Maybe Swearing Will Help (SWAT Generation 2.0 3)

My heart was pounding in my chest.

“You…” My mouth fell open. “You love me?”

He crossed his arms.

“I’ve loved you for forever, Ashe,” he drawled. “You were just too busy arguing with me to see it.”

Tears started to form in my eyes.

“What the fuck?” I asked. “When did that happen? How?”

His lips twitched.

“It happened somewhere between the moment I first saw you and the moment you started making my life a living hell,” he muttered. “I’ve loved you since we were kids. Since I tried to kiss you, and you punched me in the face. Remember that?”

I narrowed my eyes. “Well, you sure kept it a secret. I had no idea.”

He shrugged. “I can’t say that I handled it well. But I’m going to handle it a lot better from this point forward, okay?”

I narrowed my eyes.

“Why?”

He frowned right back. “Why what?”

“Why are you handling it better now?” I questioned. “What’s happened that needed to change?”

He leaned back onto the heels of his hands, the bag next to him momentarily forgotten.

“It changed the first time you let me inside of you,” he said simply.

I went from suspicious to understanding, just like that.

I’d done much the same, to be truthful. I’d had ideas, plans, and Ford hadn’t been in any of those.

Not that I hadn’t wanted Ford there, but I’d written him off as something I could conquer later. Later, when he wasn’t being so antagonistic every single time I saw him.

Now…

“You’ve got to know that I love you, too,” I said, shrugging. “It started out me hating you, to be honest. But sometime when we were teenagers, the idea of you and me not being one, really fucked me up.”

“Linnett.”

I blinked at his one-word answer.

“What?”

“Linnett,” he repeated. “She’s what changed it for you. I started dating Linnett, and you saw me go from multiple girls to one. That one really hated your guts, too, which pissed you off even more because even our daily squabbles were cut off because you couldn’t stand to be anywhere around her.”

I grinned.

“That’s true.” I laughed then. “God, I seriously hated her guts. And you’re right. Talking to you was the highlight of my day. Then she came around and ruined it.”

Ford sat up and accidentally knocked the bag of crap he had beside him over, and I bent down to help him pick it up.

My hand froze when I saw what was in it.

“Ford…”

***

Ford

“Ford…” she started.

I bent down to retrieve the stuff that’d fallen from the bag that I’d stopped and gotten on the way home from the call this morning.

She’d started to help pick it up, but the moment she got the first box in her hand and understood what it was, she was staring at it in horror.

“Breathe.”

She took a deep one, blew it out, then looked at me with not a little bit of fear in her eyes.

“You… what… are you crazy?” she asked.

My brows rose.

“Noodles.”

She blanched at the mention of her favorite food not being something she wanted to eat last night.

There were five things on this Earth that Ashe was always ready for, no matter if she was hungry or not.

That was chocolate cake. Then beignets. Third was lo mein noodles. Fourth was a double cheeseburger from Whataburger. And last, a Taco Bell crunch wrap.

For her to turn down those noodles was telling in and of itself.

“Throwing up after cleaning out a cat box that you do every single day?” I pushed.

Ashe grimaced.

“Your boobs are huge.”

Ashe opened her mouth and then closed it.

“Not to mention your nipples are extremely sensitive. All I had to do was touch them last night to get them hard,” I continued.

She looked down at my cock that was slowly rising in my pants.

“We don’t have time for that,” I told her. “We have to go to my parents’.”

She looked at me with horror-filled eyes.

“I can’t go to your parents after this!” She shook the box at me.

I gathered the other boxes and took them to the bathroom, dragging her along with me.

She followed like a child being led to their room after doing something wrong.

She was practically dragging her feet.

When we got to the bathroom, I ripped open the box and handed her the test.

Her immediate head shake had me rolling my eyes.

“Just do it, Soot,” I ordered.

She narrowed her eyes at me. “I’m not doing this with you in here.”

“If I’m not in here, you’re going to sit in here and refuse to take part in it. Then you’ll probably go to the bathroom just so you can say you don’t have to go.” I paused. “I know how you tick, dear.”

“Don’t call me dear like that,” she ordered. “That’s totally just weird.”

“Babe?” I asked.

She scoffed and yanked the stick out of my hand, looking at it with a look of worry.

“Do I just… pee on it?” I asked.