Page 201 of Branded
A sigh, but she folded herself into the seat. “You’re lucky I’m on my Oreo crash and feeling too lazy to argue with you.”
“Lucky,” I agreed, grabbing, and dragging her seat belt across her.
“I can do that,” she said, reaching for it.
Fingers on hers, stalling her movements. “I know you can.”
I clicked the snap in place.
“Raph.”
I ran my fingers along her jaw. “Humor me.”
“I—” A spark in her eyes, but one she extinguished between one blink and the next. “Consider yourself humored.” A beat. “This one time.”
I laughed, straightened, and closed her door, rounding the hood and cramming himself into the driver’s seat. She giggled as I folded himself in, fumbled to adjust the seat. “I know you’re small,” I teased, “but this is ridiculous.”
“I’m not the one going all macho and having to drive.”
“Considering I think my knees were up to my ears, I think I’ll table the macho for the foreseeable future.”
Another giggle. “Right,” she said disbelievingly.
She got it.
Got me.
But not totally, because halfway through the ride she whispered, “You don’t have to do this, you know.”
“Do what?”
Her eyes were focused on the darkness out the window. “I’m probably not the smartest choice, considering all you went through.”
My fingers tightened on the steering wheel. “I don’t really think it’s a choice.”
She winced. I saw it in the reflection of the window, and reached for her, squeezing her leg lightly. “Don’t tell me you don’t feel it, too.”
She turned, and I caught a glimpse of her face before I had to focus on the road.
It told me that she felt the same way as me.
“Exactly,” I whispered. “This was going to happen. Always.”
Silence.
“Yeah?” I asked.
“Yeah,” she murmured after a moment.
“Sugarpie,” I said as I drove carefully. “I need you to know that I’ve got my head together now. Part of that is because of you. Part of that is because I’ve realized that what really fucked me up was that I trusted my instincts about Monica. I thought she was a completely different person. I thought we were different together. And when she showed me different…”
Her hand hit my thigh, and she got what had been happening in my head faster than I had.
A hell of a lot faster.
“You lost trust in yourself,” she whispered.
“Yeah, honey.” I covered her hand with my own, squeezed.
