Her eyes had widened a bit at my question, and she looked like she wanted to fold into herself and disappear. That wouldn’t happen on my watch. Not tonight. Not now. Right now this girl was my responsibility, my date, and I would not let her pretend she didn’t exist.
Her teeth nibbled her bottom lip, something that I knew was a habit of hers when she was nervous. She did it an awful lot last weekend, while I was too busy wishing I wasn’t there. “I don’t know. I just…don’t.”
Ah. Right. That made sense.
I realized then I’d have to pry every single word out of her tonight. This was not going to be easy.
“Why not?” I leaned on the table, studying her posture. She did not sit with her shoulders squared; she sat hunched into herself, again, making herself appear even smaller than she already was. “You never go out with friends?”
“I don’t really…have friends. They all went to different colleges, and I—” Bree shifted her weight, looking immensely uncomfortable telling me this. “—I didn’t keep in touch.”
With social media and cell phones, not keeping in touch was not an excuse these days. I knew friends drifted apart—hah, yeah, I knew that too damn much—but surely out of every single friend she had, one or two tried to keep up with her?
“You’re going to SCC, right? What about anyone there?” I couldn’t say why it bothered me to know that she was pretty much alone, but it did. If there was one thing I wanted in this moment, it was for Bree to have a friend. Someone, anyone. Living life lonely was not really living, if you asked me.
Then again, what the hell did I know? My ex and my best friend had thought it was a good idea to get together behind my back, so I wasn’t the best judge of anything.
Bree let out a tiny laugh. “Were you briefed by my parents? You sound like them. They’re always pushing me to make new friends.” She let out a sigh, her expression falling. “I just don’t see the point in trying to make friends when, in the end, they’ll just leave.”
What a depressing way to look at things. This girl…what was I going to do with her?
“Not everyone leaves,” I told her, meaning it.
She shook her head. “They do. They always do.” Bree quieted for a moment, those green eyes zeroing in on me, as if wordlessly challenging me to argue with her about what she was about to say. “You’re going to leave—so, really, this date is pointless, too.”
While it was true I couldn’t stay in town forever, I had to go back to my place sooner or later, along with my job, I didn’t like being called out like that, nor did I appreciate the way she looked at me, as if I was purposefully trying to pull something over her without her knowledge. This was her staring me straight in the eye and telling me, you can’t fool me.
I was speechless for a while, because I honestly had no idea what to tell her to put her at ease, to calm her down and reassure her that I wasn’t just here to date her and then drop her. This wasn’t like that. I…I didn’t know yet what this was, but I knew that wasn’t it.
“You should just take me home now,” she murmured.
“You might think this date is pointless, but luckily for you, I’m not of that state of mind,” I informed her, hating the way I felt inside as I looked at her. I might not know this girl that well, but I wanted to make her smile, wanted to hear her laugh and take that sorrowful expression off her face. “In case you didn’t already know, I’m not taking you home now. You and I are going to have this date, and I’m going to do everything in my power to make you have a good time.”
The look she gave me right then could stop traffic. Was she annoyed at me? Oh, well. She could suck it up and deal with it. “You can’t force someone to have a good time,” Bree told me matter-of-factly, folding her arms over her chest in a challenge.
I leaned forward on the table, unable to stop the grin that spread across my face like wildfire. “I guess we’ll have to wait and see who’s right.”
Our food came soon after that, and it was as I ate, I paid special attention to her, noting the way she mostly moved the pasta around on her plate. I wouldn’t let her get another small salad. This girl must hardly eat, and it couldn’t be healthy for her.
It bugged me.
For whatever weird reason, it bugged me to know that Bree didn’t take care of herself. I couldn’t say why; she wasn’t my girlfriend. We weren’t super close. Still, that didn’t mean I didn’t care about her. She was my brother’s girlfriend’s sister. We were automatically connected in a way.
“It’s good,” I told her after swallowing the bit of food in my mouth. “You should try it.”
“I’m not that hungry,” she whispered, instead reaching for her drink and taking a small sip.
Well, at least she stayed hydrated, I supposed. The human body could last longer without food as long as it was getting some form of water.
I stuck my fork into a few new noodles, waiting to bring them to my mouth until after I asked, “Why do I feel like you’re always not that hungry? You barely touched your salad last time. I don’t think I’ve seen you eat a bite. Don’t tell me you ate before I picked you up.” That was a possibility, as tiny as it was.
Bree let out a sigh. “I didn’t. I just…I don’t know. I’m not hungry.” Her green eyes flashed brighter as she added, “You can’t make me eat anything, Calum.” Oh, she had a fire in her, I could hear it in her voice. It was then I wondered if something was making her sad, if something had happened to depress her.
This girl had a personality; it was just hidden behind walls.
I…I wanted to get past those walls, I realized. If you would’ve held me at gunpoint and asked me why I felt this way, why I’d had such a quick change of heart when it came to Bree Stone, I would have said I had no idea.
Was this me rebounding? I didn’t know. I didn’t think so, but I knew I liked being in a relationship. I liked knowing there was someone out there who would be there to listen to me at the end of the day, to hear my rants about work and sports and shit like that—and someone in my bed at night.
My mind wandered then, landing someplace it definitely shouldn’t. Oh, no. I shouldn’t think about Bree in my bed, her pink hair splayed around her head on my pillow in a halo of color, her lips parted as she sighed out my name. I shouldn’t imagine her pale body on display, the smoothness of her clavicle giving way to the curve of her breasts…
Shit. Stop that, I told myself. Bad time to let your imagination wander.
“Well,” I said, ignoring the heat that had suddenly gathered below my waist—and the slight twitch of something in my pants at the thought of her in my bed, naked and wanting, “we won’t be leaving this restaurant until I see you take at least two bites, so…” I shrugged and shoveled more into my mouth, lest I say something else stupid.
Needless to say, I could not let this girl know where my mind had gone. I couldn’t scare her off. Not yet. I didn’t know how much longer I’d be in town, how much longer I could hide from my problems at home, but I wanted to make the most of it.
I wanted to see Bree as much as I could, I realized, whether it was more dates or just hanging out.