Page 14 of Secrets That Bind Us
There, mingled with the ice, is a big, green fucking loogy floating in my water. I can feel the color drain from my face as Emory turns, and her smile is pure evil as she takes the pitcher back to where it’s stationed.
“Verity? What’s wrong?”
My eyes slide back to my drink, where my hand is still reaching out to grab it. When I hear the growl emit from Dean, I know he’s spotted it.
“I’ll take care of this.” He grabs the glass and goes straight to the counter, where the owner, Henry is sitting.
Dean points to the glass, then at me. I can’t hear what he’s saying, but his face is a rotten sneer.
Henry takes one look, turns a shade of green first, and then as red as the cherry tomatoes on my plate.
When he screams Emory’s name, the entire bistro goes silent, save Frank Sinatra’s Fly Me to the Moon playing lightly above us.
At first, Emory tries to play coy, but Dean goes to the back with him to check the cameras.
Emory shifts from foot to foot, her smirk gone.
When they come back out, Emory is fired from her uncle’s restaurant effective immediately.
Henry apologizes profusely, upgrades our seating to the outside patio where the atmosphere is…
romantic and full of adults drinking wine.
They eye us suspiciously, but then pay us no mind, going back to their conversations.
When we take our seats, Dean simply says, “So they go there to train…” and then motions with his wrist for me to continue exactly where I left off.
He doesn’t let me feel humiliated by Emory. He doesn’t act humiliated, either – not even after the scene he caused for my sake.
I tell him the rest of the plot but then tell him my real struggle - that I want to have at least three books written before I send the first manuscript to the publisher. Because if they pick it up, I want to tell them that yes, I do have sequels ready, and not just in my head.
“So, experiences, huh?” He grins.
“Yes, because she ends up falling for a dragon shifter. The last one alive.”
His smile is as wicked as it is beautiful, and I can’t stand the way those blue eyes pierce through me. How they make me feel so… good . “I think you’re right. I think you really got something going here.”
I silently fall in love with Dean Carson.
Later that night, he takes me to the outskirts of town in his granddaddy’s truck. He puts a blanket down on the bed of it and a few pillows. We watch the stars zip along the sky between kisses, his fingers trail feather-soft skimming touches on my body.
They feel like hellfire.
Truth be told, I don’t think I’d mind burning for him.
“Verity, can you stay after class, please?”
“Yes Mrs. Bryant,” I reply, sinking in my seat. I hate being asked to stay after class. It feels like I’ve done something wrong.
“Mr. Carson, you as well.”
He smirks at me from beside me. “Sure thing, Mrs. B.” He leans back, all cool, calm, and collected, and I wish I had just a smidge of his cool, calm, and collected demeanor.My insides swish like an unbalanced washer.
After class, we stay behind, and my favorite teacher has us sit in the front row, the large mahogany podium she uses to teach us from behind her as she leans against it, arms crossed. “I was grading your essays over the weekend, and your essays were… good.”
Dean grins. “I bet they are. Verity trained me well.”
“I didn’t train him; I was tutoring him.”
“Well, Verity, if you don’t want a future in writing, you may have one as a creative writing teacher.
” She says. I blush at the compliment. “There’s a magazine I follow for young adults – poetry, short stories, art, photography.
It’s a way for young, like-minded individuals to have a safe space and connect. ”
I tilt my head to the side and look back at her in confusion. “Okay?”
“I wanted your permission to turn your essays in. I think… I think you both offer something here that may help someone. May even give them hope.”
“Okay.” Dean says when I say, “Sure.”
When we leave Mrs. Bryant’s classroom, curiosity gets the best of me. “What did you write about?”
He smirks, “You’ll see. If it gets published. You?”
I return his smirk and play his game. “You’ll see if it gets published.”
“Fair enough.” He grabs my hand, interlocking his fingers with mine. His hand is so big it feels like it swallows mine. I really like it. “C’mon, I’ll walk you to class.”
So he does, and for the next few weeks, he does.
If we don’t share a class together, he’s outside of it by the time I leave, he’s at my locker, eating lunch with me.
After practice, he comes over and we study together- sometimes with Zoey, Evan and Micah, sometimes it’s just us. And when it’s just us…
We’re in the barn, and he’s kissing me senselessly, making my body come alive.
Or he’s sneaking in through my bedroom window after he’s ‘gone home’ for the evening.
He tells me he loves me for the first time before a storm blows through while we’re walking through the sunflower fields, and we have to hide out in the unused shed.
I return it. And he seals it with a kiss that brands my very soul.
I know it then – I’m Dean Carson’s girl. Forever.
The next day, he gives me a sunflower necklace he got from a gumball machine, promising he’ll buy me a gold one when he can afford it. I never take it off.
I’m his date to Homecoming, where he and Tiffany are crowned Duke and Duchess since we’re only sophomores.
It’s pretentious, and I try my very best not to get jealous when the ‘royal court’ has their first dance and he has to dance with her.
I watch from the sidelines as she whispers to him, but his eyes stay on me the whole time.
And when the dance is over, he gives her a kiss on the cheek.
I watch as he whispers ‘goodbye,’ in her ear.
Tiffany’s slim shoulders slump, and Dean comes back to me.
Every day together, we grow closer, learn more about each other- and our bodies.
On Halloween morning, he asks me to come to a ‘thing.’ When I ask what it is, he gives me a shrug and says I’ll find out soon enough.
Standing in front of my full-length mirror in my angel costume and denim jacket I got from the thrift shop… I have a really bad feeling about this.