Page 23 of Tourist Trap

“I’m not sure. She joked that it was from stripping, but then we got sidetracked, and it didn’t seem right to circle back to that specifically.” I run a hand over my hair, remembering the incredibly detailed daydream I had about that the day before yesterday.

“Do you actually think she’s been stripping?” he asks, eyes wide, a mix of shock and intrigue in them. The mere idea of Grant being interested in Claire dancing for men makes my blood start to heat, but I brush the strange jolt of something I refuse to name aside quickly.

It’s because in my head, despite my complicated feelings about my brother lately, I still care about him, and I’ve been trained to protect him my entire life.

That’s all.

“No,” I say with a shake of my head because I’ve considered all angles more times than I should. “If she had, she never would have dropped it: it would be her new favorite way to fuck with me.”

Again, Grant smiles wider.

“She sure does like to fuck with you,” he says, and I glare.

We’re at Grant’s place since I’m avoiding my own house like the plague, deciding the best way to survive this summer is to just not see her. Difficult when she seems to beeverywherein that house, from her shitty cereal in the cabinets to her array of flip-flops at the door to her seemingly million pairs of sunglasses left about the house.

“You know, things with your brother are a little dicey right now, and it would be pretty normal to want to get back at him a bit,” Grant says while I’m lost in my thoughts, a playful smirk on his face as he tips a beer toward me.

I stare for a moment before I ask for clarification, though I don’t think I need it.

“What are you implying?”

He shrugs but answers all the same. “A pretty girl living in your house for the summer, it might be the perfect time to finally crack that seal on your celibacy.”

“I’m not celibate,” I say exasperatedly, rolling my eyes.

“Might as well be,” he chuckles, and as much as I don’t want to admit it, it’s not completely wrong. “When was the last time you went out on a date?”

I shake my head and tell him something he already knows.

“I don’t date.”

He gives me an annoyed groan. “That’s because you don’t maketimefor dating. Fuck, if I didn’t force you to hang out with me, you wouldn’t even make time for friends.”

Guilt eats at me a bit at that, knowing the truth of it.

“I don’t see a point in dating someone if I’m not in a place where I can offer them some kind of future,” I justify. Grant gives me a look like I’m out of my mind. “You know how I feel about that shit.”

My parents were young and stupid when they got married and had me soon after. My mom tells me regularly about how they were both working paycheck to paycheck when they had me, and when my dad passed before Paul was two, it left her with nothing. She moved in with my grandmother, who helped raise us, but it wasn’t easy. It’s why I refuse to start anything, evencasually,until I feel like my life is settled, which it very much is not.

“All I’m saying is it seems like a perfect opportunity, having her right there. Convenient, even.”

That word rubs me wrong, and I’m out of patience to hedge my words. “Claire isn’t something convenient for me.”

It reveals too much about how I feel about her and my reluctant protectiveness of her, and he knows it when he smiles wide.

“Is that right?”

I roll my eyes. “Stop reading into everything. I’m not going there. She’s not my type.”

We both know that’s a lie. I thought Claire was beautiful from the first time I met her. Frustrating and annoying, yes, with the way she instantly made herself at home here, with the way she won over everyone in her stratosphere, but beautiful all the same.

But even if I were in the market for someone, it surely wouldn’t be a party girl like Claire.

She’s too young, too flighty, and too…Paul.

“You’re a fucking liar,” he says with a laugh.

“I’m not.” I shrug, trying to convince myself of it the same way I need to convince Grant. “She’s too young and too much of a party girl.”

---