“If you hurt my sister, know that I will hunt you down and cut your balls off—” Michelle’s threat was ended by her mom frantically shouting her name, and Bree smiling softly. She clearly did not care about apologizing, like her mom was quickly trying to tell her to do; all she did was step aside and let Bree out.
Bree stepped out, looking the opposite of at ease as she glanced back to her sister, who currently watched us both—though mostly me—with an icy blue stare that could kill. Michelle ended up glaring at me the entire time, as I brought Bree to my car. Even as I opened the passenger side door for her, Michelle sneered.
Did Bree tell her that she had a horrible time last weekend? Was that why Michelle felt so protective of her older sister? I guess I couldn’t blame her for that; I wasn’t my best, so it wasn’t too out of the blue that Michelle picked up on it.
Once Bree and I were safely in the car, I glanced at her, and then back up to Michelle, who glared from the front door. “Your sister must care a lot about you,” I remarked.
Bree shrugged. “She just doesn’t want me to get hurt.”
I looked back to Bree, noticing, for the first time, she didn’t look like she did last weekend. We’d traded places; this time I was the one all dressed up, and she looked like she did on a normal day. No makeup, no hairdo. Tonight her pink hair was messy in the natural way, her green eyes bare of all eyeshadow and eyeliner.
Some might think she looked more washed-out, being natural-faced, but I knew this was more the real Bree than the dolled-up version I’d seen last weekend. That was fine. This was the real Bree, and I was determined to show her the real me, as well. I was a good guy.
Although, I felt like most guys who called themselves good guys were actually shitty guys in hiding, like Trent, but that fact didn’t matter. I was nothing like Trent, and I would make up for the horribleness of our last date.
“Well,” I said, backing the car up out of the driveway, “your sister can rest easy. You’re in good hands tonight.”
She said nothing for a while, her green eyes simply watching me as I drove us out of town. The place we were going was a much fancier place than Sumit would allow. Needed to hop a town over to get the really fancy restaurants and bars.
Bree was apparently only twenty though, and bars were out of the picture for a date.
“You seem better tonight,” she remarked, fiddling with her hands on her lap. Was she nervous? Was she worried that I’d be a dick again? I hated that she’d gotten that impression of me, hated that she thought I could be like that. I wasn’t.
Not on purpose, anyway. I didn’t think anyone could sit down and expect their girlfriend of a year to cheat on them with their best friend, so I liked to think I had a good reason to not be myself. But, again, that was no excuse. Bree didn’t deserve to be on the receiving end of my attitude, even if that attitude was something along the lines of I don’t want to be here.
That’s how it was last weekend. Tonight, I…I did want to be here, with her. I wanted to make it up to her. I wouldn’t say I was ready to get back into the game, but…it did look like it was inching closer. Focusing on another girl was a good way to get my mind off what happened.
Bree and I would have a good time tonight, that much I promised myself.
“I am,” I said, giving her what I hoped was a reassuring smile. “I really am sorry for how I acted last weekend. I wasn’t myself. You didn’t deserve it.” As I glanced over at her, she looked so tiny, sitting there in the passenger’s seat, her body almost frail. Did this girl eat enough? She seemed skinny, and last weekend I didn’t think I’d seen her eat even a bite of her small salad.
Tonight, that would change. I would force this girl to eat something. At least a bite.
She picked at her nails, doing anything but looking at me again. Bree did not seem like the kind of girl who enjoyed lots of eye contact, and it did not give her an aura of confidence; the exact opposite, really, and I wondered why that was. Sure, she wasn’t exactly the stereotypical American girl with that pink hair and the jagged way her bangs were cut, but she wasn’t ugly.
She…she was actually quite pretty. Pale, smooth skin, no freckles or blemishes anywhere that I could see. A small button nose, a tiny chin that housed a pair of full lips. The emerald hue of her gaze needed no makeup to brighten it up.
“It’s fine,” she said. “I wasn’t on my best behavior, either.”
“You were dragged on a date with a stranger, so I don’t blame you. I’m sure you had other things to do.” As I said it, I remembered what Kyle had told me. She never went out, stayed cooped up in her parents’ house.
“Not really,” Bree muttered. “I don’t know why you wanted to try again.” Finally, she turned to look at me. She liked to look, I think, when I wasn’t staring at her, like she didn’t want me to know that she was currently looking at me. Shy, maybe? “I know I’m not your type.”
Something twisted inside when I noted how sad she sounded right then, like
