Love Nouveau Read Online Free PDF Page A

high makes me untouchable.
    Rejoining Rachel, I’m pleased to see that Cassie and a few other folks I recognize have finally made it. Cassie squeals and pulls me into a tight hug, spilling her beer on the ground. It feels good to be among my closest friends again.
    “Now,” I breathe, “where were we?” I shake off my exchange with Matt and twirl a few loose hairs around my finger, tucking the locks behind my ear.
    “Oh no … what’d you do, Ivy?” Rachel deadpans. Out of everyone on this Earth, Rachel can read me like an open book. I really need to work on my poker face.
    “It’s nothing, really.”
    “No,” she says pointedly, “you’re doing that thing. With your hair.” Damn it. My tell. “What’d he do this time?” she asks with a sigh.
    “He insisted on getting a drink with me. I insisted he leave me alone. And so he left me with no other choice than to give him my drink,” I spat quickly. “If you’d like to catch up with him, just look for the pissed off soaked shirt in the front yard.”
    “You didn’t,” Cassie gasps.
    “I did.” I can barely contain the smirk on my lips.
    “You think he’d take a hint by now,” Rachel comments.
    Unfortunately for me, he has never been that smart. To him, I was the answer to all of his problems. To me, he was a mindless escape from all of the drama and troubles I left behind in Chicago. Eventually, he found himself twisted into my life and went so far as to make a home for himself with my family. It’s completely my fault for ever allowing it to get that far.
    When I elected to take my senior year abroad to get away from him and everyone else in my life, Matt was less than thrilled. I broke his heart, and from what mutual friends had told me, he’d found solace in the bed of a few dozen girls. Even through his haste, Matt continued to claim that I was the one for him and constantly pleaded his case to be together. He wrote me nearly every week while I was in Italy, even though it fell on deaf ears. Then, he went as far as finding a job at a major ad agency in downtown Chicago with the intent of winning me back together after I graduated. While most girls would be thrilled at the thought of an old flame pining away and turning their life upside down waiting for their return, I was turned off.
    “Well, let’s go get you another drink. You know, in case Matt decides to come back,” Cassie chimes, pulling us back inside the house. Her blonde ringlets fit her personality—bouncy and out of control.
    It isn’t until this very moment I realize just how much I’d missed my friends while I was away. My heart aches a little for the time lost.
     
     
    ON OUR WAY BACK INTO the house, Cassie gets lost in the crowd and I can only assume she has made her way onto the makeshift dance floor in the backyard. The attractive guy in Greek letters is lingering by the keg and gives Rachel a sly smile. She wraps one arm around his waist and he leans over, kissing her hair.
    Clearly I’ve missed something as they obviously already know each other. He tucks his hand in Rachel’s back pocket and runs his finger tenderly down the edge of her nose, and I can’t help but feel like a Peeping Tom as the pair flirt shamelessly. Get a room, already. It’s clear she wants to spend some time with this guy but her eyes read guilty for leaving me to fend for myself.
    I kiss Rachel on the cheek and shoo her and the hottie away with a flick of my wrist. I’m a big girl and perfectly capable of entertaining myself at a party.
    The crowd inside the house has finally thinned out, and almost everyone is in the backyard grinding on each other to the beat of the music. Alone in my thoughts, I fight the annoyance of Matt’s surprise visit. Why the hell did he bother showing up? He lives in Chicago and needs to stay there. I haven’t even been home for twenty-four hours and I’m already itching to put space between me and the drama of my former life.
    I snatch the tap from the keg,