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“Talk to me.”
“It’s you…”
“Yeah. It’s me.”
“No, I mean…you do this to me. It’s humiliating. I feel humiliated because…” She sniffles and wipes her nose with the back of her hand. “I don’t know why, but…” She swallows hard before continuing. “You make me feel more likemethan anyone else I know. You know?”
“Yeah. I know.”
“And I hate that.” She laughs and wipes her nose with the back of her hand again.
I hold up the Kleenex box for her again.
She swipes at a tissue and groans. “God. This is not hot.”
“Would it be weird if I said it is?”
She blows her nose into the Kleenex while laughing. “Yes.” She balls up the Kleenex in her fist, leans against the headrest, and finally looks over at me. “I just…” Her voice cracks. “I just feel like every decision I’ve made since I met you has been wrong.” Her head snaps away from me again. “I can’t believe I’m saying this.” She rests her elbow against the door and covers half her face with one hand. “Why do you do this to me?”
“Whatever it is that I do to you, Lily, you do the same to me. Probably even more so.”
“I doubt that very much.”
God, I want to kiss her. I want to reach over and put one hand on the back of her neck and turn her face toward me with the other, and I want to give her a soft, tender kiss that will make her feel wanted and beautiful and perfect, but I know that it would only make her feel worse because she just tossed her cookies. And she’d want our first soft, tender kiss to be perfect.
So I will kiss her softly, and tenderly, with words.
“I promise you. Anything you’ve ever felt, I’ve felt it too. If it was a mistake for us to deny those feelings, then we made mistakes. If it’s a mistake for us to act on those feelings sooner rather than later, then we’ll make those mistakes too. But you don’t ever have to be embarrassed about being yourself with me. I know you.” I grin. “And I like you anyway.”
Tears are streaming down her face. I don’t know what it is about this truck that makes this girl cry. I don’t know what it is about seeing this girl crying in my truck, in the moonlight, that makes me feel this way, but I know now that I’ll do anything for her. I’ll build her a gazebo, a home, a garden, a family. I’ll tear down every wall she’s ever built around herself so she can see that she’s not alone.
The unfurling of her blossoms may be a little awkward and uneven, but it’s time for this Lily to bloom.
Later, I turn on the lamp on the bedside table in the guest room, finally leading Lily to the bed after following her all over the house while she stomped around, trying to find the cat, like a stubborn toddler. Then I’d waited outside the guest bathroom while she was in there gargling with mouthwash for what felt like half an hour, because I was afraid she’d fall asleep on the floor or something. When she came out of the bathroom, she had asked me to text her dad from her phone to tell him that she’s spending the night at Alecia’s house. Then she asked if I had any gluten-free cookies. I don’t.
She collapses onto the bed and lifts her leg in the air. “Can you take off my shoes?” The sudden switch to a seductive tone catches me off guard. She stretches her arms overhead and points her toes as she smiles at me lazily, her eyelids heavy.
I step forward and wrap one hand around her slender ankle, bending her leg to rest the bottom of her shoes against my chest. I hold her gaze while unbuckling the thin strap. When I pull the shoe off her foot, letting the shoe drop to the floor, I stroke the skin on the arch of that pretty foot with my fingers and watch her quiver. As I massage her from her heel to the ball of her foot, she moans, squeezing her thighs together and writhing around. I repeat each action with her other foot, silently cursing her for drinking so much, because if she was even half this intoxicated, we’d both be naked and doing fantastic things to each other right now.
She reaches behind herself, raising her lower back so she can unzip her tight skirt. When it’s unzipped, she looks up at me again and waits for me to pull it off her. I take hold of that skirt at her waist and tug down quickly, causing her to gasp and then bite her lower lip. My knuckles drag along the sides of her long, toned legs as I pull it down to her ankles and then place the skirt on top of the bed beside her.
Her panties are white and lacy, and God help me, they are staying on her as long as I’m in this room.
She sits up and raises her arms in the air. Her top is tight and scoop necked, and the only reason I’m going to help her take it off is that I know she’s wearing a bra under there. I peel it up off her torso and over her head, ripping it off like a Band-Aid. Her bra matches her panties, and her pink nipples are hard and poking at the white lace, andfuck meI’m getting out of here. She just can’t stop torturing me.
She brings her arms in close to her sides and thanks me. I hand her a glass of water and an ibuprofen, which she swallows dutifully.
I pull the comforter and sheets down, and she crawls under them, cozying up to the pillow, and then I turn off the light because I can’t look at her anymore.
“I’ll leave the door open,” I tell her. “If Fanny wants to sleep with you tonight, she’ll come to you.”
“She hates me,” she pouts.
“She doesn’t hate you. She just needs to get used to you again.”
“Do you hate me?”
“Not anymore.”
