New experiences. New opportunities.

“Oh really?” Lucas asked me, taking a deep sip of his drink before he did, “Even this late?”

“I’m always up for a change of pace,” I coo back at him, leaning into the counter behind me and taking a deep pull from my beer.

The hoppy mess of the drink is mingling in my head and tingling in the extremities of me. I’m not drunk, not even remotely close to that. I’m barely even buzzed but I’m buzzing all the same because Lucas is so close to me and all of this is so close to what I want.

It’s so damn close to giving in.

“Tonight was good,” I said eventually, “But frustrating. I guess I’m just a little unsure of things right now, unsure of what to expect from things.”

“Well that’s college in a nutshell,” he replied, “New experiences. New opportunities. I can see that being all a little overwhelming. You don’t know what you want.”

“No,” I shook my head, “No, it’s not that. Well it is but it’s something more. It’s more like I know what I want, but I also know what I should want and those two things don’t align exactly. It’s… more complicated than you could imagine."

It sure was. It absolutely was.

Beneath my towel my body is on fire and every time I blink my mind plays out scenes of giving into this man in front of me. This tall and handsome and strong silver fox. With all of his capability and all of his experience, all of his ability to show me how to work this new body of mine just right.

Blake had been surprisingly adept but Lucas could be so much more. He could take his time with me, not eager to rush into anything.

There was a level of trust here with him that Blake could never get from me.

“Expectation is a powerful motivator,” Lucas said to me, “You’ve got the push and pull of a whole lot of different factors telling you what you ought to do. Authority figures and peers. Society and propriety. And yourself, of course, your own instincts and needs and wants. All of them mingling in together and pushing and pulling and trying to find yourself in the middle of it. Trying to find a space for who you are.

“I don’t envy you that journey. Gone through it myself and found my way through but it was a little like stumbling through the dark at times. Wish I could say it would be easy, but can’t say I’d ever want to do it again.”

“Never?” I asked him, “You’re never tempted to try again?”

“Go back in time?” he laughed, “Isn’t possible.”

Now we were pushing into something different and I found myself fascinated by the topic. I found myself wondering…

Lucas was a different man than me, a different man from the man I turned out to be. He was clearly confident and accomplished and successful, but no matter who he was he no doubt had some regrets.

No one gets out of life without regrets.

I knew my reasons for asking for that second chance. I knew my regrets outnumbered my accomplishments by a lot, so it made sense to me. But for him?

“Let’s say it was,” I said, then seeing him already start to excuse things, “Hypothetically. Let’s say you got the chance. Someone comes up to you and says you can go back and try again, from the beginning.”

He just laughed, shaking his head, “Too many years in that crappy little town for me to want to go back there.”

“So let’s say you can start off where I am now,” I said instead, “You blink and you’re on a bus out of town heading out for your first day of college and you can start again. You can try again. Would you do it?”

Lucas inhaled slowly, deeply, and his eyes kind of unfocused and stared into the middle distance. He took a sip of his drink and savored it and I watched him, knowing that he was playing through memories in his mind and actually considering the option.

I appreciated him for that, for the indulgence. I appreciated him giving me the time of day.

Because this question meant the world to me, because this question was one that I was absolutely living in.

And I got the feeling that while his answer was in no way even remotely related to my own, that it might still give me some kind of insight into what happened next for me.

For a limited time you can join my Patreon for only $2 and get access to over a month's worth of new pages of My Second Chance as well as SEVEN FULL STORIES with a new one every month! Join here: https://www.patreon.com/SophiePert