Page 54 of Rock & Roll Nights: The Lila and Rivers Edit
That brought a reluctant snort out of him, and I took that as the only invitation I needed. I set one foot in front of the other, hesitant at first, but when he didn’t argue with me, I took another step, and then another, and before long I was sliding into the swing next to his and turning to look out over the dark playground.
“A deserted playground,” I noted quietly. “Pretty spooky. You hang out in these sorts of places often?”
There was a long silence as he decided how he wanted to answer that—or maybe thought about whether he wanted to answer at all—and when he did start speaking, his voice had a hitch in it. “Not really. But I wanted some quiet tonight.”
Right. And then I came barging right in.
If he was expecting an apology, though, he wasn’t going to get it. I’d been looking for him all night specifically because I didn’t think he should be alone right now, and I wasn’t going to give up on that idea yet.
“I can be quiet,” I murmured. “If that helps.”
He chuckled softly at that, and another set of shivers ran through me. God, what was it about him? Why did making him laugh feel like such a fucking victory? Like I’d just accomplished the impossible? Why did I evencare? This was a guy I hadn’t known up until a couple weeks ago, and aside from that first week of pure chemistry, he hadn’t exactly gone out of his way to charm me.
Wait, that wasn’t true. Hehadgone out of his way to charm me. He’d been doing it since the moment I met him. What he hadn’t done—and what I’d desperately wanted for him to do—was keep me. Draw me close to his side and hold me there, murmuring into my ear about how much he wanted me and howhe’d never let me go. Make love to me in sun-filled fields and then again in deserted meadows in the middle of the night. Gaze into my eyes as he told me no one else had ever touched him the way I could.
So yeah, sure, that was a little bit dramatic. And maybe rushed. That didn’t change the fact that it was what I’d wanted. It also didn’t change the fact that he’d completely failed to deliver on any of it. So why the hell was I sitting here blushing like a twelve-year-old with her first crush about having made him laugh?
“What?” I asked, speaking to what we’d been talking about rather than addressing the question in my mind. “I can.”
He swung over and bumped against me gently. “Liar,” he murmured.
I turned to him, my mouth open in something that could have been angry shock. “Excuse me? I never lie!”
“You also never shut up. If you’re not telling me a story about yourself, you’re pointing out dragons in the clouds. Or going on and on about how great the blueberry pie is. Or writing a song. Or?—”
“Okay!” I interrupted. “You’ve made your point. But Icanbe quiet. I’m serious.”
Right, so silence wasn’t my mostnaturalstate. I liked the sound of talking because I enjoyed the connection to other people. I liked to hear about them and make them laugh. Watching them as they came out of their shells and shared themselves with me. I liked doing the same for them. But that didn’t mean I always had to be making noise.
Seriously.
He reached out, grabbed the chains of my swing, and turned me toward him, then slid his knees between mine. I gasped at the sudden contact, the energy that zapped through me as his legs pressed against mine, and bit my lip. When he pulled mylegs up around his hips I nearly came undone. One moment I was in a swing and the next I was basically straddling his lap.
And he was enjoying it. His face was caught in shadow, but I could see the gleam of his eyes. The sudden flash of his teeth.
The smirk that told me he was laughing at something he hadn’t told me yet.
“What?” I whispered.
Leaning forward, he brushed one finger down my nose as I fought not to lean against him. Not to arch my back and purr like a cat at the feel of his skin against mine.
“I don’t want you to be quiet,” he whispered.
My voice was barely a breath when I answered. “Then what do you want?”
“Tell me a story. Tell me about where you grew up.”
The recoil was so sharp it almost made me sick. I’d been expecting him to kiss me or tell me something sweet, and instead... he wanted to hear about my family?
Talk about a letdown.
Still, if he wanted it...
“I have younger sisters,” I said quietly. “Several of them. And when we were young, we put together a band of our own. Used to do performances for my parents. We’d set everything up—a whole stage in the living room, with a curtain and everything—and then drag our instruments onto the stage. One of us would go get my parents and make them sit on the couch to watch. And then we’d draw the curtain and play something.”
“Your own music?”
“No,” I said sarcastically. “We were kids. We hadn’t written anything yet.”
