Page 163 of I Shouldn't Feel This Way

“Yeah, I was a pretty bad kid. But it wasn’t like I was evil by nature or trying to be bad on purpose. I was just naturally curious. Unlike the cat, my curiosity didn’t kill me.”

“Yeah, seriously,” I replied in disbelief. “I’m glad you’re still here, though. You seem nice.”

Nice? Really, Aria? You’re basically a walking thesaurus, and of all the words to describe him, you choose “nice”?My ego was giving me a beating. It was probably my karma for lying to Noah.

Evan smiled charismatically and stole my bottled water.

“Hey!” I cried out. The bottle was half full, and he drank it all down in three big gulps.

“Sorry, I always get thirsty after I eat. I’ll buy you another, dollface.”

Dollface? I kind of like that,I thought as I smiled at him. “It’s okay. I was actually done with it, and I can’t eat any more of this.”

“You know, in most impoverished countries, people never let food go to waste.” He grabbed my bowl of salad and slid it in front of him. “We shouldn’t take the most basic things that are crucial to our survival for granted.”

“Now you’re making me feel bad.” I sighed.

“Trust me, if you saw what I saw down there, you’d think twice before dumping a plate of food away.” His compassion for humanity touched me.

“I’ll keep that in mind next time.”

“Good girl.” He smirked and devoured my salad.

****

We wound up talking much longer than I’d expected. Two hours flew right by without us even realizing it. I covered a lot of details about my life, and he shared more about his travels. I started to feel like Evan was someone I could trust. It only dawned on me to check the time when his cellphone rang.

“Hey, Gary … Are you sure…? Well, put Anderson up to the job … He quit? Are you serious?—Son of a bitch … Look, I’ll be there soon, okay? Twenty minutes tops.” He hung up and looked at me. “I love being my own boss, but I have to get back to work.”

“Is everything all right?”

“Yeah, it’s more an inconvenience than anything. One of my guys just quit.”

“Oh, that sucks. I’m sorry.”

“Sorry?” He furrowed his brows. “Why should you be sorry? Don’t ever apologize for something that’s not your fault. Promise me that, Aria.” His eyes were serious as he reached out and held my wrist.

“I promise.” I watched his expression relax.

“I’ll hold you to it.” Evan winked at me, encouraging another smile to touch my lips. He was very charming, I’ll admit that much.

Grabbing our trays, he stood up and threw out the empty contents in the trash. I followed him and we exited the food court together.

“So,” he said, “are you going to hang out with your gal pals for the rest of the day?”

“Well, that was the plan, but I want to get home. I have a project I need to work on. Can you give me a lift?”

“Sure thing, dollface. But uh, if your dad sees me, I’m sure he’ll ground you for at least six months.”

“That’s quite a harsh punishment.”

“I don’t think you want to spend your summer under house arrest.”

“He won’t put me under house arrest—he won’t even ground me because he can’t.”

There was no way in hell I would let him do that. I was an adult!

“You sound so sure,” Evan said doubtfully.

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