All Grown Up (Eden High)

We held hands and nuzzled each other after giving our orders, but I refused to kiss her here. I want that first long-awaited kiss to be something special. But there’s no reason not to get started on the buildup. “Baby, do me a favor.” I waited for her to look up at me with her short ass. Even seated, it was obvious that I had a few inches on her.

“Anything!”

“For the next few days, until your birthday, don’t wear these jeans again. In fact, if you have skirts down to your ankles, that would be good.” She snort laughed, and I bit her nose playfully. She thinks I’m playing, and I let her, but secretly I realized that I had crossed into ‘that’ territory.

The territory where I’ve watched Jace and the others lose their shit over something one of their women had done that they didn’t like. I’m always the voice of reason at those times, or so I thought. As the only single guy in the bunch, it wasn’t much of a stretch to have one of my sisters look for me to side with her when their man was being a jackass.

I don’t know how many threats I’ve encountered from one of the brothers over that shit, but now I get it. When it’s yours, everything looks different from the other side. So Jace telling Sian what to wear or Shayne laughing and telling Tammy she’s out of her mind when she wants to go somewhere without him isn’t as controlling as I once thought. Now I get why they’re the ones who do most of the shopping for their women.

“Wait, you’re serious. Sian told me about this, but I didn’t believe her.” I thought for a second that she was going to be pissed or come at me with the ‘you’re too controlling’ bit, but instead, she smiled prettily and blushed.

“What’re you smiling about?” She didn’t answer for a while but kept her head down.

“Thank you, Alex.”

“For what, baby?”

“For treating me like the others. When I listen to Sian, and the others talk about their husbands, even though it sounds like complaining, I can see how pleased they are. I always feel left out. I never thought that you’d… that you’d be that way with me.” She says that shit now, but I’m pretty sure it won’t be long before she’s throwing shit at my head the way Belle does to Jared. Come to think of it; I think all of the guys, at one point or another, have had to dodge an airborne missile from their wife.

I didn’t have to answer because the waitress was soon here with our food and I got to see my foodie at work. As we ate, I kept the topic of conversation shifted, and I kept it away from everything but her birthday. I know now that she’s been dealing with those notes for weeks without uttering a word to me, and wanted to make sure that she had this time for herself.

I’ll show her instead of telling her that her worries were at an end, but there was something that I needed to get out of the way before we went any further. It came completely out of left field but whatever. “I’ve been thinking. With the lockdown picking up again, there’s no reason you can’t do your online classes from the east coast.”

We’d stayed back at the off-campus apartment complex because of the work we were doing for Mancini, though our parents thought we were quarantining there so we could all stay together, which is only true in part. The thing is, assholes don’t stop being assholes just because the world has taken a turn; in fact, they seem to amp up their shit even more.

Once again, her eyes lit up at the idea.

“I don’t know if my parents would let me.” She became deflated.

“The good thing about the age of consent is that you no longer need their approval. If it’s about money, you’re covered. If it’s about losing them, if they love you, they’ll come around. I guess it comes down to what you want to do.”

I hadn’t meant to spring this on her so soon; I’d been willing to give her at least another year, but to hell with them. I left her under their care, and they didn’t even know she was being terrorized for their own fuck-ups to boot. “You don’t have to decide right now.” Especially since I’ve already decided for you.

I didn’t say that shit out loud, but in my mind, it was a done deal. As we ate the food that wasn’t half bad, I started plotting to get my sisters on board with helping me convince her that coming back with me was the best idea. “When is Eden High going back into full lockdown?”