AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I picked up my drink. “To chasing my new future.”
We clinked our drinks together and drank, then he frowned.
“Something wrong?” I asked.
“I want to ask you something, but I don’t want to look like I’m coming on too strong.”
My heart rate ramped up. I liked how he was coming on: how he’d held my hand just now and the flirting. But shit, I didn’t know him. He was a stranger.
“You won’t know unless you ask.”
He shook his head with a smile. “Fuck it, okay … So, Phil. Is he like your boyfriend or something?”
I barked out a laugh. “What? No! Not at all.”
“Okay. Seeing anyone else?”
“No one else.” I paused. “What about you?”
“I’m single,” he replied, his voice deeper.
“I’m so single I’m practically an old maid,” I joked, stirring the ice in my drink. “No one wants to date me.”
But my joke only sounded sad to my ears.
“I doubt that very much,” he scoffed.
“You don’t have to say that to be nice.”
“I’m definitely not saying that to be nice,” he replied, his voice rough and low, as his eyes searched my face. “You really don’t know how attractive you are.”
If only he knew. Too many boys and men had made it clear I wasn’t attractive. No one wanted the girl with the scars and trauma.
Jerks.
I broke his stare and sipped my drink.
No, tonight was about a new future! I’m not waiting for a prince to rescue me!
“What are you thinking just now?” he asked, studying my face kindly, without pity.
Thank goodness. I didn’t want pity. I was celebrating the beginning of new things tonight.
“Guys I know think they know me, but they don’t. Not really. Besides, growing up in a small country town, it’s hard to meet anyone who you’re not related to or you know them too well to be attracted to them.”
“How does knowing them too well mean you’re not attracted?”
“It’s like this; I can still remember too clearly which boys at kindergarten ate their boogers.” He grimaced and I chuckled. “The guys I know at home are like brothers.” I thought of Phil, Benji, and others in the rural fire brigade. “I just can’t imagine them as lovers.”
I caught his eye as I said ‘lovers’. A shiver went down my spine. I went to sip my drink again and found my glass empty. He pushed his empty beer bottle across the table and picked up my duffel bag.
“So, you want to see my car?” He raised an eyebrow expectantly.
I grinned. “Yes.”
* * *
“Her name is Lorraine and she’s my first love.”
