I didn’t recall ever smiling at him, not a real, unabashed smile and I definitely never laughed around him.
“I’ve never laughed around you,” I blurted stupidly.
He glanced at me then back at the road before saying, “Sweetheart, you’re with Brent and Bradon or LaTanya and Derek, I can hear it through the walls.”
Ohmigod!
“So you’re saying I have a loud laugh,” I noted.
“No,” he said with what sounded like extreme patience. “What I’m sayin’ is you have a gorgeous laugh. I’ve heard it. I like it.”
Ohmigod!
That couldn’t true. He was just being nice and since I couldn’t deal with him being nice…er we needed to move on.
“My smile doesn’t light up my whole face. It’s wonky,” I informed him.
“It isn’t wonky.”
“It is.”
“Mara, it isn’t. You don’t smile at me like you mean it because you’re always too freaked out to let yourself go. But I’ve seen you at Derek and LaTanya’s smiling like you mean it. I’ll take your smiles even when you don’t let yourself go because they work really f**kin’ well. But I’ll tell you, when you let yourself go, they’re f**kin’ fantastic.”
I forced my eyes to look ahead and I forced my brain to find an explanation for this madness.
“You’re just being nice,” I whispered.
“I’m a nice guy,” he agreed. “But I’m not bein’ nice. I’m bein’ real. And now what I’d like to know is why every time I give you a compliment, you freak out and twist it into something bad.”
“I don’t do that,” I denied.
“I told you, you had good taste in music and you immediately jumped to the conclusion that it annoyed me because you played it too loud. How do you go from someone saying you have good taste in music to it being a complaint about you playin’ it too loud?”
I had to admit that sounded absurd.
“Um…” I mumbled.
“Same with your laugh. I say I like it, you take it as me sayin’ it’s too loud.”
He needed to quit talking.
“You need to quit talking,” I blurted and wished I could clap my hands over my mouth because I sounded like a fool.
I should have lied to him earlier. I should have kicked him in the shin and run away. I shouldn’t be in his SUV with him. I shouldn’t be anywhere near him.
“Yeah,” he muttered, “I bet you need that.”
My head jerked to face him. “What does that mean?”
He didn’t answer. Instead he asked, “Why’d you stand me up on Sunday?”
Uh-oh.
“I didn’t stand you up.”
He glanced at me again and I felt his anger, which had dissipated, start to fill the cab again.
He looked back to the road and said, “Mara, we had plans. Pizza at seven thirty.”