from her body.
“No, I just don’t want to put boob marks in it.” She laughs. “But I think it’s impossible. It’ll be a little stretched out in the chest region for you.”
“You can keep it if you want,” I say before taking a gulp of the boiling cider. My eyes water and I shut them as I try to push back the burn in my throat. She starts laughin’.
“You know, you can sip that and I won’t think you’ll be any less of a man.”
I push her leg and set the mug down. “Are you warm enough?”
She nods, blowing across her drink before taking a sip.
“All right, then, now is when you tell me what you were doin’ out in the rain like that.”
It’s amazin’ how just in the few weeks I’ve known her—really known her—I can tell when she’s about to shrug off a question like it’s no big deal. Her eyes go to the most borin’ thing in the room, and the corner of her lip tugs upward with her shoulder. She opens her mouth, to tell me the big lie she’s got ready for me, and I cut her off.
“Hayles. I mean it.” I take the cup out of her hands and put it on the coffee table next to mine. Sliding my fingers on her knee, I make sure she’s lookin’ at me before I say anythin’ else. Takes a minute, but she finally locks gazes. “Don’t hide this from me anymore. Somethin’s wrong, and I can’t stand to see you like this.”
“Like what?” she whispers.
I press the crinkle between her eyebrows and smooth it out. “Scared.”
A flicker of a smile crosses her face, and she holds my hand to her cheek. I know it’s not the right time, but I’m leanin’ toward her anyway. Ready to press my lips to hers. To take away all the pain I know she’s feelin’ but not tellin’ me about. She’s so beautiful. Even scared and sad like this.
I get close enough to taste her breath, then she drops my hand and turns, giving me her cheek.
I don’t mean to growl, but I do.
She looks back at me, catching my face between her hands. “I’m sorry.” She’s not lyin’. “I want you to kiss me, I do.”
“But…?”
Another flicker of a smile. “It’s my first time kissing someone. I want it to… I want to make sure it really means something.”
Ouch.
“It won’t mean somethin’ with me?”
She drops her hands. “You mean more to me than you should. But, I still think you’re hung on Quynn. I don’t want to let you in only to have you run off with her.”
My mouth hangs open. I’m pretty sure I look like a fool. Is this really what she thinks? I’ll pull a Gabe?
I’m. Not. Like. That.
“You think I could do that to you?” Damn it, now I’m pissed. Not the time for it since there’s somethin’ a lot worse buggin’ her. Still, it sucks she thinks that about me.
“Not on purpose.”
I sit back as far as I can on the other end of the couch, shakin’ my head at my feet. “I don’t understand, Hayles. I need you to tell me what’s goin’ on. Why you’d think I’d do that to you. Why you won’t let anyone in. Why you called me to pick you up on Monday. Why you were sittin’ in the rain. Why you don’t want me to meet your mom.” I bury my face in my hands. “I want to help, be there for you, but I can’t if I don’t know anythin’. I can’t if you don’t let me.”
Yeah, I said that all out loud. Well, muffled into my fingers. I won’t look at her, too afraid she’s pissed and she’ll just walk away, leavin’ me with the list in my pocket.
I hear a deep breath from the other end of the couch. Still won’t look at her, and I can’t tell if she’s frustrated, hurt, or what, just off that sigh.
“She doesn’t want me to meet him.”
My eyebrows pinch together, and I glance at her through my hands. She’s pickin’ at a loose thread on the pocket of the hoodie. “What?”
“That’s why I was sitting outside. My mom doesn’t want me to meet Daniel until I’m… thinner.”
I gulp, sitting up straight. “Who’s Daniel?”
“Mom’s boyfriend.”
That small part of me that was worried about whoever this Daniel was whoops for joy in my stomach.
“So you were sittin’ in the rain because…?”
She throws her head against the cushion of