Page 34 of Whirlwind
“I mean, yeah. I’m not normally so easy with people, and I am with him,” I confess. “Except, I don’t know how to trust his feelings or intentions, I guess. He hasn’t had a relationship since Isla.”
“Okay, let’s back up a step,” Willa says. “Do youwantto date him? If there was no past history with my sister, no baggage whatsoever. Would you want to date the Tyson Murphy you’ve gotten to know the past couple of months?”
“Maybe.”
“Kit, a maybe from you is about the same as yes from anyone else,” she says, reaching to hold my hand. “That one word is a big statement.”
“I like when he’s around,” I say, my voice a little shaky. The edges of my vision darken, that familiar sense of being somewhere outside of my body creeping in. “But I don’t know how to be with him.”
“You mean, physically?” Willa asks.
“Do you want us to leave?” Zander asks before I can answer her. I’m about as close to him and Damian as I am to anyone, but they don’t know my history.
“I appreciate the offer, but no. I think I need everyone’s opinions. You guys are who I trust most, and if I can’t be honest with you, I can’t be honest with anyone,” I tell him. “Yes, I mean physically. But also, emotionally. Mostly physically. I haven’t so much as kissed a man for a decade.”
“It’s kind of like riding a bike,” Damian says. “You’ll pick it back up quickly enough.”
“I never learned to ride a bike.”
“Never?” Zander asks.
“Never. Dad wouldn’t have made the time, and Grandma wouldn’t have been able to keep up with her bad knee.”
“I didn’t learn until I was in my teens,” Damian says. “It wasn’t a needed skill growing up in New Orleans.”
“Especially when you had a private driver to shuttle you around,” Zander adds.
“Precisely,” Damian agrees. “I only learned when I was brave enough to go camping with some friends. One of them brought a bike and I was drunkenly determined to figure it out. I nearly fell into the river about a dozen times, but they all had a good time at my expense. As a sidenote, camping in the bayou is not something I recommend any of you ever attempt.”
“I’d never sleep outside in a state that has two million alligators,” I say, wrinkling my nose. “That’s nearly one alligator per two people, so the odds of one crawling into your sleeping bag are too high.”
“Yeah, figured that out the hard way,” he says, grinning. “I grabbed my shit and drove my ass home at three in the morning after we woke up to one trying to nose his way into our camp.”
“Maybe serves you right,” Willa says, laughing.
“Definitely. Spoiled, rich kids with no fear don’t make the best decisions.”
“I’ve never been camping, either,” I say.
“Is that something that you want to do?” Zander asks. “Not everyone enjoys it.”
“I don’t know. It doesn’t sound like something I’d like, but how do I know if I don’t try?”
“You know I love how curious you are of everything,” Willa says. “But you know you don’t have to try things you don’t want to.”
“Maybe I could try glamping,” I say. “I think I’d survive a camper with power and a toilet that I could be in a semi-committed relationship with.”
“You’re my kind of girl, Kit,” Damian says. “I agree with Willa, you know. I’ll support you in anything you want to try, but don’t feel like you need to do things because others might think it’s weird you haven’t.”
“Like dating?” I ask, and his grin turns sad.
“Yes, like dating. Do you want to date Tyson, or do you think youshoulddate Tyson?”
“I think I want to,” I say, tears pricking my eyes.
“Why does that make you sad?” Zander asks.
I don’t want it to be like last time. The only guy I was ever with was not at all who I thought he was.
