We’re both broken whores.
Still, I can’t help but inwardly laugh at the way some chicks have no shame in demonstrating their whoriness to him, let alone the world. I’m a silent whore, a different breed, the shocking kind. I’m the whore a dude can safely bring home to his mother without fearing that she’ll suspect I’m swallowing her baby boy’s seed better than the best of them.
“I didn’t know he played anything but the role of an arrogant bastard.”
“I’m arrogant,” Brock says with a shrug.
“True.” I nod, tapping his nose. “But you’re arrogant in a different way.”
“Shit. You think I’m arrogant?” Brock asks, concern edging his eyes.
“You even just said you’re arrogant.” I giggle, a little confused. “Are you trying to prove to me that you indeed do have a little schizophrenic man living in that arrogant head of yours?”
He grins. “I’m really not arrogant, but I just may have a little man talking to me in my head.”
“I’d be shocked if you didn’t.”
“Wanna know what he’s telling me now?” he whispers.
“I can’t deny that I’m somewhat fearful about what he’s telling you, but you both have piqued my curiosity. Shoot.”
“He’s insisting you watch the rest of my practice, wait a few minutes while I hop in the shower, and then take a drive with me.”
“Tsk, tsk. No dates yet, Cunningham. You’re halfway up that ladder but not quite to the top.”
Several of his teammates call to him from across the field. Without tearing his eyes from mine, Brock holds up a finger, signaling them to wait. “It’s not a date. It’s just a ride, Amber.”
“A ride can turn into a date.”
“And a dance can turn into a kiss,” he counters. “A kiss can turn into relationship. A rich asshole can turn into a poor bastard. Get where I’m going with this, beautiful?”
I drop my hands to my side. “Yeah, I get where you’re going with it. But still, I told you that you’re going to have to work hard to get into my head.”
“Then give me the chance to work hard,” he implores, his eyes intense as his teammates kick it up a notch, chanting his name in loud unison.
I look off to the rowdy crew, my eyes landing on Ryder. With his elbows resting on his knees, he’s sitting on the bench watching me and Brock like a hungry hawk scouring his next kill. I stare at him a long moment, our gazes locked in some kind of showdown. I bring my attention back to Brock and gnaw at my lip, my unhealthy fear of falling in love settling on the conveyer belt of distrust circling my frozen heart.
“Get your fingers back up here.” Brock flexes his on the fence, an easy smile spreading across his lips. “Come on. I promise I won’t bite.”
After a second of debate, I bring my fingers to the fence. I have to remind myself to breathe as he touches his fingers to mine, slowly intertwining them together.
“Something about you feels . . . right, natural,” he says, his voice soft and calming. “I can’t explain it. I just know that you’re different in a good way, and I like it. I want different in my life. You have no idea how much I fucking need it.” He shrugs and studies my face, reading me in a disturbing way. “My heart’s no less bulletproof than yours. Believe me. But if you feel like you have nothing, then you have nothing to lose, right? Give yourself a shot at being my . . . different.” He looks at the ground then back at me, his breath unsteady, somewhat nervous. “Take a ride with me after practice, Amber.”
I’ve never been confronted by so many messy emotions all at once. On top of that, I’ve never once been struck speechless. Words, feelings, memories, instinct, fear, longing, adrenaline, want, and anxiety all digging their razor-sharp claws into my brain. My wretched past has always been mine to keep hidden from the world, and whether or not he knows it, Brock’s asking me to expose the wreckage of my life to him. He’ll ask questions and expect answers. When I can’t answer them, he won’t think I’m different in a good way. He’ll just realize I truly am a freak, a freak he’ll wish he’d never tried to figure out.
Still, despite everything inside me screaming for me to run, to flee faster than I ever have, as I stare into Brock’s eyes I feel like a magnet’s grounding me to this spot, to this moment, this very second in time. An internal clock’s ticking, the crashing sound of its pendulum tocking through my ears and reminding me that I’m running out of seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, and years. We’re each given only so much life, and I have yet to live a speck of anything that resembles one.
Running on empty and having absolutely nothing to lose, I nod. “Okay.”
“Yeah?” Brock asks, his expression a mixture of shock and uncertainty.
Another nod.
“Thank you.” A slow smile tilts his mouth, his gentle voice a caress. “You know if I weren’t behind this fence, I’d kiss you, right?”
I quirk a brow. “You know I may or may not let you, right?”
He taps my nose again and picks up his helmet. “I think you’re gonna be the ride of my life.”
“That’s possible,” I call as I make my way toward the bleachers. Rounding the track, I watch Brock jog over to his teammates with a smile worth a million Polaroids.
Nerves a scattered mess, I’m pretty sure the sun is melting the flesh from my bones as I climb the bleachers, finding a spot under an overhang. It offers little reprieve from the heat but will do for now. Considering I won’t get much in the way of studying done for the remainder of the day, I retrieve Paradise Lost from my satchel. Before I can read three words, I hear giggling along with footsteps traipsing their way toward me. I raise my eyes, noticing one of the cheerleaders headed in my direction is the chick who hijacked my spot in Ryder’s lap the day he decided to . . . devour me.