Page 41 of A Real Goode Time

“I don’t mind. I kind of like it, actually.”

“You do?” I smirked at her, bemused.

“Yeah. It’s cute.”

“You don’t think it makes me sound like a mouth-breathing yokel?”

She cackled. “No, Rhys. You’re smart, and there’s no mistaking that, no matter what you sound like.”

“Why’re you up?” I asked.

She shrugged. “Woke up to pee and you weren’t there. Wondered where you’d got off to.”

“I…couldn’t sleep.”

Her eyes bored into me. “Because of me?”

I tipped my head side to side. “Not in the sense that you did anything. Just…I’m used to being alone.”

“Don’t bullshit me.”

“What do you want to hear, Torie?”

“The real reason you couldn’t sleep.”

I turned to face her, leaned back against the rusted hulk of an ’89 LeSabre. “The real reason? Sure you want that? I don’t think you do.”

“Why wouldn’t I?”

“Because it’s you. You’re the reason I can’t sleep. I get stuck thinking about you.” I held her gaze. “About you in that fucking wet T-shirt.” I swallowed hard. “You without any shirt at all. I didn’t mean for any of that to happen, and I mean that as true as my own name. But now I can’t sleep for thinking about you, like that.”

She was blushing, I was sure, though I couldn’t really tell in the middle-of-the-night gloom of shadows, and the dull waning crescent moon glow. “Rhys…”

“Told you.” I turned away. Peeled at a chunk of paint on the LeSabre’s hood. “It ain’t your fault, nor mine. And I know, you don’t want to start anything, because of your trip to Alaska. And I get it. I respect it. But you wanted the truth? There it is. I can’t sleep for thinking about how goddamn sexy you are, whether you’re in clothes or topless, and damn if I don’t want to see more of you—every damn inch of you bare. I won’t push it. I’ll keep my shit contained. But yeah, Torie…I’m thinking about you naked. And picturing doing things to you that’d make you blush so hard you’d start a fire.”

She didn’t say anything. Her eyes didn’t leave me for a long, long time. Her mouth opened, closed. Her fingers twisted at the bottom of her T-shirt. Eventually, her gaze dropped, and she reached into the pocket of her shorts—tiny little things that only just covered her butt.

I couldn’t make out much, but I knew what she was doing—lifting the little tube to her mouth, lighting, inhaling. Holding.

She passed it to me, and I gratefully took it, lit it, and dragged on it; I’d slept like a baby last time, and maybe this would help me get some sleep tonight. I handed it back. “Thanks.”

“I lied,” she said, barely audible.

“About?”

“I woke up because I had a dream about you.”

“Good dream?”

“A confusing dream. Because I…I want things. But…I’m afraid if I get involved with you, even just…just temporarily, I’ll get…messed up. Attached. Involved. Wanting more than what it is. You’ve got your life here, and mine is…I don’t even know. Leighton and Jillie don’t think I’m coming back. And part of me thinks they’re right. So, I…I want things, but I’m scared. And…there’s other stuff that I…that I can’t really talk about.”

I had a dozen different responses to that, and no idea which to say. “Torie, I…”

“You don’t have to say anything, Rhys. It’s just safest for my heart if I don’t let anything start. But don’t think I don’t want to. That I don’t feel…this.”

“Is this road trip a bad idea?” I asked, keeping my voice low, because if I was too loud, she might hear things I was feeling that I didn’t want her hear.

“Probably,” she laughed. “But smoking pot is the only interesting thing I’ve ever done in my life. I’ve never gotten a speeding ticket. Never gone anywhere. Never had a boyfriend. A lot of nevers—my whole fucking life is a list of ‘I’ve never.’ So…a bad idea, yeah, but I want to go on a road trip with a guy I just met. I guy I like—a superhot guy who’s attracted to me, who’s seen me half-naked, who wants to do things to me that I’m probably better off not knowing about. A guy who, in the interests of self-preservation, I shouldn’t let anything happen with. A guy I like more than I’ve ever liked anyone. It’s crazy, and maybe irresponsible. But I want to do it, just to say I’ve done at least one crazy, possibly irresponsible thing in my life.”