No Easy Choices (A New Adult Romance) by Trista Cade Page A

fingers. I reached my arms up around his neck to pull him closer to me, luxuriating in the warm feeling of his tongue sliding across mine. Somewhere behind us a curtain moved behind the window and a face disappeared from view.
                  “I must go now,” Javier said. “I will call for you tomorrow, yes?”
                  “Yes,” I answered, smiling broadly for the first time in two days. “I would like for you to call me.”
                  He kissed me one last time and held me in a tight hug, then bounded down the steps and up the sidewalk, walking backwards so he could wave at me again. I returned the wave and went inside, where the sisters were ready and waiting.
                  Hands clutched at me and pulled me into the sitting room as more sisters poured down the staircase, all wanting the dirt on my date with Jackson. Um, who? Jackson who? I couldn’t even remember what he looked like, not with Javier’s kiss still scorching my lips.
                  “All right, Andie, spill it! We saw the whole thing, including the not-safe-for-sorority-house-porch kiss he planted on you in the doorway!” Connor boasted excitedly.
                  “Where did you guys eat?”
                  “Did he hold your hand during the movie?”
                  “Does he care that you’re an art major?”
                  That last question kind of silenced the crowd, even if it was just for a second or two, as all eyes turned toward Kennedy, wondering how she could ask such a thing.
                  “Well, I’m just saying, that’s the kind of thing that some guys get irritated about, like they’re afraid she’s going to turn out to be some feminist free-thinker who doesn’t shave her underarms, or something.” Kennedy crossed her arms and stared back at us with an unapologetic look on her face.
                  “No one thinks like that anymore, Kennedy,” Collins shot back. “Besides, the only way to be an art teacher is to take art, so surely he knows she’s going to be an elementary school art teacher.”
                  “I’m what?” I asked in an alarmed voice.
                  “And besides,” Brooks reminded us, “Jackson’s entering the draft next year. Andie wouldn’t work anyway, not with all the obligations she would have. Besides, she wouldn’t have time to finish school, so she wouldn’t be a teacher.”
                  “Jackson’s going into the draft?” Lindley piped up in a worried voice. “I thought the government quit doing that.”
                  “Not the military draft, silly, the NFL draft,” Brooks said very slowly for the sake of someone so dumb, rolling her eyes at the dim-witted remark. “As a team wife, Andie wouldn’t have time to clean her own house, let alone work full-time. Oooo! She could volunteer at an underprivileged school teaching art to the little disadvantaged children, though!” That got a general hum of approval as nodding heads bobbed around the room.
                  “Annnnnd...STOP!” I held up my hands for quiet. “WHAT. Are. You. Talking. About?”
                  “We’re just making some contingency plans for you,” Collins said. “You have to be prepared for a lot of outcomes, including following Jackson’s career.”
                  My eyes started to glaze over and I began to hear my own heartbeat pounding in my ears. I thought I might need to sit down until I figured out I was already sitting. Maybe I needed to lie down. In the dark. Without the Bridal Bunch hovering over me.
                  “Guys, I’ve got some awkward news for you. That wasn’t exactly Jackson on the porch.” I waited for the few minutes it took for that to circulate around the room and to sink in. “That was Javier. He came over to