I said it all in a rush or word vomit and felt both better and worse. Maybe this is the reason why he doesn’t sleep with the same girl more than once. Perhaps he’s afraid they’d all become clingy and dumb like me right now. When he didn’t say anything, just stared out the window, I wished I could take back my stupid words. “I guess only time will tell.”
He started the car again, and though I could tell that he wasn’t one hundred percent pleased with me, he still reached for my hand and carried on as if I hadn’t just put a damper on both our moods.
TYLER
I’d seriously like to meet her dad and put a hurting on him. I’m pretty sure her lack of trust has more to do with his bullshit than with anything I’ve done. She never worried before when we were just friends or stepsiblings. So it’s the whole lovers thing that she’s afraid of. She’s afraid of having her heart broken because she’d seen it first hand.
Now I understand that no amount of words is going to show her that I’m for real. It’s not like showing her is any hardship. I just have to be very conscious of my dealings with her for the next little while. Who knew Ms. Tough Guy had such a soft shell? I let her preoccupy my mind until we pulled into the school parking lot.
She’s a handful in her own right and takes up a lot of real estate in my head, but there were other things I’ve been thinking about since I woke up this morning. Things that I need to take care of before the end of the day.
“You going to be okay? Say the word, and I’ll fast track everything of it’ll please you.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, if you’re going to worry about us not being able to show the world that we’re a couple, I don’t want that. I can go home and tell dad and your mom about us, that way, eliminating the need to hide it from anyone else since I don’t care about anyone else beyond those two when it comes to us.”
“Or, you can trust me, let me do things my way, and everyone will be happy. It might take a little longer, but the end result will be the same for us and a lot better for others, namely your mom and my dad.” I still can’t bring myself to tell her about dad wanting to adopt her. I have no fear of what she’d want, that she’d choose us. It just seems unnecessary to put her in that position.
I understood her need to stake her claim, though, because I’m going to have the same problem. I think she’d forgotten her actions of the last week or so and the fact that he now had half the male student body panting after her ass. “Do me a favor, will you. Tell your peanut gallery to fuck off before I break their faces.”
She looked out her window and grinned. “Oh come on, they’re harmless. They’re like a year younger. I like my men just a tad bit older.” She poked her tongue out at me, and I groaned. I wanted to kiss her so badly in that second that I could almost taste her lips. “Fuck it!”
I started the car up and pulled out of the parking lot with friends and onlookers calling after me. “What are you doing? Where are we going?” She looked back at the school until it disappeared from view. I pulled around back of the nearest coffee shop and parked. No one parked back here this early in the day since everyone was too busy trying to get to their jobs.
“Ty…oomph…” I released my seatbelt and pulled her towards me while still fighting with hers. The kiss went from zero to one hundred in the blink of an eye. My hand was in her hair, messing up her fancy do, and her fingers were digging into my scalp.
When I finally pulled away, her eyes were dazed, and we were both fighting for our next breath. “Whoa, what was that?” She touched her lip, where I’d been too rough.
“I have no idea. I just looked at you laughing and had the wild need to have you. Let’s go.”
She blushed and reached into her bag for lipstick. “You don’t need that.”
“Why not? I think it looks good.”
“You don’t need that.” She stopped with the tube halfway to her lips and then as if daring me rubbed it across them. I didn’t argue with her, just simply reached over and wiped her lips clean. “I don’t want you wearing lipstick.”
Don’t know where that came from or why it sounded like I’d regressed about a hundred years, but I seriously did not want her wearing that shit while she was going to be away from me. I’m glad she didn’t argue nor question me since I didn’t have any answers that would remotely suffice.