True (True Believers #1)(12)
Author: Erin McCarthy

“What do you know about  p**n os? You have a secret addiction to sex videos?” He still didn’t sit up, but he drew his textbook closer to him.

I had backed myself into a corner with that one. “No, of course not! I am just making assumptions about the behavior in them.”

“You’re too smart to make assumptions.”

He was right. I felt neatly put in my place, but at the same time, I felt like he was complimenting me.

“Step outside with me for a second. I need a cigarette and that’s why I can’t concentrate.” He stood up, nudging me to leave the booth. He made no move to collect his books or his bag.

“We can’t just leave our stuff here,” I said, though I did stand up to move out of his way. “I’ll just stay.”

“No one is going to steal your textbook. You probably couldn’t give it away.”

“Someone could resell it.”

“For five bucks?” Tyler held his hands out and looked around the coffee shop. There was one guy asleep in the opposite corner and a couple of girls who were both buried in their cell-phone screens. “This isn’t a crime wave waiting to happen.”

Because I knew he was right, I was tempted to force my point just on principle, but I didn’t want to look belligerent. I did grab my nearly empty latte and took it with me to throw away. “Five minutes, that’s it. We need to go through all your muscle groups.”

He turned and I realized exactly where his thoughts had gone by the twitch of his mouth and his raised eyebrows. “Sounds kinky.”

I wished. “It’s not.”

“God, you’re so in control,” he said, pushing open the front door and digging in his pocket to retrieve a pack of Camel cigarettes. “I can’t break you. I keep trying, and nothing.”

“What is it that you want me to do?” I asked, genuinely curious. I wasn’t sure what I was failing to produce, and while I had no intention of changing in any way, I did want to understand. Maybe it would give me insight into how other people related, into why it was so difficult for me to establish relationships.

Tyler pulled a cigarette out of the pack and stuck it in his mouth. He held the pack out to me in offering, and I shook my head no. Lighting it, he took a deep drag, then blew it out to the side.

“I keep trying to direct our conversations and you won’t follow me. You’re just like . . .” he pushed his hands down toward the ground. “Firm.”

Firm. A guy I thought was actually hot with a capital H was describing me as firm. I didn’t even know what that meant, but it certainly wasn’t something a guy would want to date. No wonder I’d never had a boyfriend.

I stared at him as he stood there in the cool night air, wearing nothing but a T-shirt and not looking even remotely cold, his biceps cut and well-defined. When he lifted his cigarette to his mouth again, I saw there was another tattoo on the inside of his wrist. His movements were confident, casual, and as the smoke rose in front of his chiseled face, I suddenly wondered what he looked like naked.

Firm. That’s what I imagined he would look like. For a guy, that was an awesome word, with several positive implications. But for a girl, unless he was talking about your ass, not so much of a compliment.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I told him honestly.

“I know you don’t. That’s what I find so cool and interesting. You’re just you. You’re real.”

He might as well have said that real was a synonym for freak. But there was nothing fake about me, that was true, and there never would be. I had no ability to fake it, to lie and giggle and flirt my way through conversations with guys. So maybe that was the truth of it—unless I chose to do that, I was going to be alone because I was too honest. Too unflinching. Guys wanted to be flirted with, stroked, coaxed.

“Thank you,” I said, because I wanted him to understand I appreciated that he got me. It made me feel like maybe we could actually be friends if he wasn’t put off by my directness and occasional failure to follow social protocol.

For some reason, my response made him grin. “Rory.”

It didn’t sound like a question, but I still asked, “What?” when he didn’t continue. “And your five minutes is almost up.”

“You’re cute.”

Cute like puppies are cute when they’re running along and wipe out for no reason, an adorable clumsy ball of not-so-bright. It was a compliment, and I believed he meant it. It just wasn’t the one I wanted.

“You’re down to thirty seconds. You’d better suck harder.”

He laughed. Then he stepped forward, cigarette hands-free in his mouth, and touched both of my shoulders. He rubbed me vigorously, the motion making my head jerk back and forth. “Relax. It’s all good, babe,” he said, words mumbled from around the filter.

The tangy sweetness of his cigarette rose between us, and I was cold from the wind, yet his hands were warm on my shoulders, heating through my sweater. They were bigger than I had expected, two large masses wrapping almost entirely around my upper arms, and I was aware of how tall he was, how broad his chest. He filled the space, enveloping me without even being that close, and I wanted what I couldn’t have. I wanted to be the girl who could flirt, who could hair-flip. If I were her, I would go on my toes and pull that cigarette out and toss it to the ground, then kiss his mouth, running my hands over his chest, and he would kiss me back.

In reality, none of those things would happen.

“Do you know what the latissimus dorsi and rhomboids are?”

His right hand pulled away from me and he removed his cigarette from his mouth. Smoke filtered out with his words. “I have no f**king clue.”

“My point precisely.”

“God, you’re hard-core.” But he didn’t sound at all annoyed.

An hour later, our positions had reversed. I had refilled my latte twice and was jittery with caffeine, and I wanted nothing to do with selfish characters. “If you need to smoke, we can break at any time,” I told Tyler, trying to sound generous. “I don’t mind.”

His eyebrow shot up. “I bet you don’t. But forget about it. I can wait until you’ve at least created an outline for your essay.”

I was tempted to thunk my head on the table. “I don’t get it. I mean, not a single one of these characters is likeable. Stanley is a douche bag, Stella is a doormat, and Blanche is a drunk.”