Four Years Later (One Week Girlfriend #4)(22)
Author: Monica Murphy

I decide to be straightforward. No bullshit games from me tonight. “Yep.” I lift my head slowly, since it feels like it weighs a ton. For whatever reason, the weed has loosened my tongue, which is not a usual side effect. “You have a really great …”

“A great what?” She stands to her full height, hands on her hips as she waits for my answer.

“A really great everything,” I finish, not wanting to focus on her butt and nothing else. There’s more to this girl than just her figure. “I’m f**king starving. Want me to order a pizza?”

She does that face again. It’s cute, makes me want to keep saying things she doesn’t like just to see her do it again. “There’s a really good Chinese place that delivers. I love it. You like Chinese?”

“Sure.” I shrug, ignoring my rumbling stomach. Right about now I’d eat a piece of cardboard, I’m so hungry. “Sounds good. You have the number?”

“Will you let me order?” She shoots me a questioning look, nibbling on her full lower lip in that innocently sexy way she has. Watching her makes me want to be the one nibbling on that lush lip. Tugging and pulling with my teeth, making her gasp just before I soothe the hurt with my tongue …

“Be my guest,” I say, sounding like I’m in a daze. I sorta am.

This girl works some sort of magic over me. And I can’t quite figure out how. Or why.

She smiles and grabs her backpack, hauling it over to the dining table and setting it down with a loud thump before she starts rummaging through it. “Their food is pretty cheap and I know just what to order. I’ll even pay.”

“Hell no.” I grab her wrist when she pulls out her cell from the depths of her backpack, stopping her. “You are definitely not paying for it. I will.”

“But I don’t mind.” She glances down at where I’m touching her. I wonder if she’s as aware of me as I am of her. “I’m the one who wants Chinese.”

“I want it, too.” I circle my fingers around her slender wrist, feel her wildly beating pulse beneath my touch. I want more than just Chinese food, that’s for damn sure. I feel like we’re talking in secret code. Saying one thing and really meaning another.

At least, I am.

“Fine. I order, you pay.” She doesn’t try to tug out of my grip and I take advantage, sweeping my thumb slowly over the inside of her wrist in the lightest of caresses. I swear I feel her shiver, and when I look at her, I find her staring at me like she’s so f**king hungry she just might gobble me up.

“Sounds good.” I let my hand drop from her arm, disappointment clanging through me like a living, breathing thing. The tension between us is f**king ridiculous. If nothing happens tonight, I’m afraid I might burst. At the very least, I’ll have to go whack off after she leaves, like some sort of deranged pervert in need of constant relief.

I want her but I don’t. I’m attracted to her though I shouldn’t be. I’m high, and it’s not just from the weed.

I’m also high on Chelsea.

Chelsea

He’s pushing through his assignments way quicker than I thought he would. I knew Owen was smart. I’d studied his student file well enough to see he just lacked focus or flat-out didn’t apply himself. His past grades reflected that. Going to college does that to a person. It’s all so much, sometimes too much, and students either thrive or they fail.

I’d thrived. The structure, the complexity of the courses, all of it had given me such a rush I’d dived right into my classes headfirst and never looked back. No one cared how old I was here; none of my past mattered. I could blend in, become someone new, someone free.

But I’m not free. I’m still tied to the guilt of my mother and the anger with my father. Deep down inside, I’m still a scared, too-smart-for-her-own-good little girl who’s afraid to really live for fear she’ll get hurt.

Boys are trouble, my mom would say. Then they grow up to be men and become even more trouble. Stick with yourself, sweetie. Count on only you. Everyone else will just disappoint you.

Mom had whispered those words of so-called wisdom to me when I was fifteen. The year before I graduated high school. I’d known there was trouble in my parents’ marriage. From the time I was eleven, when I became privy to a secret phone call between my dad and one of his mistresses, I knew he was unfaithful to Mom.

He didn’t love her. And if he didn’t love her, he didn’t love me. That’s what I believed at fifteen. I would listen to Mom talk about how awful men were, how bad they treated women. She would talk that way when she was mad at him, when she knew he was cheating on her.

Then he’d sweet-talk her, convince her she was the only one for him, and she’d change her tune. Her reaction to him, the constant push and pull between them, left me a confused mess most of the time, especially over boys and relationships.

I don’t really talk to my dad. He’s tried. He’s called me a few times, but I always hang up when I hear the recorded message from the jail. He has to know I don’t want to have contact with him.

When Mom was in one of her moods, working me over, she told me I needed to do right by my father and stand by him. So right before he was convicted for his crime last year, I’d gone to visit him in jail. He’d promised me he would get out. He’d be acquitted. He’d been so sure, so convincing, I believed him.

I’d gone home and begged my mom to let me go to court. I wanted to watch. Wanted to be there when he was set free and we could celebrate together. She told me no. Her excuse? I was too young and might not be able to handle it.

I’d been so confused, so devastated, I hid away in my room, crying into my pillow, believing that my mom didn’t understand. Why would she ask me to stand by him and then tell me I couldn’t go to court? It made no sense.

Now I’m glad I wasn’t there. He’d been found guilty. I heard they carted him back to jail and he’d been in a state of utter shock, Mom wailing the entire time.

Men can’t be trusted, Mom said before I left for college this last summer. But you already know this. You’re doing such a good job, sweetheart. Keep focusing on your schoolwork. Get your degree, find a career that is fulfilling. Then you can worry about a husband and babies, if that’s what you really want.

She’d said the last bit with such resignation, I wondered if Mom would prefer I become a lesbian rather than find a good man to settle down with. That had been during her down-with-men stage. The one she still clung to. It’s sort of funny, considering she hadn’t believed me when I came to her with my lesbian declaration.