Page 7 of Secrets That Bind Us

Dean

Age Sixteen

"Now, I know you know what a noun is, and a verb is what you do."

"Uh-huh." I agree, but I'm not looking at the paper she's pointing at. I'm looking at her. Verity Huntington. Round cheeks, black framed glasses perched on her button nose, which she shoves up– not by the middle, but by delicately placing the tip of her middle finger on the bottom of the frame and gently nudging them higher. Her dark brows hike up as she does, with a twitch of her nose and it’s so fucking cute. I don’t even think she’s aware of it.

She turns her head to face me– light brown, almond-shaped eyes framed by lashes so black they look fake.

"Are you even paying attention?"

How could I? She smells like strawberries and sunflowers.

Even though her hair is up in a messy bun, every time she gets too close to me, her breath smells like mint and something else fruity and equally good.

I’m sure there’s some highbrow name for it, but the best I can come up with is that she just smells fresh, flowery, and fruity.

I like it. I wish she'd let her hair down. I want to pull on it like I did in eighth grade, when I sat behind her in pre-algebra and I'd copy off her tests when she wasn’t looking. Maybe I pulled it too much and that’s why she wears it in a bun all the time now.

Or maybe it has to do with Emory cutting a chunk of it during class freshman year.

"What are you doing with Micah?" I blurt out.

She clears her throat and puts her pencil down, tilting her head to look at me, scrunching her nose when she pushes her glasses up again. "What do you mean?"

"I mean why are you with him?"

She shakes her head and then tucks her chin into the black oversized hoodie that hides what I know is a banging body underneath.

Cause what I saw at the Fourth of July county fair last summer…

she was so… juicy. Brown hair in loose curls that fell around those sun-kissed shoulders and landed on her uh, chest .

That blue dress did nothing but accentuate it all.

Even if she wore white Chucks and a denim jacket over it, despite the heat.

She knows I love that color. Is that why she wore it?

All I remember is getting stuck on that stupid fucking Ferris wheel with Tiffany– trying to break up with her for the hundredth time that summer– and then being witness to Micah Henderson kissing my girl as fireworks popped off at fucking sunset, while Tiffany droned on and on and fucking on about irrelevant shit like always.

I’d never been so fuckin’ mad in my life. I couldn’t help but glare at them.

"Mrs. Bryant said-"

"I know what Mrs. B said. I'm asking you – what are you doing with Micah? What's so great about him?"

She looks confused, her eyebrows shoot together. "Uhm, we're friends. We study together."

"You study together, huh? He allowed in here with the door closed?" I ask, jerking my chin to the door that Mrs. Huntington propped open with a chair.

"Well he doesn't have a uhm..."

"A what?"

She swallows visibly, rolling those plump pink lips inward. "A reputation."

"A reputation, huh?"

She makes a noise in her throat and won't meet my gaze. I don’t like that. I like when she looks at me. Her eyes dilate real pretty when she does. "Yeah."

"Your daddy think I'd touch his precious little girl?

" I ask harshly, anger rising when it shouldn't, because she's right. I was an idiot freshman year. What started as me breaking up with Tiffany Myers under the bleachers– to not cause drama– turned into something that almost got me expelled, all because I couldn’t get a handle on my hormones.

Instead, my dad worked it out to where I got sent to an alternative school, missing out on football altogether.

And by the time I came back, Verity and Micah were just the coziest of cozy .

It was seeing her in his letterman that tore me apart and made me break up with Tiffany for good.

But Verity wouldn’t talk to me at all, keeping her distance from me like I was diseased.

So I made sure to switch lockers with Luke Harris– just to have a reason to be in the same hall as her.

Only to find out she shares her locker with Zoey fucking Caldwell in the first place.

I had to pay Harris fifty bucks just to switch me again since they go by alphabetical order.

Money well fuckin’ spent, if you ask me– ‘cause now she’s in my hall, and her shared locker is three away from mine.

"You know… your daddy has a reputation, too." But that's clearly the wrong thing to say, and I hate myself as soon as the words leave my mouth.

"This was a mistake." She says, snapping her textbook closed and rising from her seat beside me on the plush beige carpet underneath us. The pain in her voice is crossed with humiliation, and all I wanna do is make it better.

