Total pages in book: 90
Estimated words: 92070 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 460(@200wpm)___ 368(@250wpm)___ 307(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 92070 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 460(@200wpm)___ 368(@250wpm)___ 307(@300wpm)
"You're freaking out," he says.
"No. I'm just thinking."
"About him?"
"Yes."
His eye corners turn down. "Because I pushed you."
"No."
He doesn't believe me.
"Really."
"Then why?"
Chapter Twenty
VAL
Then why?
A perfectly reasonable question I can't begin to answer.
Because I'm still a mess.
Because I can't handle my ill-advised plan.
Because I don't want to tell him the truth.
What would he think of me if he knew?
That's not fair. He's a good friend. He's my best friend. The only guy I've ever trusted.
But he's still a man.
"I can't explain," I say. I wish I could. I really do. But I don't even understand it sometimes. How could I ever communicate my tangled feelings to someone else?
His eyes go to the floor.
"But, please, trust me. It wasn't that. You're a great teacher."
His shoulders relax. His lips curl upward. Well, less downward.
"It was… your other question. About my number. I just thought—"
"That doesn't count," he says.
"I know."
"Then what?"
"I don't know." My shoulders tense. I shrink back into the wall.
"Fuck, Val, I'm sorry." Dare reaches for me. Stops himself. "I don't want to make it about me."
"Okay."
"I don't want to push."
I nod.
"Are you okay here?"
"Okay how?"
He doesn't explain. "Let's go home."
I nod.
"We can talk there if you want. Or not."
Not is good. I nod.
"I'm going to pay. You want to come with me or sit here?"
"I'll come with you."
He nods, slides out of the booth, offers his hand. But it's not like before. It's not easy and smooth and fun.
It's strained with the weight of my history.
Even with my best friend, I can't do this.
How am I ever going to do this?
Dare doesn't muse over the oddity of paying in Europe (they bring the card reader to you instead of taking your card to it), and I don't have any better small talk.
Outside, the air is cool and crisp. I wrap my arms around my shoulders reflexively.
He shrugs his leather jacket off his shoulders and drapes it over mine.
"Thanks." I slip my arms into the sleeves. They still fit well. I'm a bigger girl, sure, but Dare is tall, broad, and jacked. There's plenty of room for my softness where his hardness usually goes.
Fuck, that sounds dirty.
It's not enough to send my ugly thoughts away, but it dulls them. If things were normal, if we were talking like two people who didn't have the weight of history between them—
"It's nothing you did or said." I stop at the light. "I promise."
"It's okay."
"No, it's not." The light turns. I take his hand and lead him down the street. We have a twenty-minute walk home. I don't want to spend it with this tension between us.
"How is it not?"
"I can't… I can't have things weird."
"I'm helping you fuck your roommate. It's weird."
"Not that." That's no longer happening. When I snuck to the bathroom and texted Archie to play along, he made it very clear he's on team Val and Dare. He's totally willing to do whatever it takes to make it happen, including flirting with me (well, with Dare, really) via text in front of Dare.
Or with me (actually me) in front of Dare.
Or even kissing me in front of Dare.
So many guys want to kiss me as part of a ruse to help me sleep with another guy. That says something about me, but I have no idea what it is.
And I need to say something here too. I need things to be less weird.
For a few blocks, I walk in silence. Then I find the words to start.
"I think about it sometimes, especially around the subject of sex."
"It was the experience comment?"
"I don't want you to watch what you say around me."
"I don't want to send your thoughts there," he says.
"They go there sometimes. It happens. I know how to deal with it."
He nods with understanding.
"Let me deal with it."
"If you talk to me."
"What if I say no?"
"I'm not going to push you to do something you're not ready to do."
Damn. He's too considerate. I can't argue with that. "I don't know if I'm ready."
"What's the rush? What will it change if you sleep with Archie?"
Or with Dare. "I'll remember that."
"Will you?" He chuckles, shifting to an easier topic and an easier tone. "No offense, Val, but he doesn't seem like a memorable lay."
"How could anyone not take offense to that?"
His laugh breaks up another ounce of tension. "It's a good choice, for your first time at bat in years, but it's not like he's going to rock your world."
"He's quiet."
"And?"
"That's what you said. It's the quiet ones."
"Sometimes it's the loud ones," he says.
"Maybe it's him."
He shoots me a please look. "You really think that?"
"It's possible."
"So, no?" He motions to the street, left or right?
"Scenic view or shopping street?"
"That one is more populated."
Less dangerous. Not that Barcelona is dangerous, we do have a lot of pickpockets, but that's not the kind of danger he means.