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Too bad I did.
“There you are,” she’d said, holding onto that smile while she jumped down, staying turned to face me. “I thought I was going to have to set myself on fire to get your attention. That would’ve sucked.” She giggled.
And that laugh was fucking pretty too. Don’t ask me how, but it was.
I watched her cross the restaurant and tend to some dickheads who got seated in a booth.
She was joking, obviously; I’m not an idiot. She wouldn’t have set herself on fire, but I suddenly felt like the world’s biggest asshole for putting those words in her mouth.
Maybe I should’ve been giving her attention…
What? No. Fuck, no.
Shaking my head, I got back to work, doing what I should’ve been doing all along for about two seconds before I was stopped again.
“I’m Shayla, by the way.”
I quit working and looked up.
She was back to sitting on the counter as she finished scribbling on a ticket, smiling softer now, like she was thinking about something funny but didn’t want to share it.
That pissed me off.
And then it pissed me off further because why the fuck did that piss me off? What did I care what she was thinking about?
And why the fuck was I still looking at her?
I watched as she ripped the ticket off her book and slid the paper across the lip of the window, pushing her body closer and giving me view of her uniform top.
My eyes fell to her name tag. “You go by Shay?” I asked.
Her mouth dropped open as she stared at me for several seconds, gaze lingering on my beard. “Uh…y-yes?” She cleared her throat and her cheeks pinked up. “Sometimes. I go by both.”
“You like one better?”
“I don’t know.”
My eyebrow lifted. “You don’t know?”
She stared at me for a breath before responding. “I guess I like whatever people want to call me. I like both. I answer to Shay or Shayla. What do you like?”
“Shayla.”
My response shocked the shit out of me and threw her off too. Me because what the fuck was I even saying? Why was I telling her what I liked? Why did I even like it? And why the fuck was she even asking? What did she care?
I didn’t get this girl, but I knew my response meant something to her. I could see it.
Shayla blinked those big, brown eyes, mouth slack, my answer clearly stunning her, which I’m guessing had to do with me giving her one so quickly, then she started smiling at me again, and muttered a “Cool” before hopping back down and busying herself getting drinks.
I didn’t want her busying herself getting drinks. I wanted her to plant her cute little ass back on that counter, and keep talking to me, and I wanted her to do it while I looked.
Something was seriously fucking wrong with me.
I got back to work and tried not giving her any more attention for the rest of the day, which I fucking sucked at. I didn’t say much else to her, but I looked. I fucking looked a lot. I looked forgetting I shouldn’t be looking, and when that realization hit me later that night when I got back to my shithole trailer, and I remembered why I didn’t deserve to be looking at someone like that, seeing as I wasn’t ever going to be better than the filth surrounding me, I vowed to put an end to it. The next time we worked together, I wouldn’t give her shit. I’d ignore her. And she’d eventually get the hint and leave me the fuck alone.
Yeah…That didn’t happen. I didn’t ignore a damn thing. And she didn’t sway either.
We kept at it for months. Months. Her talking. Me listening and looking.
And although I liked it more than I could remember liking a lot of things, I needed it to stop. I wasn’t ever going to be worth what this girl wanted to give. I knew that, and I needed her to know it too, but I couldn’t say anything. I couldn’t do a damn thing to stop what was going on between us. I had to look at her. I had to listen to everything she was telling me, knowing that it could and would end and wanting it to just as badly as I didn’t. I couldn’t fight it. I needed her to fight it. Something had to get this girl away from me.
And when an opportunity came for me to fuck it all up, I saw my out and I took it.
Her invite to some bullshit party sounded friendly, but I knew it wasn’t. I could tell by the way she was looking at me, smiling, licking her lips, and telling me with those eyes how badly she wanted this—us—to happen. And I stared right on back, wanting it just as bad, wanting everything with this girl, maybe more than she did, but not letting that on. Not letting anything on, not even how I had no intention of going with her.
