Playing with Fire

Again, I found myself trying to kick and punch him.

Again, I failed.

He was now crowding me so close, his breath fanned my face as he spoke. I started screaming from the top of my lungs. Like he’d raped me. Like he was hurting me back.

“Calm the fuck down.” He bracketed me with his arms, my back against the fridge. He didn’t sound any less composed. “Or you’ll leave me no choice but to slap the hysteria out of you.”

I shut up immediately. I didn’t think he would lay a hand on me—I already gathered he wasn’t that type of guy—but I didn’t put it past him to punish me in some other way.

I pretended to breathe in and out. The sooner we got this out of the way, the sooner I could leave.

“You done freaking out?” He raised an eyebrow.

“Sure. Totally Zen,” I bit out, gulping greedy breaths. “May I have some of my personal space back now?”

West took a step back, allowing a sliver of space between us. He leaned against the counter, folding his arms. “So.”

“So?” I huffed.

“You’ve got yourself a nice, angry scar.”

He said it. He actually went out and uttered it aloud. Nobody had pointed out the existence of my scars before. Not to me, anyway. People usually ignored it. Pretending they hadn’t noticed. Which was somehow even more uncomfortable for me.

“What’s the deal with covering it up? We all have scars. Yours is just visible.”

“It’s gross.” I swung my gaze to the ceiling, avoiding his stare. I refused to cry for the second time in a week, and I was definitely not going to let him see it.

“Says who?” he pressed.

“Says everybody. Especially when people around me used to know me as someone else.”

As someone pretty.

“Sounds like a pity party to me. Should I bring anything? Snacks? Beer? Inflatable sex dolls?”

“Who said you were invited?” I was still focusing on the trailer’s ceiling.

He snorted out a laugh, slapping a rag over his knee in my periphery.

I noticed West laughed a lot when we were around each other, but never at school.

I also noticed he was apparently insane, because he didn’t seem bothered at all by his own dire state.

“You’re making a big deal out of nothing. It’s just scar tissue.”

“It ain’t attractive.”

“It ain’t unattractive enough to prevent me from wanting to tap your ass.”

My mouth dropped, and I blinked rapidly, trying to figure out how, exactly, I was going to answer him.

He’d been throwing around the idea that he found me appealing every now and then.

I still thought he either said that sarcastically or because he wanted poor Toastie to feel better about herself. At least I’d stopped thinking it was De La Salle who sent him to breathe unfounded hope in me. West didn’t seem like the type to answer to anyone, much less take direction and orders from others.

“Was that your idea of a compliment?” I hissed.

“No,” he drawled, dead serious. “It’s my idea of the goddamn truth. What is wrong with you?”

Something euphoric and warm clawed at my chest. It was the first time I’d toyed with the idea that he was telling the truth. We stared at each other wordlessly. I waited for him to explain why he looked like he’d been attacked by a pack of wolves. When he didn’t, I arched an eyebrow.

“Speaking of not looking too hot …”

He clutched his heart, mockingly mourning my low opinion of his looks today. “You wound me.”

“Apparently, I’m not the only one. Did you fight yesterday?”

West flipped two empty crates, one on my side of the trailer and one on his, and sank down. I followed suit. In a lot of ways, the food truck felt like our bubble. A snug confession booth.

The rules were different in the truck. Like we shed our primary skin, of our stigma and reputation and social status. Here we were simply … us.

“I fight every Friday.” He popped his knuckles. His biceps flexed under his short Henley.

I looked away, clearing my throat. “No offense, but you can’t tell me people come to see you on Fridays during football season.”

“People go straight from the football field to the Plaza, get trashed, then wake up for college football. You Texans realize there are other sports other than football, yeah?”

“We try not to encourage other sports, as they tend to butt into the sports channels and water down the football. Do you always fight? Even when school’s out?”

“Even if I have pneumonia and a broken rib.”

That didn’t sound like a figure of speech. It sounded like something that had actually happened in the past. He must have really needed the money. Or maybe he didn’t care about dropping dead. I had a dreadful feeling it was a combination of the two.

“You normally don’t look too worse for wear.” I nibbled on my lower lip, my heart rate slowing down as the minutes ticked away.