of the truck has thickened. I’m ready to strip him of his shirt and feel the abs ripple between my fingers.
“We need to stop.” He has difficulty catching his breath as he huffs against my face with lust. “I’m already running late to see my mom,” he says, placing one last kiss on my lips before pulling away and closing the door. I’m stunned for a moment, thinking about how badly I want his kiss and to feel his erection between the folds of my sex when the last of what he said resounds with me.
I’m watching him run around the front of the truck with my jaw to the floor. Did he just say his mom? His mother? The person who gave birth to him?
No.
He can’t be serious.
I’m not even dressed.
I have bandages on my arms from self-inflicted wounds. I’m wearing a t-shirt and shorts I borrowed. My hair is filthy and still smells like a bonfire because Skirt’s house was on fire. Eric is kidding. He should know that right now is not a good time to meet his mom.
Why would I meet her now? I can barely breathe. I’m barely out of the hospital bed. I’m somehow supposed to be ready to have a mother fall in love with me?
I don’t even love me.
Oh my god, I need out of this truck.
I don’t do parents. I don’t do family. I barely got along with my dad. He only said he liked me when I got him booze.
I’m sweating.
My stomach turns. The baby isn’t okay with this decision either. I’ll blame it on the baby! I can’t breathe. Oh god, I need air. I try to unlock the door, but it won’t open. I jiggle the handle to see if I’m witnessing real life. When I try to unlock it, it won’t move.
I’m trapped.
Child locks.
I’m not mother material. Panic, fear, insecurity, everything starts to blur. His mom is going to see me and know. She’s going to judge me when she sees my bandages. She’s going to know what I did. I’m not good enough. I know that already, and now she’s going to know. What mother is going to want a woman like me for her son?
Eric opens the door, sending the humidity of the desert inside the cab. It’s sticky and hot, adding to the uncomfortable moment. “Ready?” he asks, as if he didn’t just drop a bomb and change my life.
I laugh, holding my stomach as the little baby inside me finds humor in this too because no way are these snorts my own. “Am I ready? To meet you mother?” I repeat his invitation, waiting for him to realize what just happened and why I’m in the truck with him.
He shrugs and puts the truck in reverse, lays his arms around the passenger seat, and turns his head to look out the back windshield.
His jaw flexes, and his arm is defined as he turns the wheel.
My hesitancy is gone. All I see is a hot man driving a truck. What is it about men reversing? The arm behind me, looking out the back window to see where we’re going. I can see the sharp edge of that jaw. The way his hand is clenched around the steering wheel showing the rope of muscle in his arm.
This is all a rouse.
No one, I repeat, no one, has ever made looking so damn good, so damn easy.
“Eric, is this a joke? Are you trying to freak me out?”
“What?” he asks, putting the truck in drive. When we get to the gate, Eric presses a button that’s clipped to his sun visor, and the gate swings open, creaking loudly. There are a few rods dented, some broken in half from the amount of bullets that peppered through them. “No, this isn’t a joke. I’m late to have dinner with my mom.” The truck lurches forward as we drive through the gate and onto the dirt road. The tires dip into the potholes, and my arm whacks against the door.
A shout of pain leaves me, and I clutch my arm, whimpering as the pain radiates all the way to the bone. The truck comes to a stop, and I do my best to push through the pain.
“Damn, are you okay, Jo? Let me see.”
“I’m fine. I just need a minute.”
“I should take you back to the hospi—”
“No!” I shout, clutching my arm to my chest. “No, I don’t want to go back there. Please. I’m fine.”
His fingers wrap