Dreams of 18

God.

I feel… all charged up and bubbly and light. “Where was your truck? I mean, I’m not that blind. I would’ve seen the headlights.”

“Yeah, that’s debatable.” Then, “I left it in the woods. I wanted to see how far you’d walk before you smartened up and called a cab. But apparently, you were too stupid to do that. Apparently walking all alone, in the dark, was preferable to calling for help. I almost wish I’d left you sleeping in your car just to teach you a lesson.”

I shake my head at him, kind of amused and a whole lot of tingly. “You not only came back for me and found me a place to stay for the night, you walked all the way back into town, on foot too.”

My voice sounds more fluttery and full of air than I’d intended for it to be. And Mr. Edwards hears it, as well.

His brows snap together, and he bends lower for this. “Let’s get this really fucking straight – the only reason I did any of that was because you looked miserable when I kicked you out of my truck. So I took pity on you. It was an act of pity, understand? Call off the teenage hormones because you’re leaving now.”

He removes his hand from the wall and gets up to his full height, towering over me like a pillar, and folds his arms across his chest, completely expecting me to nod and walk away.

Teenage hormones.

Right.

Of course, I’m a teenager so I’m bursting with hormones and I don’t know what I’m doing.

He really knows how to piss me off, doesn’t he?

I wasn’t going to be, but now I am.

I glare up at him, fisting my hands. “No.”

“Excuse me?”

“You heard me. First of all, I don’t need your pity. I don’t need any favors from you. And second of all, I’m not going anywhere. It’s a free country. I can stay here as long as I want. You can’t stop me.”

He goes all still and dangerous. As if I just challenged him, his inner beast. “Is that really something you want to say to me?”

Oh, man.

He doesn’t know what he’s done.

Challenge accepted.

“Yes. You can’t stop me. Boom. There. I said it. It’s out there now.” I make jazz hands and widen my eyes. “You wanna leave me on the side of the road, fine. Do it. I’ll walk back every time and I won’t call a cab just to spite you. That’s why I didn’t call it the first time. Because I knew you’d want me to give up. And you know what else? I’ll fall asleep in my car, every night. Again, just to spite you. I’m a teenager, right? Teenagers do crazy things. So yeah. I’m not one of your players and you can’t control me.”

I’m panting, watching him through this fog that seems to have settled over me, making me kind of numb and the world kind of blurry.

The only problem with the world being smudged is that now, he burns bright. Brighter than before. He appears sharper to me, clearer than ever, more in focus with his cold face and savage beard.

“Free country, huh?”

“Yup.”

“So you can do whatever you want.”

“Yes, I can.”

His smile is slow and lazy and one-sided, colder than ice.

I haven’t touched it, his smile, with my hands but my fingertips are going blue anyway.

His dark eyes drop to my mouth for a second. “So you do this a lot? Make a lot of drunken mistakes?”

I part my lips because holy shit, I can’t breathe. He’s staring at my lips.

Also, what?

“What?” I say it out loud.

He unfolds his arms and closes the distance between us again. This time there’s no dance, there’s no keeping rhythm with his feet. He comes at me in a flash.

“Drunken mistakes,” he says. “Like the one you made that night. Have you made them a lot? Since it’s a free country and all that. And you can do whatever the hell you want.”

I would’ve answered. I would’ve said something in response to his statement.

If he hadn’t dropped his gaze even lower.

If he hadn’t started staring at my chest.

Which in itself is so surreal that he’s doing that. That he finds something on my body interesting enough to do what he’s doing.

Staring. Very, very lazily. Like he has all the time in the world to look at it, to study it, memorize it.

And after a moment or two of his staring, I feel something on that exact spot where his eyes are.

I feel wet.

I whip my eyes down and realize that my wet-from-the-shower hair is draped over my shoulder and hangs over my right breast. The water from it has seeped into my t-shirt, making it damp and translucent. Making it so that the outline of my breast is visible along with my red bra, and my hard, puckered nipples.