Untouchable (Untouchables, 1)

I’m wary of admitting to the last one, because it seems like the next step from “You want to see that, too?” could very easily be, “Well, we should go together,” and I would prefer not to be put into another situation where I have to shoot him down.

As nice as this lunch is, I can’t bring myself to agree to go on a date with him. How can I? It would be so twisted. Literally the first time he ever spoke to me, he made me go down on him. He showed up at my house with soup when he knew I wasn’t sick. He showed up where I work with his sister, so I couldn’t be mean to him. He’s manipulative and potentially dangerous, and I can’t let myself lose sight of that.

Even coming to lunch with him today, I worried I was putting myself in a dangerous situation. A date would give him the wrong idea. A date would make him think I’m open to maybe possibly sleeping with him someday, and I’m not trying to mislead him. Not least of all because, knowing what I know about him, I can’t be sure he wouldn’t take what he wants from me if he thinks it’s owed to him.

Damn entitled assholes.

My fear proves valid when the next thing out of his mouth is, “Well, I’ve got practice tonight, but if you’re not working tomorrow, we could go see it.”

I shake my head. “Can’t.”

“Because you work?”

I sigh, feeling mean, and then get angry at myself for feeling mean, because he certainly deserves it. “Please stop makin’ me tell you no, Carter.”

“I’m not making you say no,” he says easily. “You could start saying yes. It would be much more fun.”

“I disagree. I was stressed out about spending two minutes in a car with you. If I agreed to sit in a dark theater with you, I would have gray hair by the time the movie ended.”

“I’m not gonna pounce on you in public, Zoey. I do have an image to maintain, you know. I’ve pushed the limits, definitely, but even I can’t get away with that level of misbehavior out in the open. A movie theater is crowded. Lots of people around. You could call for help, if you felt the need to. I would behave myself. I want to see the movie. I’d invite you to my house if I just wanted to fuck you.”

“No.”

“How about we take someone else with us? I can bring a couple people so you won’t be alone with me.”

“Again, you brought people last time.”

“Fine, then you can bring people,” he offers. “Does Grace have a boyfriend? Bring them. I might want to shoot myself in the face if she likes the kind of guy I think she probably likes, but hell, I can survive alongside them for a few hours.”

“Grace doesn’t have a boyfriend anymore, and yes, you would have hated her last one. He’s a goody two shoes. He even got on my nerves, and I’m friends with Grace.” Looking at him as I grab my drink cup and take a sip, I add, “But the answer is still no. In fact, if ‘bring Grace’ is your suggestion, my answer is an even more vehement no. She was already scandalized that she saw me talking to you in the hallway, so something that looks like a date is out of the question.”

“It would look like a date because it would be a date,” he informs me.

“I’m not going on a date with you, Carter,” I tell him, plainly.

“Why not?”

I stare at him for a long moment, then sigh and shake my head. “You are relentless.”

“Yep,” he agrees, before popping a salty French fry into his mouth.

“You know why I won’t go out with you,” I tell him. “You can ask 20 more times, the answer isn’t going to change. If you wanted to date me, you should have started there, not… where you started.”

“Well, I didn’t know I wanted to date you then,” he states, somehow reasonably. “I just thought you were some shy, boring nerd who grossly overreacted to Jake wanting to bang you. It took a couple interactions before I noticed what he must have noticed first. Now I see it. Now I want you. I’m much more persistent than Jake Parsons, I’ll tell you that now.”

“See, that sounds like a warning,” I point out. “I don’t go out on dates with guys who exude such willingness to do harm. My type is ‘not a dangerous sociopath’ and I’m not convinced you fit the bill.”

Carter smiles like that amuses rather than offends him. “I’m not a sociopath.”

I press my lips together with exaggerated firmness. “That’s just what a sociopath would say.”

“I’m aggressive when I’m going after something I want, that’s all. That doesn’t make me a sociopath.”