“It’s all right,” I say, backing away from them slowly. “Take your time.”
I turn to flee from their table when I hear someone slide out of the booth, strong fingers curling around my upper arm and stopping me from leaving. He’s standing directly behind me, the warmth from his body seeping into mine, and I go completely still. Willing myself not to react, not to say something stupid and embarrass myself.
Look what he’s doing to me just by touching my arm. This sort of thing doesn’t happen to me. I don’t care about boys. I’ve been kissed a measly three times in my life, once by Cody Curtis the tongue thruster, and he definitely doesn’t count.
So twice. Twice I’ve been kissed, and I’m a virgin. A freaking virgin. Owen Maguire has “player” written all over him. I’m nothing to him.
So why is he touching me? Talking to me in that husky, low murmur of his that slides over me like slow, warm honey?
“… need to talk to you. About this tutoring thing,” he’s saying, and I wrench myself out of his grip, irritated that I didn’t pay attention to what he said at first.
“Just meet me Monday afternoon as scheduled and we should be good to go.” I turn to face him, a fake smile plastered to my face, and he stares at my lips for a long, breath-stealing second before he finally lifts those too-pretty green eyes up to meet mine.
My lips are tingling as if he actually kissed them. God.
“I don’t even know your name,” he murmurs.
Owen
What am I doing? Why do I even care about her name? I don’t know her. I don’t want to know her. I’d never seen her in my life before today. We had our brief encounter this afternoon where she told me no and pissed me off. Now here she is again.
Wearing a really f**ked-up black uniform that’s shapeless and does nothing for her but make her look bad. Her hair is dark, dark brown and her eyes are a wide, innocent blue. She looks completely untouchable, like no girl I’ve ever been interested in before, and I’m asking for her name like I care or something.
“It’s Chelsea,” she answers, and I turn it over in my head. Over and over. Again and again.
Chelsea. Chelsea. Chelsea.
“I was, uh, hoping I could meet up with you tomorrow so I could get my assignments from you.” Man, this is awkward. We’re standing in the middle of this shitty diner, where Des and Wade can overhear every single thing I’m saying to Chelsea the innocent tutor with the blue, blue eyes and the pink, pink lips. They don’t even know what’s going on. I’m going to hear an endless amount of crap once we leave this place.
“Tomorrow? Friday?” Her delicate brows draw downward and her entire face scrunches up like she’s adorably confused. Which she is. Adorable.
Dude. Cut with the “adorable” shit.
“Tomorrow is Thursday,” I remind her.
“No, today is Thursday, considering it’s almost four in the morning.”
“Right.” She makes me feel like a dumbass. I don’t like it. “Can we meet later this afternoon, then? I need to get those assignments, especially if we’re not going to see each other again until Monday.”
A lot can happen between now and Monday. Shit, I can’t even begin to consider all the possibilities. I feel like I’m walking on a tightrope, weaving this way and that, just waiting for the right amount of wind to send me toppling over and plummeting to my death.
This is what my life has turned into. The push and pull. The wanting to do right and instead falling into the same old habit of doing wrong. I want to tell Fable the truth. I want to tell Mom to leave me alone.
I know, deep in my heart, I will do none of that. I will keep going. Keep up the pretense of right and wrong. Of living two lives. One where I’m the good brother who does what Drew and Fable want me to do. And then there’s the other, where I’m the “good” son who slips his mom some money when she comes around asking for it, which is all the time. Then smokes a joint with her and begs her to buy him some beer.
Sometimes, I really hate myself.
“I have class all afternoon.” She sniffs and lifts her chin, all haughty virginal princess. I have no idea if she really is a virgin, but she just screams untouchable to me. “And I have a tutoring appointment at five.”
“How about after?” I chance a glance over my shoulder to find my friends watching me, curiosity written all over their drunk, tired faces. I turn back to face Chelsea to find her studying me, like she’s trying to figure me out.
Good luck with that. I can’t even figure me out.
She heaves out a big sigh, which expands her chest, making me notice her tits. They seem decent enough, but I can’t really tell with that ugly uniform she has on. And I hadn’t really checked them out when I first met her, though I had scoped out her ass.
It was nice. Looked real good in those tight jeans she wore, too.
“If you can make it quick, I’ll meet you then. Say around six fifteen? Same room we met in before?”
Relief floods me, making me feel like a pu**y. I don’t give a shit about my grades, but Fable is gonna kill me if I don’t get my act together. “I can do that.”
“Okay.” She takes a step backward, her foot poised to turn around. “I’ll see you later, then.”
“See ya,” I say to her retreating back, not moving at all as I watch her walk away, pushing through the swinging door that leads into the kitchen.
I hear my friends snicker behind me and I turn to see Wade and Des climbing out of the booth, stumbling over their feet. The food in their bellies did nothing to calm their drunken asses down and for whatever stupid reason, that pisses me off. I wasn’t as wasted as they were when we first got here and my buzz is pretty much gone. Finding Chelsea working here helped take it away.
My drunken buzz. Seeing her, touching her arm even for that brief moment, gave me another sort of buzz I’d rather ignore.
“So who is this chick?” Wade approaches me first, followed by Des.
I shoot them both a look that says shut the hell up, and we exit the diner into the cold, early fall night. The house I share with Wade isn’t too far from the downtown area since we live pretty close to campus, and we start our trek down the side street that leads to our neighborhood. Des will crash on our couch like he always does.
“Remember how I said my counselor wanted to meet with me?” I ask, stuffing my hands in my jeans pockets. I blow out a breath that I can see and hunch my neck lower in my hoodie to ward off the chill.