Startled by my response, he started laughing, then he squeezed me at the sides and muttered, "I see how it is."
I smiled, impulsively kissing him on the shoulder. "No, I'm just playing. I really am glad you were born, even for reasons beyond my sweater."
"Yeah?" he asked. "Then what do you say you give us a real chance?"
I had to think about it for a minute. He was asking me to do something I had never done before, something I had never wanted to do—let him in my heart when I had spent my life keeping people out. He was asking me to completely throw aside my safety net and take a chance on him, to actually risk losing my heart to him.
But then I started to think of how I had felt when I thought he didn't want to be with me anymore, that slight feeling of panic, the gnawing in my stomach. These weren't good signs, I was certain, but maybe he was right. Maybe I was too afraid. Maybe Mike just made bad decisions, and Derek wouldn't do that to me.
Should I put my fears aside and take a chance on Derek?
All my conditioning prompted me to tell him no, but as I looked up into his intoxicating blue eyes, I realized my heart felt kind of funny, and the decision might not be entirely in my hands anymore.
Instead of giving him my consent
to steal my heart, I said, "Promise me you won't hurt me."
He smiled down at me, making me feel like I could trust him if I would just stop resisting, and he leaned down to kiss me, murmuring against my lips, "I promise."
Chapter Ten-
In all the time I spent denying that I was dating Derek, I don't think I realized how nice things would be if I just stopped fighting it and went with the flow.
Since Derek and I were officially dating, I didn't feel awkward when we sat together at lunch, I knew I didn't have to explain why he would sit on my desk to talk to me, and it seemed like a perfectly natural thing to do to just walk down the hall holding hands.
Although Derek started picking up extra shifts at work, we still spent as much time together as we could outside of work and school, but I never wanted to go to his house, just in case I would run into Mike.
He spent the night a time or two over the course of our first official week, and spent those two nights introducing me to a more tender kind of sex, the kind that could actually be referred to as lovemaking. I liked that, too, although he would still tug on my hair a bit.
Strangely, the only thing that was really different since admitting that Derek and I were dating was that it was easier. I didn't have to spend so much time being confused or suspicious, and I didn't have to waste any energy making up excuses about being friends.
Derek and I were more than friends, and even though at the start of the week I had difficulty accepting that, it only seemed to take until the end of the week to sink in. Once I stopped fighting it, I realized that it just felt right.
I thoroughly enjoyed Derek as my boyfriend, too. He no longer had to come up with reasons to hate me, as we were both set free of that dutiful –but pointless—hatred.
I still enjoyed talking to him about school assignments, and the way he would look at me, eyes twinkling, and shake his head made it somehow better. He made me feel so good, so special, even cherished when he would look at me that way. He had this way of conveying his feelings for me in a single look, and when he would look at me that way there was no doubt in my mind that he did care about me.
I never realized how good it would feel to have someone care about you when you returned the feeling. I had known that Andy cared, but that only made me feel like there was a burden on my shoulders, a vague sense of guilt that I could never and would never reciprocate.
With Derek, even though it still made me a little anxious to think about it, I already returned the feeling.
Not that I loved him, obviously—but I certainly cared about him. And there were plenty of things I loved about him, or things he would do that I loved. But I still wasn't going to go throwing that word around.
Another thing I loved about openly admitting that Derek was my boyfriend was that I got to enjoy official girlfriend privileges, like nagging him about taking me places I wanted to go, and guiltlessly expecting rides to and from school.
I got several rides to the bookstore, where I still hadn't put my application in. It definitely wasn't Derek's favorite place to go, and since I could spend hours in a bookstore and still want to go back the next day, he got bored easily. Usually he would try to find me if I had wandered off, but sometimes I would actually hide from him just to amuse myself.
During one of our trips, I really threw him off. I saw him peeking down the aisles for me, so I made sure to stay an aisle ahead of him, but I ended up wandering over into the children's books. Ironically, even over there I found myself browsing through the books, and while I was browsing I found the book that had always been my favorite growing up.
"Derek, look," I said, excitedly running over to him and holding up my book.
He raised an eyebrow and read the title. "The Littlest Pumpkin." Then he gave me a funny look. "I think you've been here too long, hon. That book is for four-year-olds."
I rolled my eyes dismissively. "I know that, but you don't understand. This was my absolute favorite book when I was little. My mom used to read it to me every single night, but my grandma sold it in a yard sale for a quarter, and I've never been able to find it again."
"How tragic," he remarked dryly.
"This is the best book," I told him, hugging it to my chest. "Because of this book I used to drive my mom crazy. She would take me up to the little produce stand to pick out my pumpkin for Halloween, and she would show me the big pumpkins, but after she read me this book, I would always pick the littlest pumpkin to take home."