“Nice car,” he says as he runs his hand reverently over the dash.
I bite back a soft moan, thankful the roar of the engine covers it up.
“Seatbelt,” I finally say, and I’m met with an eye roll.
Well, I won’t have him dying on my watch.
“Sure thing, Daddy-o.”
I clear my throat at that and then drive out of the parking lot, speeding slightly to get us home faster, to get out of this small, confined space.
“So…you talk to your friends about me?” he says, and I swerve around another car, needing this drive to be over. It’s only five minutes to our place, but it feels like an eternity.
“They exaggerate.”
“Nothing to be ashamed of. I’ve told my cousins all about you.”
“I know.”
“That so?”
“Yes. It was a deduction I made when they arrived at our place. They knew far too much about me. Also, Sem told me once that I was the main topic of conversation whenever you were around.”
He leans back against the headrest and stares at me. That gaze burns in the best way.
“Yeah, well, can you blame me? You’re hard as fuck to figure out,” he replies.
I whip the car into my assigned parking spot at the apartment complex and cut off the engine. A long exhale escapes me as I turn toward him, that frantic tap on my knee mimicking the rapid pace of my heart.
He has no idea how closed off I can be or why.
“I don’t open up to many people. It’s nothing to do with you.”
“You open up to that pretty boy back there?”
I wet my lips and then push out of the car. I don’t need to speak to him about my friendships. Caleb and I aren’t close. We aren’t even really friends.
We’re definitely not boyfriends, no matter what his family thinks.
“Hey, what’s that supposed to mean?” he asks, scrambling after me. “Why the silence?”
I say nothing, just let myself into the apartment and crouch down, untying my boots.
“Look, you’re pissed… Well, I don’t know, are you? Because you’re damn hard to read, so I can’t really tell.”
I stand up, measuring my words. It was easier when he was ill, when he was half out of it. Now he’s asking questions that are making me squirm. What does he want from me? To open up and explain why I am the way I am?
I can’t do that.
It was hard enough talking to a therapist about it.
I move to the kitchen and grab a cup of water, swallowing it down with thirsty gulps.
He shifts on his feet, looking slightly forlorn. Lost.
I don’t want him to feel any sort of way about me.
“I’m not pissed,” I finally say, setting my cup in the sink. “Let’s just…watch a movie. That’s what you wanted, right?”