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“Do you think this is weird?” she asked suddenly.
“Weird?” I wasn’t sure where she was going with this, and damn, but my head was starting to throb again.
“Us. I mean, I just didn’t think that we’d…that you and I…I’m…” Her cheeks flushed again and she blew that piece of hair back. It was humid and kept curling onto her face.
“You’re?” I reached over and tucked that piece of hair back where it belonged. I heard her breath catch. It was a soft sound, but it hit me hard, and I leaned back in my chair again, heart racing in that way that’s part excitement and part, I don’t know, fear?
“I’m not like the girls you’ve dated. I’m not…super outgoing or into big parties or clubs.” She made this noise, like she was frustrated. “What do you see in me, Trevor?”
I tossed my napkin. She really didn’t get it.
“What do you think I see?” I asked, because I was curious to know what was going on inside her head, even though the conversation had taken a sharp turn toward serious. Not usually my gig, but I wanted to know everything about the girl sitting across from me. Any guy looking at her would see someone with big blue eyes and an amazing mouth. He’d see rosy cheeks and hair that hung down her shoulders in dark, shiny ropes. He’d see a beautiful girl.
I saw a beautiful girl.
I wanted to know what was underneath all of that. I wanted to see it. To touch it. I wanted to be the guy she shared everything with. And maybe she was right. Maybe that was weird, considering we’d only been together for a few weeks.
But I also think that you can be with someone forever and not really know them. Not really love the parts that matter. (Did I really just use the word love?) A lot of guys get caught up in the physical stuff. I mean, we’re guys. We’re wired for that shit. Heck, most of the time it’s all we think about when we see a girl. Getting laid and moving on to the next good time.
But this was different, and Everly Jenkins had somehow burrowed underneath my skin. She was like an invisible tattoo, and I wanted to show her off to the world.
She took a sip of her soda and exhaled.
“Truth?” she asked. “You really want to know what I think you see?”
“Truth.”
“I think you see a girl who might be a bit of a challenge.”
“Challenge?” Okay. That wasn’t what I’d expected.
“Sure. I live in the perfect house, with the perfect family. God, we even have a white picket fence. Some kids think I’m a snob. Other’s think I’m driven to get straight As, to be the best at everything.”
“You got straight As?” I was trying to joke, but she didn’t take the bait. In fact, her eyes got darker, like she was angry.
“I know what they say about me, Trevor. A lot of guys think it would be cool to nail the pastor’s daughter, and a lot more think that because I’m a pastor’s daughter, I must be a raving sex maniac. So guys are either scared to approach me or they’re in my face, and not in a good way.”
“Nope.”
“What?”
“You’re wrong.”
I waited a beat, because I needed to get this right. I needed for her to know. It was just hard, making the right words come out sometimes. And that damn tic was getting worse.
“I see you, Everly. The real you. The one that no one else gets to see. She’s beautiful and she’s sad and when she thinks no one can see her, she’s kind of broken. I get that.”
She blinked, her eyes wide and shiny. “No one has ever said anything like that to me before.”
“It’s because you’ve never let them.” I scooped up my napkin, fingers nervous now. “Why is that?”
“Why is what?”
“You dated that guy, Jason what’s-his-face, for a while, but other than him, I don’t remember seeing you around with anyone.”
“Trevor, you didn’t know I existed until this summer.”
“Wrong again. So damn wrong.”
