Total pages in book: 135
Estimated words: 129027 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 645(@200wpm)___ 516(@250wpm)___ 430(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 129027 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 645(@200wpm)___ 516(@250wpm)___ 430(@300wpm)
But when the track switches over to “Goodbye Earl,” Isaak doesn’t take his hand away. Just keeps massaging up my thigh with his strong thumb and fingers.
After weeks of not touching and the vibration of the Texas road underneath me, I’m halfway to shouting Amen! by the time Reyna Reynolds sings about swearing on the “Bad Girl Bible.”
“So,” Isaak’s rumbling voice comes through the darkness. “You said earlier that you’d tell me the story of you and the dickwad?”
“What?” I breathe out, still lost somewhere between my lusty haze and focusing on keeping the wheel straight.
“You said you weren’t high school sweethearts. What were you then?”
Annnnnnnd there goes my buzz. I blink hard and take a hand off the wheel to grab his hand and tug it off my thigh.
“If we’re talking about this, you can’t be touching me like that.”
He snatches his hand back, staying quiet for a moment.
“’Cause it feels disloyal?”
“What?” I take a quick glance over at his shut down face, shaking my head before looking back at the road. “I swear, you get the most mixed-up ideas in your head sometimes.” I breathe out hard.
“Straighten out my ideas then. I’m listening.”
I reach over and turn the music down, if only to get my own thoughts together before talking.
“I admit, I had a crush on Drew in high school. A big one. There are things about his father I swore to him I’d never tell anybody in the whole world, and I kept that promise, maybe even when I shouldn’t have. But it’s too late for all that now.” I suck in another deep breath. “Still. If I tell you some secrets that aren’t mine, I’m trusting you not to repeat them. Can I trust you?” I glance over at him.
He’s already looking at me, nodding. “I won’t betray your trust. I swear it.”
I let out the breath I was holding in my chest. “Drew’s daddy used to beat him.” I tell him about how Drew and I would stay in his truck after school, hiding from both our parents. How being with me was his alibi while he slept around with other girls.
“It was a really mixed-up time for me,” I confess. “I was a pretty lonely kid. I had bad acne and everything with my mo—with Carol— I was just really shy and had a hard time making friends. I went through an ultra-religious phase for a while, too, thinking maybe that would make my mom and dad finally proud of me.” I wince. “But that didn’t exactly help me make friends. I was just the deacon’s weird daughter, ya know?”
I feel flush with embarrassment and hurry on. “I know none of this is actually that big a deal. Nothing like what you went through.”
“It’s not a competition of who had the shittier childhood.”
“I guess not.” I bite my bottom lip. “But I guess… You know, I felt like Drew had it so bad, worse than me, ’cause his dad actually hit him instead of just saying mean shit like my mom, and it felt like he deserved more of a listening ear than I did. If he behaved badly, sometimes, well, I just loved him all the more because I understood why he was the way he was.”
“That’s such bullshit,” Isaak bursts out. “He was just using you. He’s a guy who likes to talk and you were always there, listening, assuring him he wasn’t a giant asshole.”
“He was just a kid,” I still can’t help defending.
“So were you.”
I swallow down sudden ridiculous tears that are suddenly welling in my eyes. I haven’t even talked about Drew—about the way me and Drew used to be—to my therapist. I don’t know why. It was just this place I always considered… special. Sacred almost.
But putting it out in the light now and hearing Isaak’s point of view… I feel almost ridiculous for never seeing it any other way than how my teenage self saw it.
“Shit. I’m sorry I broke in like that. I really am just trying to listen.”
Nothing else he could’ve said could prove how different he and Drew are. Or helped prove his point. Ouch.
How did I never notice that while I always peppered Drew with questions about how his day was or how his relationships were going—even though it always killed me to hear when I was nursing such a big crush on him—he so rarely, if ever, asked me any questions back?
It’s still like that. He never asks me how my day’s going. Or if I like what I’m studying. Or how it’s going with my dissertation. Or anything.
He doesn’t ask questions. He just talks, and if there’s ever a lull in conversation, I’m the one who asks him something, which gets him monologuing again.
What in the actual fuck? How did I never realize that till now?