It's a comic book. She's talking about a comic book, not me, I remind myself as I wrestle with the urge to grab her face and kiss her hard. I can hardly stay in my chair.
"So you think people can do bad things for good reasons?" I press, and I'm relieved she doesn't seem to notice how suspiciously anxious I am for her answer.
"Of course." She pauses, fries held in midair, thinking it through. "Yes." She nods, more convinced every second. "It happens all the time. And I'm in no place to judge. I'm always doing stupid things for stupid reasons, and I should know better."
I'm twisting her innocent confession and making it into something that applies to me and the idiot decisions I've been making for the last few years. The ones even I can't really come to terms with. She's talking about Magneto and her little accidental foray into arson.
This has nothing to do with the lifestyle I live and the sacrifices I have to make and keep making.
She won't be able to reconcile with them because even I have a hard time with it, and I have no choice but to do what needs to be done, like it or not.
Guilt and hopeless frustration rip through me like a wild dog pack on the scent of a kill.
"You ready to get outta here?" I ask, and she wordlessly sweeps the few scraps of leftover food and garbage into a pile, I throw it out, and we head to the car.
"Is this date over?" she asks when I have her door open.
Her feet hang half off the curb and she rocks back and forth, an inch away from me and then into the car interior, an inch closer and then back again.
"Completely your call."
I hold still, one hand on the car door, one on the roof, every nerve tensed to keep from kissing her right into the car, into the backseat, kissing her until it goes a lot damn further than kissing, to a place we can't get back from.
She sucks her bottom lip in and chews on it, and I have to hold back a groan, because I want to suck on that lip. I want to suck on her.
"I want to stay with you longer." It's so blunt, she can't possibly mean for it to be a come on, but I'm so turned on, I'm about to make a dent in my hood from gripping it so damn tight. "I have to be home by midnight or my grandparents will freak out. But that's hours away. Can we go somewhere?"
"Yeah. Yes. Of course."
I should kiss her. I want to, but this moment is damn close to perfect, and I don't want to mess with it. So, instead, I get in the car and we go.
The beach is half an hour away. I'd take her to my family's rental, but Remington has been stationed there in a Jack-and-pot coma for weeks.
She interrupts my thoughts, "My grandparents have a house right on the ocean." I nod and she programs the address in the GPS for me, then warns, "As long as we don't get crazy, we can hang out there."
"I'm not the fire-starter," I point out, and regret it instantly.
Nothing like setting everything to rights just to potentially piss her off a second later.
Her laugh starts out low and deep in her throat and bubbles through the whole car.
"Accidental fire-starter, asshole." She punches my shoulder and gives me a glare that's offset by a wide grin. "At least, lighting the orchard up was an accident."
The sound of her laughter makes me comfortable enough to ask. "So, what were you lighting up that night?"
She presses her hands over her eyes and moans, "It's too embarrassing."
She's kicked off her boots and peeled off her socks, and now she puts her little feet with their glittery-red-painted toenails on the dashboard.
I usually have a set-in-stone rule that no one puts anything on my dashboard, especially feet. But, for this girl, I'm willing to make major exceptions.
"Tell me. I won't laugh at you," I promise, watching as she gathers her hair up on top of her head and makes this messy bun.
"I'll tell you mine if you tell me yours," she singsongs, letting all that hair swirl around her shoulders in long, sexy pieces that brush into the deep v-neck of her shirt and the soft press of her tits.
"Mine?" I push the pedal to the floor, speeding past the clumps of marsh grass and white sandy dunes, then let up and relax. I need to keep cool, keep my head, but it’s not easy with her around. "Mine isn't exactly mine. It's complicated."
She picks her foot up and points at me with her toes, making the glitter sparkle.
"Everything with you is complicated." I try to smile, but it's panicky. She really has no idea just how true that is. "Well, I'm an open book. I was burning a pile of crap from my ex-boyfriend. He spent the summers with his grandparents, so I wanted him to see the bonfire and me and really get a handle on what a dumbass he was and what he lost when I dumped his sorry ass. I know, it was totally melodramatic, but I was a little bit drunk and really emotional that night, so I’m not apologizing for it. Anyway, of course, I forgot that he was partying with his stupid friends since he just got out of jail and all. So it was just his grandparents, but his grandfather had put all this pesticide down that morning, and apparently it was super flammable. And I might have been a wee bit drunker than I felt, so I wasn't any help in putting it out."
She covers her face completely with her hands and rolls
