Craft (The Gibson Boys 2)

“I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. What does matter is not ending up feeling like I’m being rejected by you.”

The rumble from his throat rolls by his lips. “I’ve never rejected you. I’ve practically begged you.”

“To sleep with you. That’s not what I want, Lance.”

“Well, it is but …”

I don’t laugh at his joke. It’s not funny. Whether I want to sleep with him or not isn’t the point. The point is I can’t. I won’t.

“That’s exactly what you want and I’m not mad about it. Why would I be? I just don’t want to be one of your app girls.”

“But you’d be someone else’s? You’d be History Hunk’s and that’s okay with you?”

“It doesn’t matter.” I grab the handle and he steps back. I pull the door closed. Rolling down the window while I shift the car in reverse, I look at his handsome face. “I don’t want things to be weird tomorrow.”

“Are they ever weird between us?” he asks softly. “Hell, we can even be other people and they aren’t weird. I bet we’d role play like a couple of motherfuckers.”

I try to smile. I try to hold onto the Lance I hear every day. I attempt to put myself back in that box and keep things separated but I can’t.

There’s a nod. A little wave. There’s even a fake smile as he watches me back out of my parking spot and head for the street.

There’s also a feeling in the pit of my stomach that the road ahead isn’t going to be easy.

Fourteen

Mariah

All of the ingredients to make lemon bars are lined up on the counter. They’ve been sitting there since I got home. Two loads of laundry have been washed, dried, folded and put away. The new flannel sheets fit perfectly on my bed and the carpet in the living room smells like the lavender scented water I used in the shampoo cleaner.

It was enough to provide a semi-distraction from the day. The goal, however, was missed. While my body might be tired, my brain is not.

Extending my arms across the table, I rest my forehead on them. The water and soap from cleaning has washed away Lance’s cologne. I sniff around my shirt, shoulder, forearms, and it all comes back lacking his scent.

My groan is obnoxious. It’s repeated, quieter this time, as the click of Whitney’s key frees the front door.

“You home?” The door clasps shut. “Mariah!” She mumbles about knowing I’m here, that my car is out front, about what a jerk I am to make her play hide-and-seek. But when she comes into the kitchen and our eyes meet, she stops. “Um, what the hell happened to you?”

I angle my face toward the table so I don’t have to see her.

“Are you okay?” She drops into a seat next to me, her palm resting on my wrist. “Talk to me.”

“I never should’ve used that app,” I mutter.

“You used it? I didn’t know that. I’m kinda proud.”

Groaning again, not so obnoxiously since I have an audience, I drag myself into a sitting position. She performs a quick evaluation of my appearance and flinches.

“Don’t be,” I puff. “There’s nothing to be proud of in this fiasco.”

“Did you meet someone from it?” She squirms in her seat. “There are rules about meeting up with people, Mariah. You didn’t meet a freak, did you?”

Lance’s smile flutters through my memory. The way he showed up out of nowhere when I ran into my mother when he could’ve just stayed away. Remembering the way he buffered that situation makes me fill with an outrageous warmth.

“No,” I ruminate before answering. “He wasn’t a freak.” While I’m scrubbing my hands down my face, the muscles in the back of my neck become tense. “I met someone though. Someone I already know.”

“Um …”

“Yeah.”

“I’m humiliated, Whit,” I cry. “I tell students every day to watch who they are online. To not do or say things they wouldn’t say to someone in real life. I preach and preach and preach, setting out pamphlets about this topic. Hanging these cute little posters around the library to remind them about the dangers of social media, and what do I go and do? Exactly what I tell them not to.”

I could cry real tears. Pinching the bridge of my nose, I shut my eyes and feel like a fraud. “I said things to him on that stupid app that I would never, ever say to him in real life. And now I’ll have to see him every day knowing he knows that I said those things. I just …” Dropping my hand, my shoulders fall right along with it. “I just want to climb under a rock and die.”

She watches me warily. “Can I ask who this guy is?”

I brace myself for her reaction. “Lance.”

“The hot teacher?” she says, poker-faced.