“I think I understand you, Dylan. You don’t want a casual relationship with me because you’ve probably been taught all your life that that kind of relationship is wrong. Or you’ve been told it always ends up leaving you heartbroken after you get too invested. And maybe that is who you are. Maybe you’re the kind of girl that can only be in serious relationships. Or maybe that’s just the kind of girl you’ve told yourself you are. I bet you’ve never been in anything but long-term relationships.”
She swallows and tightens her grip on the steering wheel, hiding her face from me as she turns the car onto another street.
“I’m right, aren’t I? Come on. Tell me. How many relationships?”
She clears her throat and then with her chin up answers, “Two.”
“And how long did they last?”
“A year and a half on the first, and . . .” She trails off.
“And?”
“Four years. And some change.”
“Damn. Four years? You just turned twenty-one, and you’re telling me you’ve spent over five years of that in serious relationships? You’ve probably been in a relationship since the moment you were allowed to date.”
She shrugs, and I know I’m right.
“You might think you need to stay away from me because I’m not your usual relationship material, but I think that’s exactly why you need me. You need to just have some fun. Be young for a little while before it’s too late.”
She sighs, flipping on her blinker with a little too much aggression, and turning onto another residential street.
“Okay.”
For a moment I think I’m just hearing what I want to hear.
“Okay what?”
“Okay, I’ll stop thinking so much.”
I wait for her to pause at a stop sign, and then I lean over and kiss her. She makes a surprised sound in my mouth, but then she hums when I drag my lips over her once, then again.
Someone honks behind us, but this time they can f**king wait. I throw my middle finger up to the douche behind us and press her back against her seat just long enough to make sure she knows she’s made a good decision.
I hear the car peel out around us, still honking, but I’m not about to let her run on me again.
When she’s making those little breathy noises again, and her hands have left the steering wheel to clutch at my hair, I slowly pull back.
“I think we’re already making tremendous advances in your therapy, Pickle.”
The dazed look on her face lasts only a few seconds before she pushes me back over into my seat and says, “God, you’re so arrogant.”
I laugh and don’t deny it.
She smooths her hair down and pulls away from the stop sign. She glances at me out of the corner of her eye every few seconds for the rest of the drive. Each look is like a shot of adrenaline and by the time she says, “We’re here,” it’s all I can do not to pin her to the seat again.
She slows to a stop behind a truck parked on the side of the road. The street is lined with cars for several hundred yards ahead of us, and a group of people is gathered in a yard a couple of houses down.
“We’re doing something with other people?” I sound like a whining kid because I’d thought I would have her to myself, that I could continue whittling down those walls of hers.
“Come on. We’re running a little late, and we still have to check in.”
I sigh and push open the door. As we get closer, I see tools and paint and hardware, and the picture begins to come together.
I loop an arm around her neck, and though she tenses, she doesn’t push me away. I lower my mouth to her ear and say, “You’re putting me to work.”
“You want to be a better leader for your team. First step to being a leader is learning to put others before yourself. Besides . . . sometimes a little work is good for you.”
“I can think of another way you could have put me to work that’s much more enjoyable.”
She does push me off then, but she’s smiling.
“I’m not talking about you and your . . . You know. This kind of work is positive. We’re helping people.”
“My way is just another kind of helping. And I promise it would be a very positive experience for all involved.”
“Just when I think I’ve got a handle on your ego, it gets even bigger.”
I grin. “I thought we weren’t talking about me and my you-know.”
She shoves at my arm, barely moving me an inch. “Oh my God. You’re terrible.”
“Dylan?” She stops, and the smile drops from her face as she swivels her head to look at the guy who’s stepped out of the group to stand before us on the sidewalk. Her easy demeanor disappears, and I can almost see her lacing herself up again, reining in her smile, her laugh, her posture. I even watch her pull her hands through her hair, as if she’s trying to tame it into something more presentable.
“Uh, Henry. Hi.”
Henry. The name sounds familiar, but I don’t know the guy. His hair is all gelled, and I’m pretty sure he spent more time fixing it than every girl in the crowd. He looks like he’s dressed for a tennis match, rather than construction, and he’s wearing this pretentious smile that already annoys me.
“What are you doing here?” he asks.
Dylan is calm as she answers, but I can see tension in her face that wasn’t there a few moments ago. “I called Kim this weekend, and asked if she still needed help. I thought you were too busy and decided not to do it.”
He sinks his hands into the pockets of his shorts and jangles what I’m guessing are keys inside. “My schedule freed up unexpectedly.”
It hits me then who this is. The ex. And damn it, I knew this would be the kind of guy she dated.
The kind of guys that are like a f**king magnet for my fists.
“Who’s this?”
“Silas.” I hold out my hand and when we shake, I might squeeze a little harder than necessary. He gives a satisfying flinch, and Dylan hooks her arm around my elbow and starts pulling me away.
“Come on. We need to check in.”
“Nice to meet you, Henry.” I throw him a grim smile and let her pull me away.
When we’re halfway across the yard, she whispers, “You can be such an ass, you know that?”
“Me? I spoke to that guy for ten seconds, and I already know he’s a giant douche. You dated that for four years?”
“He’s nice.”