doing that.”

Chuckling, I shook my head. “She has not forced her way in. I swear to God, my parents like her more than they like me.”

“Do you have a nice Thanksgiving, Charley?” Lowe asked quietly.

I nodded at him. “Me, my mom, my dad, my big sister Andie. My grandmother sometimes too, and now Claud. I’m the only female in my family who can’t cook, so I get to sit and watch the game while they all cluck in the kitchen.”

“Cluck?” Claudia asked, clearly offended.

“Like a hen.” I nodded. “Who’s mashing the potatoes? They all answer at once—cluck, cluck, cluck. Who checked the bird last? Cluck, cluck, cluck. We’ve all brought our best pie dish, which one should we use? Cluck, cluck, cluck, cluck.”

The guys laughed and Claudia twisted her mouth into a moue. “That is a gross misinterpretation of the situation. I don’t own a pie dish.”

“Oh, really?”

Claudia exhaled. “Okay, I do. And maybe we cluck a little, but the hen noises are worth it once the food is on the table. No one makes pumpkin pie like Delia Redford.”

“Amen, sister.”

“What about you, Jake?” Claudia turned her attention rapidly to him. “How’s Thanksgiving at your house?”

I lowered my eyes, knowing the answer to that one. I’d dreaded his turn since we’d started sharing. It reminded me all too well of the best Thanksgiving I ever had.

“It’s always good. The immediate family—me, Mom, Dad, my little brother Lukas, and my dad’s mom. Some of my best memories are from Thanksgiving.”

I tensed at this confession, wondering if he meant what I thought he meant. Quickly, so no one would notice, I glanced up at him from under my lashes to see if he was looking at me. Instead, Jake was studying his plate, apparently intent on not making eye contact with anyone.

“Thanksgiving at my house is crazy,” Denver informed us loudly. “I mean, we got my whole family, which is me and my three brothers and my parents, plus we got cousins, uncles, aunts, grandparents, nieces, nephews. The house is packed with people and food. I swear to God, I need a vacation just to get over the holiday.”

“I bet you wouldn’t trade it for the world,” Claudia said.

He shrugged, a guy equivalent of agreement.

Lowe leaned forward, shoving his now-empty plate aside. “Where do you think you’ll be on Thanksgiving five years from now? Who do you think you’ll be?”

“You go first,” Beck grinned at him before taking a sip of beer.

“Okay.” Lowe relaxed against his chair, his arm casually draped around the back of mine. “I’m in a hotel room in London with some random hook-up while I get ready for a show at the O2 Arena with my band, The Stolen.”

The guys grinned. Matt relaxed back in his chair. “Well, I guess that’s my future plan.”

“Yeah, you’re our f**king roadie because you’ve been replaced by Dave Grohl,” Denver grunted.

Beck chuckled and threw a potato at Denver. “You’re a shit.”

“Where will you be, then, smart-ass?” Matt asked Denver.

“Getting sucked off by—ow!” He glared at Claudia as he rubbed his head where her hand had cracked across it. “What the fuck?”

She glowered back at him, unmoving. “It’s Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving doesn’t involve that kind of language, thank you very much. Apologize.”

“Jesus, okay, I’m sorry.” He winced, feeling his head for blood.

The rest of us all looked at one another, trying—and failing—to hold in the laughter. We collapsed into hysterics as Denver attempted to annihilate us with his eyes. Claudia sat prim and unmoving.

Beck grabbed her by the back of the neck and pulled her close so he could kiss her forehead affectionately. She relaxed and rolled her eyes, settling back into her seat.

“Where will you be?” Lowe asked me as soon as the laughter died down.

I felt my cheeks warm as they turned their focus on me. “Uh … either having Thanksgiving with my family or patrolling the streets of Chicago as a rookie with a really crap work schedule.”

He smiled at me. “And nothing else. No guy? Or girl?” he winked at me.

“You can squash that fantasy, Lowe. I’m not into girls.” I shoved him playfully and then stared at my plate, avoiding Jake’s gaze. “It would be nice to think there will be a guy. Who knows?”

Lowe snorted. “There will be a guy, Charley,” he said, sounding absolutely convinced on the matter.

I raised an eyebrow. “Are you clairvoyant?”

“Nah. I’m just not blind. It’s a miracle you’re single at the moment.”

The compliment hit me in all my good-for-nothing places and I shook my head, trying to laugh it off with everyone else. It wasn’t easy when I could feel Jake’s eyes burning into me.

“Claud, where do you see yourself in five years?” Matt asked her. “With me, right?”

I laughed as Claudia rolled her eyes for the second time that night. “If I’m going to be with anyone in five years, it will be Will McPherson.”

“Who the hell is Will McPherson?” Beck grumbled.

