Free Love Scars by Lark Lane Page A

“Did you learn anything?”
    “I overheard Nora and Lisa talking about Heron, but you’re going to hate this.” I grinned. “They think he funded the internships.”
    “Aw, stop it, man. That’s cold!”
    I laughed, relieved. Brad might have a broken heart, but he wasn’t going to let it kill him.
    “Did you hear anything useful?” he said.
    “Nothing specific, but MolyMo’s sniffing around the dig,” I said. “It could be as simple as wanting someone to bring out samples.”
    “Someone,” Brad said. “Meaning Nora.”
    “At least we know Barton’s an equal opportunity denier,” I said. “He isn’t letting anyone come onto the dig and test.”
    I reached for the remote, but Brad stopped me. “Come on, what else?” he said. “How was Nora? Did the earth move? Did she put Nicole out of the fuck buddy business?”
    “Don’t be crude.”
    “Ah-ha.” He tapped his forehead. “That good, huh? The old Brad-fu isn’t completely kaput.”
    “Nothing happened.”
    “Nothing happened. You tell me you spent the night with that hot girl and nothing happened.”
    “Nothing happened.”
    He shook his head. “Hm. So she doesn’t fall into the Nicole category. This gives my soul mate theory more weight. Could it be fragile little Nora has indeed found a way into your heart, that lonely organ unoccupied since Holly moved out and took all the furniture?”
    “Holly.” The word turned to chalk in my mouth. Neither of us had said the name in years, and now twice in three seconds.
    “J.D.,” Brad said. “Nora is no Holly.”
    “True.” Three times in six seconds. “I’ll be back.”
    I went to get more beers for the ice tub. Hearing Holly’s name was irritating, but it wasn’t just that. I’d been restless since yesterday. After Nora’s place, this place felt sterile. It was over four thousand square feet of perfection, all tile and hardwood floors and Persian carpets. Thanks to Mom and Scarlett, art occupied most of the walls. But something was missing. I wasn’t at home in my own house.
    I was suddenly homesick for the island. I never lived there, but from the start my mom had kept a room for me. It was the one place I could forget about the world and be myself. No expectations. No obligations.
    I took the second six-pack of Pale Ale out of the refrigerator and opened a bottle. The appliances in my kitchen would turn a celebrity chef green. The windows looked out on a greenbelt. I’d bought the house for that view. I would have preferred a place looking over Folsom Lake, but I wanted to be close enough to ride my bike to work.
    Holly. Brad had to go and say her name. I downed half the beer, but the cold liquid didn’t do a thing for me. It flowed right past the knot of resentment in my chest. Shit, I thought that was long dead and buried.
    Buried, maybe. Dead, not so much.
    Pretty Holly, the girl I loved with all my heart my senior year of high school. So out of my league. A scornful laugh escaped me. The cheerleader and the geek, back in the day when no one saw the upside to geekdom. She wasn’t the most popular cheerleader—the cliché didn’t go that far—but she was the one I liked best.
    Holly always smiled at me in the hall, even though the other girls in her mob were watching. When I sold the app that spring, I asked her to the prom and she dropped her football player boyfriend to go with me.
    I was, trite as it sounds, the king of the world.
    Instead of the usual SkyCity prom dinner at the top of the Space Needle, I hired a private jet to fly us to San Francisco to eat and then back to Seattle for the dance. Holly was so sweet and wide-eyed about it. I loved how jealous it made her girlfriends.
    I lost my cherry to her that night, in the back of the limo. Now that was a cliché. I was nervous and eager—and she was relaxed and eager. Far more competent at the business than she should have been. I didn’t think about what that meant until months later. She lifted her prom dress and