“You say that like I’m special.”
I have to tell him. The thought nearly sent me straight into a panic attack.
When I was eleven, Nadia and I went to the Y to swim. That first time, she was fearless, immediately running toward the high dive despite the clearly posted No Running sign. I followed slower, weighed down by my ruffled floral bathing suit, earplugs, nose plugs, goggles, both our towels and a book, in case I wanted to take a break. She went up the ladder like a shot and just launched into space. The summer was nearly over before I got the courage to climb, and I was never a good swimmer. Too much uncertainty, bobbing bodies, unbreathable water.
I still remembered the terror screaming through my veins while everyone shouted for me to jump. On the way down, I nearly peed myself, and I didn’t dive so much as fall. The water stung like a bitch as I went under, and Nadia had to drag me out of the deep end. I cried in a snotty ball for ten minutes afterward.
Until now, that was the worst fear I ever knew. My throat tried to swell shut, but I spoke through it, and my voice came out weird. “To me, you always have been.”
“Don’t get mad at me, okay? But I have to ask.”
“What?” Now I was really worried.
“Is it possible you’re kind of...fixated on me? Because of your dad, and what happened when we went to see him? Transference, whatever. This might not be healthy.”
The rage surprised me. If I’d had a glass of wine, I’d have thrown it at him, old-school-movie style. Water just didn’t have the same impact, plus he was my ride home. While grinding my teeth, I counted to a hundred. I was whispering fifty when Rob realized how upset I was.
“Lauren—”
The starters arrived. I stared at my soup until I could speak without freaking out. “Nadia says I have daddy issues, yeah. And I’m sure she thinks that’s funny. It’s not so funny to me because she still has her dad. He’s always been around. Always. He’d never let either one of you guys down.” Tears prickled in my eyes, but I refused to give in. “How many of your games did he miss when you were playing?”
“None,” he said quietly. “Not ever.”
“Exactly. Yeah, you saw me during a weak moment, but I don’t equate you with my father. You’re four years older than me, not twenty. I suspect you just don’t think much of yourself, so you can’t figure out what I’d see in you. And I’m kind of done saying that you’re awesome because it pisses me off when you don’t believe me. So let me make one thing superclear.... I have never, never—not once—thought of you as an older brother. In my head, you’re the dream guy who’d never look twice at me, even if I was dancing naked on the table.”
His blue eyes smoldered like the heart of a flame, as if he was picturing it. When he spoke, his voice was rough and deep. “Three things. First, if you’re ever dancing naked on a table, I better be the only other person in the room. Second, please don’t stop being sweet to me. I’m just starting to think maybe some of it might be true, and I’m not ready to lose that. Third, and this is the important bit, so listen up—if I’d known your crush survived getting to know me, I’d have broken up with Avery weeks ago. See...I’ve wanted you since you were eighteen and I probably shouldn’t have been checking you out.”
“Wait. W-wait. What?” Incoherent, yep. He’d given me absolutely no sign. Emotionally, sexually, he had been like the Mojave. “When?”
“Eat your soup before it gets cold. I’ll tell you more later.”
“Are you kidding? No. You can’t drop that on me and then—”
“Sure I can. Otherwise I’ll take you home after lunch and we won’t talk again until tomorrow.” He smirked.
“That’s blackmail. I’m starting to think you’re kind of evil.”
“I can live with that.”
With a frustrated snarl, I ate my soup. Then the bastard made me chew through a delicious plate of shrimp and grits while we talked innocently about stuff we planned to do later in terms of home renovation, like I wasn’t seething. Rob appeared to be enjoying it, too. I’d never known he could be such a sadist. Did this mean he’d want to tie me up and paddle me?
Hope not. Given his worries about my daddy issues, that might get weird.
I was eating salted dark chocolate fudge with a tiny fork when he said, “So you want to hear the story?”
“Most definitely.”
“Let me set the stage. You were just turning eighteen, still in high school. Which makes me a perv, I’m aware.”
I shook my head. “It doesn’t count since you didn’t hit on me.”
“I try not to be creepy, it’s one of my life goals.”
“So far, you’re succeeding. Fudge?”
He took the bite from my fork, and I couldn’t help but recall all of the manga I’d read, where girls went crazy over the indirect kiss. Deliberately I licked the fork when I brought it back to my mouth, and he seemed to forget to speak. It took a full minute of him watching me eat before he resumed the narrative.
“You and Nadia were in her room, getting ready for some party. I could hear you upstairs, laughing, but back then, we never hung out.”
“Yeah, Nadia was very much ‘your world, my world, let’s not cross dimensions.’”
Rob nodded. “I was watching TV with my dad when you came down wearing a red dress and suddenly, you were all oomph and bam.”
“I remember that dress. Still have it, I think.”
“That night, I couldn’t take my eyes off you. It sucked when I realized you were headed out to hook up with some high school assholes.”
“There was no joy in Mudville for me that night. Nadia got drunk and locked herself in the bathroom because her dipshit boyfriend was making out with somebody else in the garage.”
“If I’d known, I’d have beat the shit out of him.”
I smiled to take the sting out of my reply. “That’s why we didn’t confide in you more.”
“Anyway, that’s it, not much of a story, huh? Before, you were the sweet kid who hung around the house and stared at me a lot.”
“And after?”
“Honestly?”
“Please.” Fixing my gaze on his face, I watched the sheepish smile widen.
“I wondered what you looked like naked. A lot. Felt like a deviant, too. Because there’s a certain kind of guy who’s attracted to high school girls in his twenties, and I definitely didn’t want to be one of those. But I’d still think about asking you out and then remember you were my sister’s friend, and how awkward would that be, plus you were still in school, and I knew you wouldn’t be sticking around past graduation.” He hesitated, as if I might yell at him again for what came next. “And I knew you were too smart to be drawn in by physical stuff or the fact that I played football, so I figured—”