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Crowding me.
Or maybe that’s just me, going crazy with every step I take.
Whatever it is, I don’t look back or break my stride.
The sooner we finish this, the better. And by finish this, I mean, he takes his leave.
First, I don’t even know what he’s doing here. Why would he come to this place, essentially a hole in the wall with the greasiest food ever, when I knew for a fact that he was going to Godfather of the Bards, the most famous Italian restaurant in town. And second, I’m sure he’s still angry at me. But this is no way to express that, by crashing my date and then treating my date like an idiot.
Listen, I don’t have any attachment to Evan whatsoever. I already know — I knew five minutes into it — that there’s never going to be a second date, but that’s for me to handle, not for someone else.
Not to mention, I have no desire to see the love of my life onhisdate.
I have no desire to see how well-suited they are to each other. How Tara, with her tanned skin and shiny hair and a slim build, looks so good beside him. How, every time I picture him with someone, I see a woman like Tara. She’ll know how to pose for the cameras; how to deal with the press; how to go to team events and look absolutely stunning doing it.
She’ll know all the things that I never will.
No matter how hard I try.
And I don’t want to, remember?
Not only because I’ve fought really hard to be okay with who I am, but also I’m moving on from him.
I spin around as soon as I’ve found us a secluded spot, just off the tall vending machine and by the door that saysEmployees Only. And immediately take a step back because I get the answer as to why it felt like those seconds lasted forever.
It wasn’t because I was going crazy. It was because hewascrowding me.
He was.
If his nearness now is any indication.
He’s so close that I’m all dwarfed and contained.
Something that’s very hard for me to feel.
But he manages to make me feel all small and fragile. Someone that he can so very easily wrap around in things such as his muscular and corded arms, and I don’t know what to do with that.
And I become even more clueless and thoughtless when he dips his face toward me and asks, “You like him?”
“What?”
“Your pothead boyfriend out there.”
“I…” I blink, still trying to reel from his nearness. “He’s not my boyfriend.”
“You want him to be?”
“I don’t… I don’t understand.”
“What don’t you understand?” he asks, belligerent.
“Why are we…”
“Why are we what?”
I try to stop swooning over his large and looming body, and finish my thought. “Why are we talking about this? Why are you —”
“We are talking about this, Meadow,” I jerk when he says my name a second time, and this time there’s a bite in it as well, “because it looks like you’re asking for it. And it looks like you’re askingitfrom him.”
