“Sexy? I never thought of it like that. I always thought it added to my hidden geek factor.”
“Well, start thinking it, because it is, and nothing about you screams geek. Even if it did, you’d be one fucking sexy geek.” He swipes the Twizzlers from the table, opens the pack, and hands me one. “Get eating. This jock’s dying over here.”
I smile, convinced we’ve officially established an ongoing joke. Taking a small bite, I watch him watching me, carnal satisfaction blooming in his eyes.
“Where’d you learn to speak French?” he asks.
From one of the crazy foster homes I landed in. If I messed up a lesson, dinner was withheld from me that night. “I took it in high school,” I say, not ready to open that casket. “How’d you know I was here?”
“I saw you in the parking lot, and I followed you.”
“So you’re stalking me?”
“If you wanna get technical, yes.” He cracks a sinful smile. “Are you cool with my dementedness?”
“Can’t say that I am,” I lie, unwilling to admit that part of me is.
“Can’t say that I’m willing to stop,” he clips, his mouth curved wryly. “And keep chewing, Amber-Ber. I’m thoroughly enjoying the show.”
Unsure of how to react to him, I smile like an idiot, my deft wit vanishing with every slick comeback he tosses my way. I want to kick him in his teeth for beating me at my own game, making me work harder at what usually comes naturally to my warped ego . . . manipulating a conversation. But, God, I can’t kick him. Aside from his teeth being perfectly white, their ghostly shimmer as straight as a stick figure’s dick, he’s too adorable, too inwardly twisted to inflict physical pain upon. Jock or not, and wiseass or not, this good boy’s as bad as they come. I can see it, smell its deliciously dirty presence. My intuition tells me he’s aware of it, and that I’ll soon be introduced to the inner workings of what makes him hard.
Continuing to smile like a virginal imp, I obey and take another bite from my Twizzler, all the while wondering how long it’ll take him to show me where his inner demons really lie.
“So do you have any exciting plans this afternoon?” he asks, entertained curiosity on his face.
“Maybe,” I lie again. Well, if you consider studying until your eyes are about to bleed exciting, then maybe it’s not a lie.
“Wait, did I just hear you say that you’re stopping by the field to watch me practice?”
“Uh, nope.” I laugh. “That must’ve been the little schizophrenic man in your head.”
“Nothing on my body is little. Let’s get that out of the way right now.” His eyes sparkle with mirth as I sigh. “But, no. I definitely heard you say it. Besides, I know you wanna see me in my uniform. You’re curious. I can tell.”
“Oh, can you?” I ask dryly.
“Yes, ma’am. Sweat. Raging hormones. Me coming close to murdering someone. There’s a certain amount of appeal to it. Don’t lie.”
There is a small amount of appeal to it. Though I’d gladly choose a double root canal over an afternoon spent watching any kind of agonizingly boring action on a football field, I can’t deny that I wonder—just a little—what Brock’s already-fine ass looks like in those tight pants. However, considering it’s close to a billion degrees outside, the idea loses its attraction real fast.
“I have to study,” I say, snatching a second Twizzler from the pack.
He pitches his head to the side, his green, seawater eyes intense. “I guess I need to tempt ya a little more, then.”
“You think you’ve tempted me at all?” I balk, amused by his confidence.
He shrugs, rubbing a hand over the back of his neck. “Well, I hope my gift of Twizzlers has.”
His gaze, pinned to my lips, and the boyish grin lifting his cracks my resistance, unlacing me with a sweet yet petrifying anxiety. The inescapable truth is . . . I think I like it.
I rest my elbows on the table, my hands folded beneath my chin. “And how do you plan on tempting me more than you think you already have?”
Brock stands, and I have to crank my head back to look up at him. “That’s easy.” He touches his knuckles to my cheek, my breath kidnapped by the shadow of promise in his eyes. “I’ll watch every episode of Happy Days with you, and I’ll always be the guy who brings you Twizzlers.”
As Brock walks away, yet again without saying another word, my empty heart teeters between curiosity and absolute fear over something I’ve rarely experienced.
Human warmth.
Though I’ve craved it, I’ve been dehydrated of it, a desert thirsty for even the smallest trickle of water from a passing storm. Sure, I’ve received warmth in small doses, but it usually came from someone who had thwarted reasons behind showing it to me at all, including my parents.
The people who were supposed to put me before anything.
The people who were supposed to give up their breaths so I could take an easy one.
The people who were supposed to choose my smiles over a dirty needle.
After they died, I shot through a series of homes where warmth, love, and being recognized as an actual person was dangled in front of me like a meaty bone to a hungry dog.
A scrap of day-old food to a soul seeking nourishment.
Inside those homes, I was physically beaten, mentally raped, and inwardly stripped down to nothing but stagnant memories of a life that I’d sought to escape. Still, no matter how stagnant my memories of my parents were, they became the only place my mind desperately clung to in the middle of the chaos that had replaced what I had thought was evil.