Page 13 of Someone Like You

When the wordsI’ll be waitingtried to jump out of my mouth, like this was a prom date, I hung up. Without saying goodbye. Like I was on a TV show or something. Why did nobody ever say bye in shows and movies? They just hung up like assholes. It was one of my biggest pet peeves.

And then reality kicked into high gear and slapped me in the face. I had let him fix my car and I didn’t even have the means to pay for it. I’d begged my manager at the bookstore for more hours, and he could only come up with three of them. That had barely budged my numbers, and another job on top of all the schoolwork I had wasn’t really feasible.

I should have told him I wouldn’t be able to afford it, but instead, I’d said nothing. I didn’t know what I was hoping would happen, what I was thinking, what I was doing. I couldn’t pay therepairs, period, and everyone would find out when my card got rejected at the register. I was completely delusional. Even worse, I was optimistic when there was absolutely no reason to be, and trying very hard not to break down about it all.

Twenty minutes later I was sitting on the front steps—Jordan was blessedly absent to yell at me about getting another ride from Brody—when the big black pickup rolled down the street and stopped in front of my house. I debated running back inside and away from the inevitable humiliation that was about to come, but my legs took me to the truck and my arms pulled the door open.

Brody’s smile was bright as he watched me get in with those silver eyes. His hair flopped endearingly over his temple, and he wore that big flannel jacket that he’d been wearing at Jamie’s party. It looked good on him. “Hey,” he said.

“Hey,” I said back, hopping in. His eyes slid down my torso, roamed across my thighs, and then he put the car back in drive and stared out the windshield while I burned underneath my clothes.

His eyes were fucking radioactive. There was no mistaking the heat in his gaze for anything other than what it was, and despite his obvious attraction to me, I had to give it to him: he’d kept his promise so far. Hadn’t touched me since the day I’d flipped out on him. Maybe that had been enough of a deterrent that he’d decided it wasn’t worth it when I would probably scratch his eyes out next time.

Which I would never do because, come on, they were way too stunning.

We were almost at the shop, nary a word spoken between us, when Brody said, “I can still give you a discount.”

Damn he was persistent.

“I’m not on board with your discounting methods. I’m not going on a date with you,” I said.

“Why not?”

“I’m not into you like that.”

He shrugged. “Then I guess we’ll know for sure that after countless hours of forced proximity you won’t come to realize that your anger was really just covering up your burgeoning desire for me and there’ll be no riding off into the sunset holding hands,” he said, throwing my words from the other day back in my face. “Because you’re not into me like that. Besides, I wasn’t gonna ask for a date again. I’m not a total masochist. I know when to quit.”

“Right,” I said, wondering if he had some kind of auditory photographic memory because that had been word for word. I had to watch what I said around him. He was dangerous. And when disappointment tried to claw at me that he wasn’t going to ask me out again, I beat that bitch back. I should be relieved, damn it.

“But tell me something, Isaac,” he said conversationally. “Are you really not into me like that or are you just scared?”

I turned toward him, so quickly that my seatbelt’s child lock engaged and it dug hard into my chest. I grabbed it and tugged and tugged even though I knew better, then gave up with a huff. “Why the fuck would I be scared? I just don’t want to spend more time with you than I already have. This has been enough for a fucking lifetime. You’re not someone I want to be around.”

“Why? What’s wrong with me?” He didn’t sound insulted at all, though, just amused. My eyes caught on his lip ring as he smiled.

“Lots of things,” I hedged.

And then I realized he must be fucking with me, hemustbe, because his tongue made a slow appearance, sliding across that fleshy bottom lip, and then his teeth were biting into all that plush softness andgodif I didn’t want that to be my teeth. My tongue.

“Fuck!” I shouted.

Brody swerved abruptly, then righted the car. “Jesus Christ,” he said. “You know, you’re really loud for such a lit?—”

“Don’t you dare say it.”

He didn’t say it. Instead, he rounded back to our earlier conversation, much to my disappointment. “So what’s wrong with me?”

I sighed. “I don’t like your face.”

Liar.

“What’s wrong with my face?”

It’s too perfect.

“I just don’t like it.”

Brody pulled into a spot outside the shop and cut the engine, but stayed in the car and turned that big body toward me. “What, specifically, don’t you like about my face, Isaac?”

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