Her face fell. “I’m not abandoning you—”
“Let’s call a spade a spade.” I flicked my cigarette onto the pavement. “You’re abandoning me, but don’t worry, I’ll always be here.” I tapped my fingers against my head and laughed. —The Journal of Taylor B.
Lisa
THE MINUTE WE got into his car, I knew I’d made a mistake. What had I been thinking? After finding out who he really was, what his family was associated with, I was literally the last person on earth he should be with.
Next to murderers on death row. And even then, well… I shuddered. Did he even care about his image? The thought hit me square in the face: of course, he didn’t care. He was teaching. At a university. For a semester.
“When do you leave?” I asked, too curious to keep my mouth shut, even though I knew it was what was best.
“What?” His voice was so smooth it made me forget that he was a bad idea, that we were a horrible idea. “What do you mean?”
“You’re not taking the whole year off.”
He shifted in his seat, a part of his demeanor revealing a bit of nervousness before he straightened up and shrugged. “Christmas. It’s a big deal in our family now that—”
The car swerved.
“Now that?”
“What?” Tristan glanced over at me and raised an eyebrow. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to say that. I was distracted by the, um… raccoon.”
I smirked. “Wow, must have been a pretty raccoon to get you to swerve this nice car.”
“I’d probably label it,” he joked. “It was that pretty.” Tristan turned his head to the side, his smile brightening up the mood in the car.
He was clearly unaware of what that smile did to a girl; he shouldn’t be flashing it all over the place if he truly wanted one night of no commitments where I kept my hands to myself, rather than running them through his hair.
I cleared my throat and tapped my fingers against the side of the door. “So, where are we going?”
“Do you have to know everything?” He grinned, taking a turn down a road I didn’t recognize.
“Yes?”
“You plan,” he stated calmly. “I may label things, but you plan, don’t you?”
I coughed into my hand and tucked my hair behind my ear then tried to offer a noncommittal shrug. “Who doesn’t? I’m a college student. I’m basically forced to plan.”
“Not normal things,” He shook his head slightly, taking the next left. “You plan everything, don’t you? Not just your classes and your major, but your life, each month, down to what you’re going to wear the next day on the night before. Tell me you don’t pick out your entire outfit with jewelry before you go to bed at night. Tell me your toothbrush isn’t thrown away every thirty days so you can replace it with a new one,” He reached for my hand. “Tell me you wash your jeans.”
“Wh-what?”
“They aren’t supposed to be washed.” He brushed a kiss across the inside of my wrist. “But you plan, and you like things to be… orderly, so you wash them, just like I’m sure you don’t own a pair of white sneakers for fear they’ll get dirty.”
“Well, white’s stupid.” I jerked my hand away and crossed my arms like a toddler. “And I don’t wash all my jeans.”
His eyebrows arched even though he didn’t look at me.
“Okay, fine. So I wash them after wearing them even for half a day. Not a big deal. And really, isn’t this just calling the kettle black? I mean you label see-through plastic containers. Uh, I think we know they’re strawberries.”
Tristan burst out laughing. “Fine. You’ve got me there.”
“I do.” I nodded sternly. “So we both have… issues.”
“Which makes my idea for tonight perfect.”
“Oh yeah? Why’s that?”