Dean Carson, forever the fuck-up.

I get closer to her, but her head turns to the side, and she uses her textbook as a fucking shield when I reach up to touch her shoulder. Her eyes close, and alarms blare in my head. My stomach and heart drop to the floor. I back off and lower my hands. "Shit. Verity, I'm sorry."

"Everything okay in here?" Mrs. Huntington's voice comes through as she peeps in the door, a basket full of laundry on her hip.

"Yes ma'am." I reply, not taking my eyes off of Verity, face pink with embarrassment.

"Good. Dean, honey, your daddy called saying he'd be late to pick you up. I'm making dinner. I don't know what growing quarterbacks eat, but I'm making baked chicken, macaroni and cheese, green beans, and mashed potatoes if you'd like to stay for dinner."

"Dean was just leaving, Mama."

I turn my head and smirk at Verity, whose cheeks are still flushed. "Actually, ma'am, that all sounds delicious. I haven't had a home-cooked meal since I came back from my mom's before summer vacation was over."That’s a lie. My mom doesn’t cook.

Verity grimaces. Her mother's smile falters, but she picks it back up. "Great. Dinner will be ready shortly."

"Thank you, Mrs. Huntington."

She nods and I hear her footsteps trail down the hallway and the creaks from every loose floorboard.

"What the fuck was that?"

"Mama bein’ a good Southern woman."

"You know what I meant."

Her eyes lower to the ground. "Can we just... I have my biology and geometry homework to do."

I grab my textbooks out of my backpack. "What a coincidence, I need help with those too."

"That wasn't part of this deal."

"We can make it part of this deal,” I argue.

Her eyes shut. "Dean," I love the way she says my name– like it tortures her, but it always, always sounds like a plea. "You've already taken my entire afternoon. If I keep tutoring you, I'll have to drop everyone else-"

"Then do it. Just be my tutor. Nobody else's."

Her eyes widen. "I can't do that. They need my help."

" I need your help, Verity. Me . Everyone else can suck it."

"You can't afford me. Monday through Thursdays? Dean, that's almost two hundred dollars a month."

"I'd take your Friday nights, too– but those are game nights.

You would know that if you ever came to my games.

And you don't have anyone to tutor Friday nights.

I know this ‘cause them and their mama's are all watching me play.

Well, everyone except you and yours." I shrug, not giving her an excuse to tell me no.

I don't know why but having her share her time with anyone else that isn't me, bugs the ever living shit out of me.

It always has. Even when we were kids on the playground.

I don't want anyone else to have her time.

I already have to watch her walk the halls next to Micah .

She pushes her glasses up her face in that nervous Verity way, and her mouth twitches. "No, I don't think I could do that."

"What will it take?" I grab my wallet from my back pocket and throw ten twenty-dollar bills at her. "There's two hundred."

She stares at them as they land at her feet. She steps away from them, so I throw a hundred-dollar bill at her.

"Three different subjects, eight bucks an hour, four times a week-" I throw another two hundred. "Looks like I'm all paid up and then some."

She doesn’t sink to the ground and pick up my money, instead just ignoring it. But the thought does something to me. Like I’d own a piece of her. I want to monopolize her time, so she can focus on me and only me. Yeah, the thought of that? Well it feels fucking good.

"Dean-"

I don’t know why I say what I say next– but fuck it.

“I work at my uncle’s garage down on Seventh Street on the weekends.

Plus, I get a thousand dollars a month from my mom alone for allowance.

Which is ridiculous. I mostly end up putting it in the bank, but it's Mom’s way of apologizing for losing custody of me.

” It’s a total lie– but she doesn’t need to know that.

Nobody in this town has seen my mama in years. All for good reason.

See, her daddy may leave her mama and her bruised up where everyone can see, but my mom leaves her bruises deeper. My mama cuts and carves the very ventricles of my heart. Dad does the same, but in different ways.

Verity's eyes soften– the glare replaced by something that isn't pity. It's understanding. And thank God, because I don't think I could stand it if she ever pitied me.

I don’t move my eyes from her, taking in the way she nervously cups the hem of the sleeves of her oversized hoodie that reaches her mid-thigh. I want to ask her if it’s Micah’s, so I can replace it with one of mine. Because she is mine. “So what’s it going to be, Verity?”

