She draws back. “What are you doing?”
“Let’s talk.”
“I need to go.”
“Because of them?”
“Because I believed you.”
That look from earlier registers in my thoughts, recognizing it was deceit. “What do you think happened?”
She reaches for her door again, and once more, I place my hand on her window, keeping the door closed.
“Nothing happened.”
She narrows her eyes. “With them or us?”
“Them.”
“This is a bad idea.”
I shake my head. I knew things would be harder this time around. “Because some girls are hanging out at the house?”
“Because even if gonorrhea is easily treatable, I don’t want to go through that.”
The insult lands like a slap to my face, her certainty that I would sleep with any girl causing my temper to spike. Her blue gaze is fixed on mine, bright and determined—she’s ready to go to war with me. I drop my hold on her car door and step forward, debating which urge to succumb to when I want to kiss her as much as I want to shake some sense into her. “You don’t trust anyone, do you? I’m pretty damn certain you don’t even trust yourself. And this excuse about your parents having kept you on a short leash is complete shit because you do that. You keep yourself tied to this two-foot diameter, unwilling to risk anything.”
Her shoulders drawback, the war in her eyes dimming with every second that ticks by, my words penetrating the night air like an echo. “Everyone notices you. Everyone watches you…” she shakes her head slowly like she’s debating with her thoughts. “I don’t know how to compete with that.”
“You don’t have to.”
“I can’t…”
“Can’t what?”
“Being a girl sucks,” she says, a dry chuckle follows her words. “There’s this impossible balance we’re all working to find: being tough without being too masculine, being smart without being arrogant, being kind without being a pushover, being beautiful without being prissy, being successful without being too informal. It’s this massive scale that is constantly in flux, and the joke is on us because everyone is judging us—constantly—and more often than not, we’re our own toughest critic.”
I stare at her, recognizing the several walls she’s dropped. She’s being vulnerable right now, whether intentionally or not, I can’t tell.
“This. Us.” She moves a hand between us. Her nude nails are short, and the gold band she wears around her index finger catches the sunlight, distracting me for a few beats. “I don’t know that I can do this. I don’t know that I can handle the scrutiny of others I know I’ll receive just by being near you. I don’t know if I can handle you comparing me to others.”
Her nostrils flare slightly, her lips barely parted as her gaze drops.
I slide my hand over her cheek, stroking the length of her impossibly soft skin with my thumb. I tilt her chin back, but she keeps her eyes downcast. “Rae,” I say her name gently, realizing how fragile this moment is.
Slowly, she lifts her blue orbs to meet mine, closing her lips into a neutral line I want to kiss and force into the curvy twist I always picture her with.
I want to tell her to fuck them. Fuck all those who think she’s anything short of perfection. Fuck anyone who dares to search her for faults and shortcomings. Fuck everyone—but I know she won’t accept that and definitely won’t believe it’s sincere. “This is the furthest thing from conventional right now, but I have a feeling we’re going to need to learn to trust each other for this to work. You have to trust I have your best interest in mind and that I’m not going to do anything to try and hurt you, and I have to trust that you’re not going to sell naked pictures of me to the press.”
“I feel like I have a lot more to lose.” Her voice hints at humor, but her eyes are sober.
I’m about to tell her she’s dead wrong, but before I can, Paxton turns down the road, his music so loud it’s like a siren, alerting us to his presence.
Raegan sags back, and I remove my hand, my palm meeting the air that feels icy in contrast. But even with the added space, our being out here alone has to look suspicious.
Paxton gets out of his car and lifts a bag from the passenger seat that clinks, revealing its contents: more beer. “What’s up?” he says.
“Hey,” Raegan says. “Where have you been? I tried calling you a few times today.”
“Yeah. I was with Candace. Sorry about that. Everything okay?” He doesn’t look at her or me, unaware of the obvious and only asking the question as an automatic response.
“You want to hang out? Go get something to eat?” she asks.
He shakes his head. “No offense, but not really.”
She wipes her palms across her thighs. “Yeah, I know.”
Her words seem to catch him off guard, and he turns, sweeping his gaze across her for the first time, likely recognizing the same things I have for the first time, the minute differences that began a few weeks ago. How it takes her smile longer to appear, the fact her arms seem like armor, constantly crossed over her body, the lack of her easy laughter. “Sorry. Yeah,” he says. “Let’s do something.”
“We don’t have to talk about anything,” she promises.
Pax’s shoulders shift backward, his attention shifting to me with a silent question, as though checking to see if I see the same details missing from her usual happy and fearless demeanor. “No. We should,” he says, breathing out a deep sigh. “We should talk about things.”
“There’s a bunch of girls here,” she says, shucking a thumb in the direction of the house. “You want to go grab some coffee or something?”
“Mexican?” Pax asks.
The edge of disappointment scrapes against my chest, blunt and dull.
“You want to come?” Pax turns his attention to me again, a manufactured smile that I recognize as an apology.
Raegan’s eyes lock with mine, and she gives a nearly imperceptible nod. “Yeah. Yeah, let’s go. We can take my truck.”
I wanted Rae to take the passenger seat, wanted to rest my hand on her thigh as we drove the short distance to the Mexican restaurant we’ve frequented since moving here. It’s farther than several other restaurants, but its short menu is authentic, and the chips are homemade—it’s also Raegan’s favorite. But, she gets into the backseat without a word, latching her seat belt behind Paxton.
“You smell like fish,” Pax says as he kicks his feet out.
In the rearview mirror I watch her lips curl. “It’s my shoes. I washed them, but they got fish stuff on them. I don’t even smell it anymore.” A frown tugs at her lips. “That’s concerning.”
Paxton and I belt out laughter, and it feels so damn good to hear him at ease, I laugh even harder.
A waitress sits us in the back, though the restaurant is nearly empty—too late for lunch and too early for dinner. Pax is seated next to Rae, and I sit across from them, sitting in the middle of the bench seat.
“How’s school going?” Rae asks, stirring the Shirley temple she’d ordered with a spoon after refusing a straw.