Page 21 of Don't Take the Girl
AGE EIGHTEEN
"You're upset," I say, tossing my gym bag into the truck bed behind her, the thud punctuating the tension between us.
"I'm not upset," she says, uncrossing her arms and flexing her fingers before dropping them on the edge of the tailgate. "Stunned, confused, and nervous are a little more fitting."
I move to stand in front of where she sits on my tailgate so she can't avoid my eyes and give me half-truths. "What part are you confused about?"
"The part where you called me your girlfriend. Why did you say it?" Her brown eyes pierce mine. "Why that moment?"
My eyes widen. I know what she's asking, but the topic I expected to make the top of her list when I came out of the locker room was the bet.
"Do you want a list? Because there's more than one reason."
She leans back, bracing herself on her palms, the shift putting space between us. "No, I just want the one at the very top."
"Because I want you to be," I say without hesitation. There's the semblance of a small smile, and I step betweenher legs hanging over the tailgate. "Does that smile mean you're not mad anymore?"
"I told you I wasn't mad."
She tries to keep the smile from curling her mouth, but we both know she'll fail. It's one of the reasons I'm hooked. Her smile is contagious, but her eyes intrigue me the most. She looks at me like I'm a puzzle she's dying to solve. It's the intense desire I see in them that keeps me holding on. No one has ever looked at me the way she does, she wants everything I have to give. I only wonder if she knows I see everything I want in this world when I'm staring back at her.
My hands find the frayed edges of the jean shorts she must have slipped on after the game. "Semantics." I smile as my hands find a stray string on the shorts. "Want to go somewhere?"
I watch as she pulls her bottom lip between her teeth, a lip I'm eager to have pressed against mine again as I wait with bated breath, hoping she'll give me the answer I want. We spent a summer apart, of which I spent every day counting the hours until I knew I'd see her again. I knew coming home after the way I left things wouldn't be easy. I was well aware I'd have things to answer for, but I wasn't prepared for the space she'd put between us.
She nods just once, and I fight to contain my relief. I've languished in friendship purgatory for two weeks, carefully trying to rebuild what I broke, desperately seeking the trust I'd squandered. Tonight feels like the first real step back toward us.
"What's the deal with Noah?"I ask as I pull out the bag of snacks we stopped at the gas station to get before coming to the lake.
"Deal?" She asks, rummaging through the bag for her candy.
"Yeah, first I come home, and he's sitting comfortably at your mother's dinner table. Now I'm winning my first home game of the season and looking over to find my girl wrapped around him."
She smiles as she tears open the bag of chewy Nerds, and I can't help but mirror it. Calling hermy girlis new, but I like it. It feels like a title that should have been there all along.
"We're just friends." She pops a piece of candy in her mouth. "We were lab partners in Biology last semester, and we were assigned a summer project for AP Biology this year." She shrugs and pours a few pieces of candy into her hand, sorting the colors before adding, "He's nice, and he's helping me. It’s nothing more than that."
"Yeah, well, we were once just friends too," I say, pulling my bottom lip into my mouth and biting down so I stop talking. I told her on the field, I trust her, and I do, but I'm a guy. I know when another guy is making a play.
"You sound jealous," she teases.
"So, what if I am?" I release an anxious breath. "I'm not afraid to admit that. Jealousy means I know what I stand to lose."
"You don't need to be." Her eyes hold mine.
"Yeah, well, you're all I think about, heartbreaker. I've had a crush on you for years."
"How long is that exactly?" she questions, trying her best to hold back the smile that's tugging at her mouth.
I've always seen Laney. She has meant something to me since the second I laid eyes on her, but once eighth grade hit, I couldn't keep her in the friend box anymore. Not when the desire to be more than her friend was greater, so I started putting space between us and waited. I waited for her to give me a sign that she felt the same way.
"Long..." my eyes search hers, scanning their depths. I know I hurt her this past summer. If I could do it over, I would, but I can't. All I can do is move forward and make sure I give her no more reasons to doubt what I know she feels between us. "I realized I had a crush on you when our friendship was no longer enough."
Her eyes widen with her smile before she ducks her head, dropping her gaze to her lap as she sets aside her bag of candy,and I want to reach out and tilt her chin back up. I hate that I can't catalog every reaction and feel it with her.
"Well, now I don't know what to do with my face," she says before her brown eyes pierce mine. "Friendship was never going to be enough for us."
Our eyes stay locked as the vulnerable honesty we both shared rewrites everything between us in real-time. I can practically feel the walls ofjust friendscrumbling around us, and I never want to go back to pretending again.
