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“No, not at all. That was amazing. I’m glad I waited.”
“Glad you waited?”
“I almost kissed you last night. You looked like sleeping beauty, it was pretty hard not to. But consent and all, it’s probably a good idea for you to always be awake when I touch you.”
I thought he meant he’d never kissed someone before either. Surely this boy, this beautiful boy standing in front of me had girls lined up to kiss him. But ‘when I touch you’ sounded like he wasn’t finished, like he planned on touching me more, like the awkward situation last night wouldn’t be the end of us. I smiled ear to ear, my worry settled with his words, but my heart soared through the clouds.
South Vale was going to be more than tolerable, Calvin had already made it so.
Chapter 9
CALVIN
Finding out that kiss was her first made me feel ten feet tall. I also had to admit some possessive nature in me was happy to be the first man to have touched her. The idea of someone else with Ellison seemed to bring a little bit of my crazy out, which scared me. My father was so damn possessive; what was his was his and if anyone messed with it, he wouldn’t hesitate to kill them. I’m sure at some point in time it had actually happened. I remembered once when I was around five years old, some guy at the Harley show dared to flirt with my mom when he went to get them drinks. The next thing we knew, the man was in the hospital with internal bleeding, in critical condition, all from my dad’s swift beating. Fox was with dad when he beat the shit out of the poor guy in the garage next to the convention center, and he was only eight. He told me how Dad’s eyes had gone vacant and he kept shouting, ‘No fucker ever looks at what’s mine. No one!’ Fox thought Dad was gonna kill him and he’d just have to sit there and watch a man die.
Later that night, when we came home, he made my mother eat on the floor from her plate. He insisted that if she wanted to fuck around, he might as well treat her like a bitch. He told her that’s how the other men saw her, as a whore to get off on and never look twice at again.
He’d screamed it all at the dinner table right in front of me and Fox. I had tears dripping down my cheeks, but I scrubbed them away knowing he’d deliver swift justice to cry babies, including his own son. Men don’t cry—they get even, I’d already heard his mantra several times by the age of five. I knew to hold in the tears until he wasn’t around. Then I’d climb into my mother’s lap and let it all out.
Around second grade or so, I learned to control it enough to never let a single tear slip out. That was my life, holding in emotion and protecting my mother and brother from his wrath. Dad wasn’t someone you wanted to piss off, and I spent most of my time slinking around the house to avoid him during the rare occasions he was actually at home.
I didn’t ever want to be like him or have anything to do with the club. That bullshit wasn’t for me, and I aspired to do something useful and productive with my life. But my plans hadn’t ever included a girlfriend by my side. Eventually, I wanted a family, kids—the whole nine yards. But that was before I stepped foot into Ellison’s kitchen. That day everything changed for me; I was more than just smitten, I was obsessed.
But unlike my dad, I didn’t want to own Ellison. I wanted to be there for her in every sense of the word, to always be someone she could rely on, protect her, and defend her like I would my own. I vowed to never cage her in like my father did to my mother. That wasn’t love, I knew better than to think of a woman as property.
But kissing Ellison made me feel things I never thought I could, that I never wanted to feel. The possessive side of me inflated and suddenly, I could relate to that same part of my dad I hated.
“You want to do something tomorrow?” I asked to lighten the mood. I think telling her I wanted to kiss her while she was unconscious was probably not a great move. She seemed to all of a sudden fidget, her feet shuffled back and forth. She looked cute all flustered, not knowing what to do next.
Something told me that Ellison was the kind of girl who always knew what to do, followed the straight and narrow and never stepped out of line. Teacher’s pet, Daddy’s little girl, met everyone’s expectations and never got in trouble. I bet her life was about always knowing what came next. I liked that I had tripped her up, threw her off balance a little. A wrench in the works was necessary every once in a while. I wanted to be the biggest thing that had ever happened to her.
