A tiny glimmer of a smile crossed her face. “You can’t force me to do anything,” she said. “I could just get up and walk out.”
“And walk home? Do you even know how to get home from here?”
“I have a phone, dummy. Someone would come and pick me up.”
I blinked, feigning hurt. “Dummy?” I held a hand over my heart, as if her name-calling was like an arrow straight into my chest. “That hurts, you know.”
She picked up her fork and stuck it through a single noodle. “Oh, don’t be a drama queen,” she muttered, meeting my eyes as she slowly lifted her fork. Bree was unhurried in bringing the noodle to her mouth, rolling those beautiful eyes as she took her first bite of the night.
It wasn’t really a full bite—a single noodle wasn’t much to eat, but I knew better than to argue about the semantics with her. I’d let her have this one, even if she was only doing it to placate me.
“Happy?” Bree asked after she swallowed. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say swallowing had been hard for her, like she didn’t want to eat.
“I am, thanks for asking.”
By the time I was done with my plate, Bree had taken yet another tiny, child-sized bite. A deal was a deal, of course, so I asked for the bill and paid, telling the waiter we did not need any takehome boxes, to which he simply looked at the nearly full plate in front of Bree and lifted his eyebrows.
Oh, well.
Once we were back in my car, Bree buckled her seatbelt, a bit more relaxed than she’d been before. I watched her with a small smile on my face, waiting a few moments to ask, “That wasn’t so bad, was it?”
She turned to look at me, giving me an unimpressed expression. I had the sudden, strange urge to lean over the center console and kiss that slight frown off her face, but I stopped myself. Had to remind myself that we weren’t together. She wasn’t my girl. Rushing into anything right now would be bad, especially with Bree.
Still…that did not stop me from wondering what those lips would feel like on mine.
“No,” Bree finally spoke, her voice a mere whisper in the car. “It wasn’t so bad.”
Outside, the world had become one of night, the moon hanging low in the sky. As I started my car up, I said, “That’s not the whole date, though, so don’t get your hopes up that it’s over.”
“How did you know that’s what I was hoping?”
I chuckled, backing the car up out of the parking spot. “Well, since you never go out and you’d rather spend all your time at home, I figured you’re dying to get back there.” I shot her a glance as I pulled out into the road. “It’s not so bad spending time with me, is it?”
Bree toyed with her hands on her lap, and it took her a long while to say, “No, you’re not too bad.” She bit her bottom lip, glancing out the window as I took us to our next destination. Down a few roads, maybe ten minutes away from the restaurant. “I still don’t know why me, though.”
It really bugged me that this girl didn’t think anything of herself. Did she go through something traumatizing as a kid? I knew if her parents were jerks, I would’ve heard that from Kyle. As far as I knew, the Stones were a nice, caring family, so I had no idea what made Bree this way.
As I drove, I asked, “Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why don’t you know why you?” That was a confusing question if I ever heard one. When she stayed quiet, refusing to answer, I said, “I mean, why not you? What’s wrong with you? And I don’t mean that like something is wrong with you—because there’s not.”
Bree took her time in answering, “I’m not anything special, Calum.”
Thank goodness we were close to our destination, for I pulled into the parking lot near the park and was able to give her a long, hard look. It was a look that made her squirm in her seat, an intense look, a look I hoped got to her. “Stop it,” I told her.
“Stop what?” Though she asked, she knew exactly what I meant.
“Stop putting yourself down,” I said, reaching for her. I’d never put my seatbelt on, so I was able to lean over and grab her hand before she could pull it away. Her hand was small and delicate in mine, her skin cool and smooth. My fingers wrapped around hers more tightly than I intended, but that was because I knew this girl wasn’t hearing me.
I mean, she was hearing me, but she wasn’t believing me.
I had no idea if she was too shocked at my forwardness to pull her hand from mine, if she was like a deer in headlights, or if my touch put her at ease. “You do it too much,” I said. “I know I might not know everything there is to know about you, but what I do know is awesome. You’re awesome, Bree. You are special.”
My hand tightened around hers for a few moments, slowly releasing hers as I then reached to her hair—the pink seemed to glow in the dark, but that was just me exaggerating.
“Even if you didn’t have cotton candy hair, you’d be special,” I added, sweeping some of that hair behind her ear and causing her to shiver.
She let out the shakiest laugh I’d ever heard. A nervous, hesitant chuckle. “My hair isn’t cotton candy pink,” Bree said, glancing at me—though she didn’t turn her head to look at me. If she did, our faces would’ve been inches away. “That’s a different color pink.”
I leaned my elbow on the center console, breathing her in. “Why don’t we get out of the car and you can tell me all about the different shades of pink?” Not something I cared about learning, but if it would get her talking, I was down for it.
When it came to Bree, I was oddly down for anything.
This one…it was almost impossible not to like her.
Chapter Nine – Bree
The park Calum had taken me to was pretty, I had to admit. Circling a big lake, with stone pathways that were lit up by small string lights, it was like an escape from the real world. Plus, it wasn’t too busy; there weren’t many other people walking along its trails.
I’d never been here before. I wondered how Calum knew about it. Had he taken girls here before? He was awfully handsome; it wouldn’t surprise me to learn that he had many girlfriends in his past, all of which he’d wooed easily. I knew he’d just gotten out of a relationship, but I had no idea how many other relationships he’d been in.
More than me, definitely, but that wasn’t hard to accomplish, since I had a whopping zero to my name.
I…I didn’t like the thought of Calum with other girls, which was stupid, I knew. He wasn’t my boyfriend. He wasn’t even my crush. Hell, at this point, I had no idea what he was to me. This date was just a pity date to make up for how awful the last one was. This date didn’t mean anything, I knew.
And yet, when he’d grabbed my hand in the car, when his fingers had curled around mine and he told me those things…my heart had skipped a beat or two. My skin had grown hot when he’d tucked my hair behind my ear. I’d wanted nothing more than to look at him then, to see him leaning close to me—to close my eyes and imagine, just for a quick, fleeting moment, that I was someone else, that I was cooler, better.