Page 24

I gripped his hair with one hand, the other covering his on my chest, feeling at my body with him.  There was something unutterably sensual about experiencing his touch on me through my own fingers.   
I was calling out his name less than quietly, eyes pointed beseechingly up at the sky, when a movement caught the corner of my eye. 
My head snapped to the side.  It was Tiffany.  Again.  Peeking at us from behind a thick pine. 
I glared at her. 
She smiled back, turned, and fled.  Again. 
Dante was standing, wiping his mouth before I told him.  "Tiffany came back to watch round two." 
He looked infuriatingly confounded.  "What?  Are you sure?' 
I was so pissed by that, by the fact that his mind worked that way, that somehow me imagining seeing her was even vaguely possible, that I just stopped talking. 
I shrugged on his shirt, put on my jeans, and started walking determinedly back to my grandma's trailer. 
He was on my heels.  "Why would she come back?  I don't get it." 
To see you naked, I almost replied, but bit my tongue.  It was becoming apparent that he needed to figure out for himself who and what Tiffany was.  I was sick and tired of trying to show him myself.  I'd lost all patience.  
He dropped the subject, which was for the best, because I was brewing for a fight.
CHAPTER TEN
"Women are meant to be loved, not to be understood."
~Oscar Wilde
Thankfully, my grandma was passed out cold when we got back to the trailer. 
Dante waited for me on the sofa while I showered and changed into clean clothes. 
I was rubbing my wet hair with a towel as I walked out of the bathroom.
"Let's go see a movie with her this afternoon," he greeted me with. 
I knew what and who he meant immediately, though I wished I hadn't.  More like, I hoped I'd misunderstood.  "What?  Who?"
"Tiffany.  I think we should all go out.  Grab a movie and pizza, or whatever."
I gave him my best drop-dead glare.  "No.  Hell no."  
"Just try this once.  For me."
It only took a few words to take all of the steam right out of me.  "For you?  She's that important to you?"  I tried hard not to let him see how much that bothered me. 
"Oh, stop.  It's not like that.  I honestly believe that you two will be friends.  You could use some more friends, Scarlett."  He said it kindly, and so it hurt all the more.   
Ouch.  He hadn't been trying to be mean, but the pity in his voice was worse to me than just about anything else. 
And I was furious again, that he didn't see her for who she was.  For God's sake, she'd just spied on us having sex.  Twice.  And still he thought she was some innocent girl who wanted to be my friend.
I knew very damn well that Tiffany wanted nothing so much as for me to disappear forever.  I knew it.  In my gut.  In that bitter little spot where instinct and hunches go to flourish.
Still, in this instance, my instincts did not seem to be enough for the both of us.  I'd let him see for himself.  "Fine," I gritted out.  "What time?" 
"The movie's at one thirty." 
I tried not to grit my teeth when I realized he'd already planned the whole thing.  With her. 
I was about to lose my temper, but I held on to the very last thread of it as I spoke.  "Fine," I said again, cursing him in a thousand different ways in my head.  "I'll meet you there."        
His brows drew together.  "No.  I'll take you, of course.  What are you even thinking?" 
"I'd like to be alone for a while," I said, trying to be reasonable when I wanted to scream at him.  "I'll meet you there," I repeated.
"No," he repeated, making every thought about being reasonable fly right out of my head.  "I'm not leaving you here," he said firmly.  "Are you kidding me?" 
"Glenda's passed out cold.  It'd take a miracle to wake her up before four p.m.  And besides that, I'm planning to lock myself in my room and read.  If she gets up before I leave, I'll climb out the window.  You don't need to worry about me." 
He stood, the look on his face telling me that he was finally beginning to comprehend how badly he'd messed up.  My last sentence had clued him in.  "Don't.  Scarlett, stop.  I'll cancel, okay?  Let's go to Gram's.  I'm not leaving you here." 
I raised my chin.  "You are.  Go.  I'll meet you and Tiffany at the movies."
He started cursing, and I left him to it, locking myself in my room. 
"How will you even get there?" he eventually asked me, voice muffled through the thin wall that separated us.  He'd been standing there for a while.  I pictured him clearly on the other side of it, eyes closed, leaning forehead first into the door.
I hated that question, hated that I didn't even have a way to get around, that I was so dependent on him, and had never even given it a thought until now, because we did everything together.
"Like I said, you don't need to worry about me," I told him with stilted bitterness.  "I can figure out how to get to the movie theater without your help, Dante." 
I just hadn't done it quite yet.  I'd gotten my license, but I sure as hell didn't have a car.  Could I borrow my grandma's and have it back before she woke up? I wondered.