I grip the counter and take a few deep breaths.
How the hell are you going to survive a fake date today when you feel like this?
Declan grabs a pair of keys hanging on the wall.
“You’re driving?”
He spins the keys on his index finger. “I gave Harrison the day off.”
“I’m not sure what we did to deserve this kind of treatment but I’m here for it.”
Declan doesn’t comment as he walks up to a shiny vintage convertible that looks like something out of a spy movie.
My mouth drops open. “This is our ride?”
“Yup. Get in before we’re late.”
I’m stupefied as he circles around the hood and opens the passenger door for me.
“Wow. This is so cool!” I walk over to my side and drop into the seat, completely speechless as I trace the leather. Declan shuts my door before walking back around to the driver’s side. He puts the keys in the ignition, and the engine revs to life as he puts it in first gear.
I sigh. “The things I would do to get a chance to drive this car.”
He laughs. It’s rough, deep, and steals all my capacity to breathe. “You can get me to do many things, but driving this car isn’t one of them.”
“Let me guess. It’s a man’s car.” I roll my eyes.
His previous smile is wiped clean off his face. “More like a woman’s. My mother’s to be specific.”
I feel like someone stuck me in the chest with a knife and twisted it. “Your mother’s?”
His Adam’s apple throbs. “I thought I’d take it out since I haven’t run it in a month.”
He takes it out every month? My chest aches for the man who keeps the memory of his mother alive through her car. I can tell Declan cares based on how much the car is taken care of, from the polished leather interior to the perfectly waxed exterior.
I can’t think of anything to say, my tongue thick with emotion. The image Declan portrays to everyone is nothing compared to the one he hides from the world. While he isn’t anything close to perfect by any stretch of the word, he is still human. He hurts just like the rest of us.
We take off down the driveway before he stops to open the gate. He rambles, and I smile because I have never seen him stumble on his words.
“She probably loved this car more than she loved my father—which if you knew them before she got sick—was a lot. Not sure what she saw in him, but I suppose he was different with all of us before she died.”
I don’t miss the way he talks about his parents before she got sick. As if her illness changed the dynamics of everyone’s lives, including Seth’s. My lips turn down, and I hate myself for the ounce of sympathy that bubbles to the surface of my heart for the man who is as vile and ruthless as they come. Somehow love seems to humanize the worst souls.
“Will you tell me more about her?” It’s a loaded question. One that I’m not sure is fair to ask in the first place, but I can’t help myself. I want to know more about the man who takes his mother’s car out once a month as if she might return at any minute and ask for it back. I want to know about it all.
He sighs, and I just know deep down in my heart that he is about to turn me down. For some reason I can’t bear the thought, so I do something stupid. Something so incredibly stupid I’m sure I will regret it tomorrow. But I’m too enraptured by his story to care about what might happen.
“What if we make a deal?”
The corners of his lips lift. “I’m open to negotiations.”
“What’s something you want?” I drop the bomb back on his lap. I’ll let him be the one to decide what he wants most and then see if I’m up for the challenge.
“I want an equal exchange…” He pauses, and my breath stalls in my chest.
Another kiss? A real date? A blow job? The options are endless really. A warmth travels from my head to my toes at the thought of what he might choose.
“What do you have in mind?”
“I’ll tell you about my mother if you tell me about your learning differences.”
If my life had a soundtrack, this is the moment the DJ scratches the record, making me feel like a total dud. The air escapes my lungs like a deflated balloon. What the hell kind of deal is that? And more specifically, how the hell did he find out?
I cross my arms and throw up a barrier. “Who told you?”
“No one.”
“Bullshit. Was it Cal?” I’m about to tell Declan to pull over and let me take over, solely so I could go find Cal and rip him a new asshole.
He shakes his head. “I found out on my own.”
“How?”
“I knew the signs.”
A bitter laugh escapes me. “You expect me to believe that? Exactly how gullible do you think I am?”
His face softens. “My mom was the same way.”
“Your mom? The same one who was a history major?”
He clutches onto the steering with white-knuckled fists. “Just because she struggled with reading doesn’t mean she hated it.”
I feel like a dick for assuming otherwise. To be fair, I’m struggling to keep up with all this information. There is no way I can process Declan knowing about my dyslexia and his mother struggling with the same disorder all in one conversation.
“I should have known you would figure it out.”
“There was no reason for you to hide it in the first place.”
I clench my fists against my lap. “You don’t get to judge my choices.”
“I only want to understand them.” The softness of his voice tears me up inside.
I stay silent.
“Please.”
I release a shaky breath. Declan doesn’t say please ever, so it makes me weak enough to open up about my past.
I stare out the window. “I spent my whole life feeling different than everyone else. First, it started with teasing and being made fun of. Little things like teachers calling me lazy or classmates gossiping about how I was stupid. I was held back a year, which led to more embarrassment because all my friends moved on to the next grade without me. Eventually kids got bolder. Their words became harsher and their actions meaner. It didn’t take long for someone like me to start believing those words, especially when your own father called you a disappointing idiot every day.” My voice cracks.
Declan reaches out and forces my fist open so he can lock our fingers together.
“It was a self-fulfilling prophecy. With my parents’ divorce and all the stress with that, I stopped caring about class despite my mom trying her hardest to get me into tutoring. Nothing was working, and I think she was losing hope too. My shame and anxiety kept growing until I would cry every day before school. I shut down with everyone, so my mom took a chance and found me a therapist so I could open up to someone about what was happening.”
His hand gives me a reassuring squeeze.
“With my therapist’s help, I started building myself back up and found projects I was good at that had nothing to do with school. That’s where my plant obsession started. Turns out I had a calling for bringing my mom’s dead plants back to life.”
“I thought therapy was supposed to fix our problems, not create more of them.”