Page 80 of Foul Territory

“Can I get a hint?”

“No. Tell me about your day? What did you do?”

“I went to class. Spent some time in the chemistry lab. The usual boring stuff.”

“Nothing you do is boring.”

“That isn’t true.” She rolls her eyes.

“Try me.” I shift gears and wait for her to give me what she thinks is an insignificant detail of her day. When she doesn’t answer right away, I glance at her with my peripheral vision. I have to roll my lips to keep from smiling at the fact she has her eyes glued on my forearm.

“Baby,” I say, dropping my hand to her thigh. “You were going to say something about your day.”

Her eyes zone in on my hand resting on her leg. I remove it and hold onto the gear shift again. I shouldn’t be touching her like that. Not yet, not until she’s sure she wants this.

“It feels weird making small talk with you.”

“Why? You act like we’ve never talked about small things before. Like not being able to find your matching purple socks,” I say and she rolls her eyes playfully again. “I want to know everything about your life, big and small.”

“It’s scary that you remember my purple sock fiasco from months ago.”

“Prepare yourself for the fright of your life with the amount of details I remember about you.”

“Are you obsessed with me?” she asks, teasingme.

“Yes,” I answer honestly.

Her eyes scrutinize me then she clears her throat. “Talking about missing socks still feels too simple. Even for someone with a fascination with me,” she says, smirking. I love her teasing me. I will take this over her silent treatment. Maybe she's starting to warm up to me.

“You already know all of the basic stuff anyway.”

“Twenty years from now I will still want you to tell me about your day. Even if we spent the entire day together. I want to hear about it from your perspective.” I take my eyes off the road for a moment to look at her.

“That makes no sense if you were there too. Why would you want me to tell you everything you already know?”

“So you agree we’ll be together in twenty years?” I ask, stopping at a red light. She wiggles in her seat.

“We should get through our date first.” Her eyes hold mine captive and the atmosphere in the car becomes electric. My eyes drift to her lips. She put on a light layer of gloss or maybe lip balm that pulls my attention to the lush pink center of her bottom lip. I want to swipe my tongue over her lips and see if they taste as good as they look.

The car behind me honks ruining the moment and forcing me to focus on the road again. “We’re almost there.” The sun is starting to set behind us. We’ll have just enough time to find a spot and get everything set up before we lose the natural light.

“How is everything going with your new job? Do you know when your first day is?” I ask to kill the silence. We haven’t gotten to the point where the silence feels comfortable. At least not for me. I can’t sit here quietly and not wonder what she’s thinking. Everything about tonight has to be perfect. I can’t afford to mess anything up.

“Oh, um. Immediately after graduation. I started looking at apartments today.”

My grip on the steering wheel tightens. “Did you find anything good?” If she doesn’t find anything, she can’t move, right? She’ll have to stay here in Alabama.

“Nothing promising. Not without a roommate. All the money I’ve been making at Ray’s is going to come in handy for deposits.”

“That’s good. About having the money. I still don’t like you working at Ray’s.”

“Why? I thought it was because of Nash but now…”

“I already told you I’ve never done anything for Nash. He asked all of the guys to keep an eye on you when we started high school and again when we came to Newhouse but just to make sure you weren't left to the wolves.”

“That doesn’t make any sense.”

I turn down the street that leads to the park. “I said he asked, but that isn’t why I did it. I was always going to look after you because you were mine to look after.”