“Yeah. Um…” He fidgets, tearing at the corner of his napkin to keep his hands busy. “Want to come?”
Do I want to come? “To the game? With your parents?” I emphasize that last word, choking on the cornbread in my throat, reaching for the water glass and chugging half of it down.
That feels huge. He wants me at the game and sitting with his parents? His parents.
Like, his mother and father, the ones who gave birth to him.
Calm down, you’ve met them both.
“Yeah. I think I can manage a family box if you want?”
If I want… What does that mean? I get to decide where we all sit? Me, the girl he’s taken out twice and had sex with on the first date?
“Whatever works. I don’t want to inconvenience you.”
He shakes his head. “Not an inconvenience, I just have to let my manager know so he can let will call know.” Tripp pauses. “Come to think of it, my mom’s going to want to talk your ear off, so maybe regular seats won’t work. Then Dad can eat without getting pissed he has to pay eight bucks for a beer.”
I can tell he’s not done talking, so I wait him out, pretending to be focused on everything except his awkward fumbling.
“I…” Tripp clears his throat. “Want you there. I mean—I would like it if you came.”
Whoa.
That admission had to have been hard for him; he’s revealed so little about himself, his past relationships, and what he wants for his future.
“I’d like it, too.” I watch as he eats another muffin, then another, reaching for the basket and sticking my finger into the linen cloth. It’s empty. “Hey, you ate all the muffins.”
“I told you I was hungry.”
The mood is ruined when I glare at him, breaking the spell. “Why do you eat like a human garbage disposal? Do you even taste the food going down?”
“Honestly? Not really.”
“Then save some for me!”
He looks abashed, shoulders sagging a little. “You’re right—I should be more sensitive and should have asked if you wanted another one before I plowed them down.”
The admission gives me pause, stopping my outrage in its tracks.
“Huh?”
“I mean…that’s what Molly said.”
“Molly told you to be more sensitive?” I want to laugh, but he’s dead serious.
“The words were that I had to be nicer, but like—same thing? Sharing is caring and clearly that’s something I need to work on. Sorry.” He leans forward and plants a kiss on my gaping mouth.
I’m so confused.
“Is Molly your relationship coach?”
“It does appear that way.”
We both laugh. The idea of a fifteen-year-old schooling him on how to behave with a grown woman is both absurd and also entirely appropriate.
“What else did she tell you?” Curious minds want to know.
Tripp hesitates before giving his head a little shake. “That’s confidential.”
Food comes and goes and we pass on dessert, taking coffee to go for an afternoon pick-me-up.
“You know what a good afternoon pick-me-up is?” he asks, opening the passenger side to his truck and giving me a hand as he boosts me up.
“What?”
“Sex in the back of a truck.”
The door slams shut and I blink out the front window. Is he serious? Does he seriously want to have sex in the back seat of his truck? I glance behind me—dark tinted windows. Plenty of space on the bench seat.
How convenient.
Unfortunately, we’re parked on a busy street, tourists passing by and a meter that needs to be fed.
I point this out.
“So? We’ll go up to Ohio Street where it’s dead.” His arm rests on the back of my seat, and when he shoots me a little wink, I’m a goner.
“Okay.”
“Yeah?”
“Yes. Find a spot, pull over, and fuck me on the side of the road.”
Tripp’s eyes are as wide as flying saucers. “Don’t fuck with me right now—my dick just went from semi wood to rock hard.”
“I’m not fucking with you,” I announce boldly with a lift of my chin, causing his irises to dilate and his nostrils to flare.
“Goddamn, it sounds so hot when you swear.”
There he goes again, calling me hot.
Making me shiver and tingle.
Tripp excites me; he’s the opposite of boring, and I think…he gets me.
I don’t bore him at all the way I’ve bored other men in the past, so maybe this was meant to be in a weird, messed-up way. Warm and fuzzy he is not. Blunt and straightforward? There has never been a man more so.
I love not having to guess what’s on his mind and I’m determined to be the same way.
We’re quiet all the way to a more residential area, anticipation making Tripp’s knuckles grip the wheel tighter, his jaw clenching. I watch his profile, fascinated by the way I can almost see his heart beating out of his chest. He’s excited.
Nervous, too?
Hard to say.
I resist the urge to wring my hands, shifting in my seat, the seatbelt becoming a straitjacket, keeping me from what I really want to be doing: climbing into the back to get busy.
This is so unlike me, but it feels like me.
Gosh, this whole year has been a year of firsts: first real job, first time living alone, first time flipping a person in public and not at the karate studio, first time having sex in a vehicle.
“Oo, there’s a spot!” We’re on an offshoot of a road off a road, where brownstone houses line the street and a church sits on the other side. Lots of trees. Plenty of shade.
He’s skeptical. “Uh—in front of the church?”
Good point. “Okay, keep driving.”
He drives slowly up the narrow road, lined with cars and parking meters, searching for a spot. We happen upon a park—but not the kind where children play. It’s more of a grassy knoll, surrounded by a fence and trees and benches, and it’s completely devoid of people. No dogs, no kids, no one sitting on a bench to read. Across the street are row houses, mixed with older apartment buildings—not the kind with doormen.
The street is all but deserted.
And. He easily finds a place to park.
I want to puke, stomach going absolutely wild, one butterfly turning to two, then four, then—
“We can just head back to your office if you change your mind.” He’s giving me an out I have no intention of taking, despite my nervous belly.
“The train is already in motion,” I tease, unbuckling my seatbelt and turning to face him. “Unless you’re scared?”
Did those words come out of my mouth? Since when do I challenge huge, hulking guys to bang me in public spots and accuse them of being scared if they don’t?
Rude, Chandler.
Back it up.
“I’m sorry, that’s not what I—”
The truck gets slammed into park, his seatbelt flying from his shoulder, metal buckle hitting the driver’s side door he shoves open in an instant.
“Back seat.”
Roger that.
I follow in hot pursuit but climb over the center console instead of exiting and coming in through the extended cab door, shoes on the floor in front of me, discarded so I don’t soil the seats.