My hand tightened around hers for a few moments, slowly releasing hers as I then reached to her hair—the pink seemed to glow in the dark, but that was just me exaggerating.
“Even if you didn’t have cotton candy hair, you’d be special,” I added, sweeping some of that hair behind her ear and causing her to shiver.
She let out the shakiest laugh I’d ever heard. A nervous, hesitant chuckle. “My hair isn’t cotton candy pink,” Bree said, glancing at me—though she didn’t turn her head to look at me. If she did, our faces would’ve been inches away. “That’s a different color pink.”
I leaned my elbow on the center console, breathing her in. “Why don’t we get out of the car and you can tell me all about the different shades of pink?” Not something I cared about learning, but if it would get her talking, I was down for it.
When it came to Bree, I was oddly down for anything.
This one…it was almost impossible not to like her.
Chapter Nine – Bree
The park Calum had taken me to was pretty, I had to admit. Circling a big lake, with stone pathways that were lit up by small string lights, it was like an escape from the real world. Plus, it wasn’t too busy; there weren’t many other people walking along its trails.
I’d never been here before. I wondered how Calum knew about it. Had he taken girls here before? He was awfully handsome; it wouldn’t surprise me to learn that he had many girlfriends in his past, all of which he’d wooed easily. I knew he’d just gotten out of a relationship, but I had no idea how many other relationships he’d been in.
More than me, definitely, but that wasn’t hard to accomplish, since I had a whopping zero to my name.
I…I didn’t like the thought of Calum with other girls, which was stupid, I knew. He wasn’t my boyfriend. He wasn’t even my crush. Hell, at this point, I had no idea what he was to me. This date was just a pity date to make up for how awful the last one was. This date didn’t mean anything, I knew.
And yet, when he’d grabbed my hand in the car, when his fingers had curled around mine and he told me those things…my heart had skipped a beat or two. My skin had grown hot when he’d tucked my hair behind my ear. I’d wanted nothing more than to look at him then, to see him leaning close to me—to close my eyes and imagine, just for a quick, fleeting moment, that I was someone else, that I was cooler, better.
That I wasn’t me.
Yes, being someone else would be so much better than being me.
My mind was full of questions, my thoughts racing a mile a minute as I walked side by side with Calum. He did not reach for me again, didn’t try to hold my hand as we walked, and for that I was both thankful and sad. Thankful because I wouldn’t know what to do if he tried to, and sad because I wanted him to, regardless.
Ugh, being so conflicted was tiring, and I was already in a perpetual state of exhaustion.
“You don’t really want to hear all about the different shades of pink, do you?” I asked, turning my head up to look at him. He certainly was tall. Walking beside him, I felt like a child. A child who was impossibly attracted to the man beside her. A child who, even though she knew it would end badly, wanted him anyway.
I knew he’d never really like me, that this could only lead to heartbreak if I didn’t stop myself soon. I hated that this was my life, that this was how I thought about things, but I couldn’t change it. I couldn’t change me.
“Not really,” Calum said, meeting my glance with a smile. He didn’t have dimples like Mason, but that didn’t mean his smile was anything less than the sun on a warm, summer day. “But if you want to talk about it, I’ll listen. I’ll listen to anything you want to talk about.”
It was obvious he was just being nice. Damn it, I wished he would’ve simply taken me home when I mentioned it at the restaurant. The more minutes that ticked by when I was with him, the deeper into a hole I felt myself digging.
Stupid, stupid.
When I said nothing, only staring down at my feet as we walked, Calum said, “Okay, then I’ll pick the topic of conversation.” I could feel his eyes on me, and that was precisely why I did not turn to look at him again. His expression was too intense, too focused on me, and way too handsome.
I’d never had such a cute guy all to myself before, unless you counted Mason, and I wasn’t sure he counted…although, after his little confession, maybe I should. I still didn’t know what to do or say about that one.
God, did I walk into an alternate reality when I wasn’t looking? A world where, unbeknownst to me, I was a hot commodity that everyone wanted?
“You say you never go out,” Calum spoke as we made a turn onto an offshoot of the main path, sparkling lights strung above us. “Does that mean you’ve never had a boyfriend before?”
The heat drained from my face instantly. There was nothing like talking to a cute guy about your lack of dating, was there? Nothing at all to compare to the embarrassment of admitting