“I guess I can tutor the other students during study hall at the library during lunch and while you practice after school.”

That’s absolutely the wrong thing to say to me.

But that’s fine. I’ll find a way. We have study hall and lunch at the same hours.

I just gotta figure out where the goddamn library is first. I’ll do anything to keep Verity away from that snitch Micah.

The fucker that ruined everything for me– including taking her from me.

If only I’d known he’d find a way to do it again just two years later.

Because that snitch knew . He knew I was gonna make her mine, and he just couldn’t handle it.

Seeing them kiss on the Ferris wheel had been my breaking point.

I had stayed away until I could break up with Tiffany.

Matter of fact, I was breaking up with Tiffany because I was so tired of her and her bullshit– when she decided that under the bleachers was the right time and place to-

“Dinner’s ready! Y’all c’mon and set the table!”

Verity sighs, looking down at the money, still not picking it up. “Coming!”

And hearing her scream that ? Made me buzz way more than it ought to have.

I find the goddamn library, and no fucking wonder I never knew where it was – it was by the band hall. The good thing is – I found the library just in time, because Micah is sitting in on their little study session.

I pull up a chair and shove it between her and Zoey, sitting backwards, draping my arms over the back of the chair. I pull an apple out of my backpack and take a bite. “What’s going on here?”

Their eyes widen, but hers close. “Dean,” there it is again. That tortured plea sound. It makes my dick throb a bit. “What are you doing here?”

“You said you tutor during study hall. This don’t look much like tutoring.”

She sighs. “No, we're making plans to go to the art festival in Austin next weekend. Evan’s dad and mine are going to the auction held down there every year, but this year both are taking place there at the same time. So, we’re either taking Evan’s truck or Zoey’s brother’s Jeep.”

“I like art.” It’s a half-lie. I like art that I can understand .

Abstract shit is weird. How am I supposed to know what the artist is trying to say when it’s a cardboard box painted blue?

The other girls at the table giggle, and I can see the steam coming out of Micah's ears.

Verity does her best to not laugh at me by pushing up her glasses in that Verity way.

“Like the guy that cut his ear off. I like him.” I prove.

“Van Gogh.” She says.

“Well, we can Car-go too, but I’m pretty sure it’s called car pool .”

This time they all burst out in laughter, and the librarian shushes them, saying that there’s no eating allowed in here. I reply I’m a growing quarterback and need to eat constantly if I’m getting us to the play-offs– to which she rolls her eyes. But it works.

“No. The artist that cut off his ear. His name was Vincent Van Gogh.” She explains.

I’m an idiot. “Oh. So when are we Gogh-ing?”

They pass a look amongst each other and then, the girl I'm obsessed with sighs.“Dean, can I talk to you?” Verity says, getting up from the table and heading toward one of the taller bookshelves so we’ll be hidden.

I follow. “What’s up?”

“Look, I appreciate that you’re taking the initiative and wanting to learn more, but this… it’s just not your scene. You like football, and motorcycles, and… getting laid and parties.”

“Micah doesn’t?”

“He plays football, yeah, but Micah’s… different. He plays football because his dad makes him. Not because it’s what he wants to do with his life.”

I don’t like that. The way she’s trying to let me down slowly. “Maybe I’m different.”

Verity grimaces, shaking her head.

“What? You think I’m bad? You think what? I got caught having sex on school grounds, so I must be some kind of sex addict?”

“On the contrary, Dean. I think you like the image you’ve made for yourself.

I don’t think that’s who you are at all.

But you don’t have to prove to me that you aren’t.

I know you’re smart. I know you’re kind and funny.

I believe that you have all of this potential, all of the potential, actually. You just misplace it.”

My heart ripples. I take a step closer to her.

She steps back until her back hits the bookshelf.

I lift an arm and brace it over her, bracketing her with my body, and she gasps.

It sends chills scattering through me. I like that noise when it comes from her pretty lips.

“So then don’t keep me from finding all the potential you see in me.

” I take my finger and lift her chin to meet my gaze. “Please, Ver?” I whisper.

She shivers. “O…okay.”

I step away and smirk when she follows. “Great. I’ll be at your house after practice. You can give me the details then.”