I answered for her. “The hot TA Claud has been lusting after for two years and has been too chicken to approach.”

“Why would you be too chicken to approach?” Matt guffawed. “Have you seen you?”

“Are you trying to kill me with compliments, Matt?”

“Seduce, Claud, not kill.”

“I don’t think it’s working,” Beck said, smirking at him.

“Well,” Melissa spoke up, her tone overly cheery, “in five years’ time, I’m hopefully going to be working on my postgrad, and spending Thanksgiving on vacation with my whole family and Jake.”

My fingers clenched around my wine glass. When I dared to look over at her, she was giving me a firm but pointed look. I managed to keep my flinch inward and calmly took another drink of wine.

Nice Melissa was gone then. Determined-to-keep-her-boyfriend Melissa was in town.

“Jake?” she turned to him, “what about you?”

He didn’t look at her, just sat staring at the beer bottle in his hand as he picked at the label. “What about me?” he answered a little flatly.

“Where do you see yourself in five years’ time?”

He shrugged and then shot the table a strained grin. “A roadie for The Stolen.” The guys laughed, helping him out. Lowe quickly turned the conversation elsewhere.

As I collapsed into my bed later that night, I wondered not for the first time that evening whether Jake spent the entire dinner remembering our first Thanksgiving together … and our promise that we would never stop loving each other.

Chapter Twelve

For the first time since rescuing my sister from the SUV, I wished to God I were Supergirl. I’d never read the old comics but surely Supergirl wouldn’t have been this nervous about going all the way with her boyfriend? Or maybe she would have, I didn’t know. Maybe like me, Supergirl put up this front that she was confident about everything, when in reality she was just as scared as the next girl.

I didn’t know why I was so nervous about my plans to lose my virginity to Jake. Throughout the last four months, I’d been the one making the moves, pushing for our first kiss, pushing for fooling around. We’d done a lot of “stuff” together, and although I’d felt a little flurry of jitters when we’d first started out, I hadn’t felt nervous or anxious the way I was now feeling nervous and anxious.

The truth was I didn’t want to disappoint Jake in any way. I’d gotten it out of him that he’d lost his virginity when he was only fourteen. He wouldn’t tell me how many girls he’d been with, which worried me more than a little, but he promised it was nowhere near as scary a number as I probably had in my head. Still, Jake was experienced for his age. I guessed part of that was due to the fact that he didn’t look sixteen.

Take Stacy Sullivan, the waitress at Hub’s, for instance. I knew the rumors that Jake had slept with her were true. I knew this because since dating Jake, I’d hardly been inside Hub’s and the reason was because Jake didn’t appear to like it all that much. That was ridiculous—Hub’s had great food—so I suspected it had more to do with the fact that he’d nailed Stacy.

So Jake was experienced. And I wasn’t.

I knew it was ridiculous to have those concerns. Jake loved me and he wanted to be with me no matter what. That didn’t mean I didn’t want to be the best he ever had.

“Ugh,” I groaned and dropped my head against the bathroom mirror, trying to take calming breaths. I jerked my head back, jumping out of my skin at the sound of my cell binging.

It was a text from Jake.

Coast is clear. I’m outside x

I sent him an affirmative text back, drew in a deep breath, and hurried out of the bathroom. Mom and Dad were at work, so at least I didn’t have to hide what I was up to.

It was a Saturday and Jake’s parents and Lukas had gone Christmas shopping in Chicago. Chicago was actually an hour closer to Lanton than Indianapolis, plus Lukas was meeting up with some old friends. Jake had begged off the family day trip with the excuse that he wasn’t feeling great.

In reality, we just wanted his house to ourselves.

Two weeks ago when Jake had mentioned the shopping trip, I’d instantly thought about having an uninterrupted day with Jake in the vicinity of a bed. We spent most of our time fooling around in Hendrix in Brenton Fields and a couple of those times, things had gotten seriously frustrating for the both of us. It was bad. It had gotten to a point where I was zoning out in class because all I could think about was Jake’s hands on my body.

That’s why I casually suggested that he didn’t go with his family.

Assured that I meant it and that I was ready for us to have sex, Jake had eagerly jumped on board with the idea.

Bundled up in my winter gear, I hurried out to Jake’s truck, jumping in out of the cold and rubbing my hands together. I gave him a small smile. “Hey.”

He stared at me a moment, his eyes searching. “You okay?” he asked softly.

I nodded quickly. “Yeah, let’s go.”

Instead of going, Jake put Hendrix in neutral and pulled up the handbrake. He twisted around, sliding his arm behind my seat so his body was turned into mine. “Baby, we don’t have to do this. If you’ve changed your mind, it’s okay.”