Page 109 of Just for the Cameras
“Want me to buckle you up?” she asks. I eye her sharply, basically telling her no with one unamused glare. “Yeah, didn’t think so.”
I start the truck, back out, then head out onto the road, Slutty Little Glasses on my mind.
For now.
He really fucking said “for now” as if he has some mastermind plan brewing that will magically make Maple dump me and go running into his arms.
Not that Maple and I are in a true relationship, but he doesn’t know that.
“Um, you seem tense,” Maple says.
“I’m fine.”
“You don’t seem fine.”
“I am,” I snap.
Jesus, man. Don’t take your anger out on her. Then again, didn’t she put us in this situation? A situation where now I think about her all the time? Where all I want to do is claim her in front of every goddamn man that even looks at her?
How the fuck did I even get here?
It feels like it happened in seconds.
She gets hit by a cop car, hurts her wrist, and then I’m the knight in shining armor, protecting her every chance I get, every chance I’m granted.
And I hate it.
I hate this overwhelming, consuming, out-of-control feeling I have whenever I’m around her. It’s…it’s fucking debilitating.
“You know…you don’t have to be rude to me.”
She’s right about that. Then again, I don’t know how to handle these feelings. Do I really like her?
I glance over at her, her long lashes blinking up at me. Jesus Christ, why is she so beautiful?
“I wasn’t…I wasn’t trying to be rude. It just came across that way.”
“Well, it was rude to me, and I don’t appreciate it.”
Grinding my teeth together, I mutter, “Sorry.”
“Ooh, so heartfelt.”
“I’ll send you a card in the mail tomorrow.”
“Now that’s the kind of apology I’m looking for. If you could tack another potted plant onto that, I’d love it. No flowers, though, because they just end up dying, and I think that’s sad. But another potted plant—I’d keep that thing alive and become friends with it.”
The way she just allows my grumpiness to roll right off her makes me like her that much more, because I know I don’t have to pretend. I don’t have to be someone that I’m not around her, and she’ll still talk to me.
She’ll regret it; I know she fucking will.
I’m not the type of person that you can put up with for a long time. The grumpiness won’t wear off, but the acceptance of it will.
Seeming confused, she glances around and then asks, “Um, are we going in the right direction?”
“I want tacos,” I say.
“Oh, the big man is hungry, okay.”
