Fuck It (Yama Yama)

Feeling ridiculous with my head hanging out from under the bed, I very ungracefully heave myself out. Anderson just watches. Humor dances in his gaze while I straighten my clothes.

“The fact you’re willing to tell him is good enough for me. I think you’re right about keeping quiet until we see where this is going,” I finally say, trying to regain my cool points again.

Is the word cool even cool anymore?

Why do I suddenly care about so many tedious things?

“And we can do the getting to know each other thing without sex too,” I decide to add, since verbal diarrhea is a real thing and infecting me right now.

His grin only grows. “Can you sit down with me without attacking me? We could try out talking and get closer to seeing where this is going.”

It feels like he’s laughing at me, even though he’s not actually laughing.

“I’m being weird, aren’t I?” I groan.

He coughs to mask the laugh he’s working damn hard to hold in as he shakes his head and sits up. He grabs my hand before I realize what he’s doing and tugs me down to the bed. I scramble across his body to lie down beside him and blow out a shaky breath, attempting to get my nerves under control.

My heart hammers against my chest, an alien feeling sits in the pit of my gut, and I feel so lost. Worried about every little thing I say or do. Worried what an idiot I must seem like to him. Worried more than ever that my experience makes me all the more inexperienced.

Mostly just worried about my fleeting moments of sanity and why they seem fewer and fewer.

Insecurity is a bitch I’ve never faced so miserably.

Because I actually like Anderson Harper.

He seems content to just stare at me, but since I’m totally going for the awkward gold medal, I have to have words floating around to break the tension. “Why is Kasha’s father here? At your dad’s house?” Yeah, it’s the first thing that comes to my mind. Don’t judge me.

“Because they’re building a bridge over the past or something deep and insightful like that. It’s weird to me too, but whatever makes them happy,” he says with a shrug.

“Okay.”

More awkward silence descends between us, and he shakes his head when my gaze starts darting around the room, trying to look at anything but him.

“We should go down there and have some fun,” he says, eyes still dancing with mirth.

I smile tightly. “Fun. Sure. Let’s go.”

Before I can make a move, he tugs my hand, keeping me on the bed. “Why do you look uncomfortable at the prospect of having fun? You say the word like it’s a disease instead of something good.”

Confused at the abrupt shift in conversation, I simply shrug a shoulder.

“Seriously,” he says when I grow quiet. “I want to know. I’ve known you most of our lives, yet it seems like I hardly know you at all.”

His hand slides up my arm as his gaze drops to follow the contact there, staring absently at my shoulder while he toys with the hem of my camisole.

His eyes come up to meet mine again, and I clear my throat. He thinks he doesn’t know me, but he knows more about my life than most people outside my little bubble.

“Roman could have been a basketball legend. The whole reason he moved in with you in high school was because our parents kicked him out after the infamous fight that ruined his knee for sports. The fight that was caused because I was too naïve to be at the party I went to. He’s lucky he can even walk. And he was hurt because he was saving me.”

He quickly shakes his head, his look hardening. “No. He was hurt because those guys were fucking psychotic and needed to be behind bars. That wasn’t your fault, Sicily.”

Talking about this long-buried subject has my stomach roiling, and his muscles bunching with tension. Obviously, it’s not something that gets spoken about very often in the Hunt household. Everyone would like to pretend it never happened.

The Golden Boy of our family went into marketing instead of becoming a superstar.

“I was the idiot who took a drink from the wrong guys. I was almost a victim and would have been if not for Roman. My brother ruined his chances at a basketball career by fighting a battle I shouldn’t have gotten myself into. By being so heavily sheltered, I’d become not only naïve, but at risk. Roman’s life changed all because I wanted to go to a party and be a normal teenage girl for a night.”

He starts to speak, but I go on.

“I wanted to have fun,” I add around strain. “And it wasn’t fun at all. I regret that night every single day of my life. I only recently stopped feeling guilty when he found Kasha and said they bonded over their flaws, because they understood each other in a way most people can’t. He said he’d lose basketball a thousand times before he lost her once. Not that he knew I felt guilty—he’d have been shaking me until I promised not to feel that way. My version of fun now revolves around watching commercials on YouTube so I can stay relevant with my career.”