The edge of laughter fades and his smile twists into a hard scowl. "Sounds like you were with pricks."
"Pricks, dicks, fuckheads, assholes, douchebags, and all assortments of your basic garden-variety loser. Darling, you name an unsavory character from around here and chances are I made out with him. Or worse."
I tilt my sunglasses down and play-act a cheeky smile that makes the steel bands of a migraine start to take hold at my temples.
"You're happy about that?" His words are forged out of iron.
I give a shrug that's supposed to seem thoughtless, careless, but feels like I'm trying to shrug the coils of a venomous snake off my shoulders.
"I'm not happy or unhappy. I have truly terrible taste in guys and have gotten screwed over by more than I can count, but I like me a bad boy. Stop giving me that look! I'm young. This is the time in my life when I'm supposed to experiment and get burned."
"Getting burned is one thing." He rolls his neck like he's trying to break up tension in his muscles. "Spending time with guys who treat you like shit is another. You dated Rabin Francis, didn't you?"
Rabin's name scratches against my ears like a wire brush on an old metal pan. I wished I never mentioned my shithead ex-boyfriend when we were talking during the last community service session.
"So?" I snap, pulling my sunglasses off my face in frustration.
"So, he was all over the news for assaulting some dancers." There's a long pause, and the next words out are more rising growls than actual syllables. "Did he do anything like that to you?"
His lips curl back and his eyeteeth hang out, like a wild animal about to jump for a jugular.
"No! I mean, nothing that bad." I dig my heels into the floorboards and breathe through my nose to slow the words that are struggling to burst out of my mouth. "Nothing like that. And I can handle myself, okay? I broke up with him because he cheated...well, he also got arrested. And things had been escalating, so I had to get out sometime."
Sweat dampens under my armpits and coats my palms. I feel gross. I feel trapped. How did it all flip so quickly? I wanted easy and sweet and fun, and this is terrible and so freaking wrong.
"That's a lot of excuses. How long did you put up with him for?" Winch's words snarl out of his mouth, and I detect the faint aroma of disgust.
My gut twists.
"Look, like I said, it was my choice. Okay? Mine. I decided to date him because he was hot and wild and I wanted to be around him. I decided not to date him because he was also an asshole and did some seriously stupid things. But a lot of guys I've been out with have been like that. So..." I shake my head. "I guess I can just chalk it up to the fact that something about me loves an asshole, and something about assholes gets off on yanking my chain."
I'm so close to tears, my eyes feel like they've been chemically burned. My throat is reduced to a tiny alley that lets my panicked breath crawl and stumble in and out.
Winch's hand fists over the steering wheel. "I don't know who’s stupider. You or them."
Magma-hot heat bursts through me and makes me see bright silver spots in front of my eyes. "Well, that's just over-the-line fucking rude."
"Rude my ass. It's honest and you need to hear it from someone. Don't brag about the fact that guys treated you like shit, Evan." His voice is a midnight cannonball into a winter-frigid lake, and the chills that rush up and down my spine leave me shaky. And to top my discomfort off, much as I want him to just shut up, his voice continues to pummel me. "You think it's cute? You think it makes you badass?"
The fault lines of this date run deep, and the jostling anger of my feelings threatens to tear it apart.
"Pull over." My voice bounces the words so hard, they border on a stutter.
"No way." He accelerates slightly and pulls down streets even I don't know, and I've roamed Savannah since I could toddle. "You wanna see badass? Do you? Cause I can take you places where guys are fucking animals, Evan. Animals who don't give a fuck. They scare the shit out of me, and I'm not a pussy by any stretch of the imagination. And if you end up with one of them because you think it’s cute to date fuck-ups…I don’t even want to think about what could happen. It isn’t a game, Evan. It isn’t a goddamn joke. It’s serious, and you should take it seriously."
I grip the handle of the door and tug, but Winch swings the car to the shoulder and brakes before I can jam it open.
The night is still sweet and deep, filled with the happy crush of groups of friends walking to bars, the low hum of a million insects, the roar of the engine of some sporty car showing off as it buzzes past us down the street, and a promise of wild fun that only the late, lazy yawn of summer can hold.
I wish I could stop the shivers that rip through me and enjoy all of this beauty instead.
"I'm getting out," I say in a slow, firm voice. "This date is so over. I'm going to call a car and get dropped off at home. I'll be perfectly safe, but you're a
