AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He grabs my hands. “Take it. It’s cold, and I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have acted the way I did before. I was angry, and not really at you. That’s the only excuse I have.” He shrugs. His gaze shifts from the peaceful water to looking over at me. His eyes are full of apology and regret. I feel my guard starting to falter.
“Why are you so angry? Why is everyone here so angry and mean?” I pull his sweatshirt tighter around me and look down morosely.
“With the kind of money everyone in this community has, there comes expectations.” His voice is tired and he rakes a hand through his wavy hair. “Lots and lots of expectations. Most of us here have been taught the almighty dollar is more important than real emotions or real problems. Money should fix everything, but it doesn’t.” He gestures back towards the house. “That’s what happens when money is valued more than people. All of those kids have been ignored or rejected most of their life. It causes serious anger issues.”
Chapter Seven
I don’t believe in happily-ever-after, but I do believe in the absolutely limitless ability of people to be assholes.-Sawyer
Sawyer
Ronnie shivers again and shoots me a look of complete disbelief. “That doesn’t excuse the way they treated me. Or how you treated me.”
“No, it doesn’t.” I stare into the dark water as if all the answers are there and shake my head. “Nothing excuses that. Are you still cold? You need to put that shirt on. Frozen popsicle isn’t a good look on anyone.” I watch as she bites her lip and debates internally before following my directions. I find myself having my own internal debate. There’s something about her that makes me want to ditch my nasty attitude, but without the cloak of it I feel too exposed. What can I say? Her tears got to me.
She sticks her head through my sweatshirt and slides her arms into the sleeves. It’s about four sizes too big for her, but my Falcons sweat shirt has never looked so good. I try very hard to block the image of her in my favorite team’s shirt and nothing else out. She’s so curvy that my hands itch to touch her soft skin. Fuck, it’s been a long time since I was with a girl. I need to rectify that soon.
I gaze out across the water and we both watch in silence for a moment as the sun slips further below the horizon. I can hear crickets chirping and the gentle songs of the cicadas. Leave it to nature to be such a contrast to the chaos inside of the house.
“I should probably be chopping wood, you know? You’re going to get me into trouble.” I turn and glance at her with a half-smile. To be honest, I don’t care about doing anything for my uncle or my cousin right now. All I’m thinking about is the girl next to me, and how much I regret getting angry with her. She’s still out of my league, but she seems different than the others. I could kick myself for being such a douche earlier. There’s just so much anger stored up inside of me these days that sometimes I feel like I might explode.
I want to make her feel better. I haven’t cared about anyone else’s emotions in a long time. The sincere compassion I feel towards her catches me by surprise. “At least the people inside are so toasted they probably won’t care about starting a fire tonight. My guess is they’ll be so wasted they forget pretty much everything that happened today.”
She looks out over the water for a moment and everything is quiet except the faraway sounds of the party and nature’s soundtrack.
She turns to me and arches an eyebrow. Her tears are gone and she looks at me curiously. “How did you end up working for your uncle anyway?”
“Way to change the subject, pretty girl. Give me a second to switch gears.” I pause and look over at her.
I stare into those captivating green eyes and I find myself not wanting to say. Part of me wants to tell her the whole story, and just be me for once. Another part, the much bigger part, wants to not have my past follow me everywhere I go.
“I owe my uncle. No big deal.” There’s a shitload more to it than that, but whatever. I shrug. I clear my throat and struggle to think of someway to change the subject.
I peer over at her closely. “Wanna tell me what Marissa was reading out of back there?”
She shrugs and sighs. “Nope.”
“It sounded pretty, um....” I think hard about how to describe the scene Marissa had started reading. I can’t come up with words that don’t sound like I’m making fun of her. To me, it sounded hot as hell, but like I said maybe I’m hard up. “Do you write stuff like that all the time?’ I can’t help but ask. This girl is seemingly so sweet and innocent, but what was in that notebook sounded like someone who had pretty lewd thoughts. I feel my cock stir at the pictures her words created. I swear at myself internally. For God’s sake, she’s a total innocent. For some reason, that doesn’t turn me off. It only turns me on more.
She ducks her head. “I’m like any other hormonal teenage girl, I guess. I like love stories and well, of course, I uh…” She trails off and the silence is so awkward that I feel the need to lighten things up.
“You have perverted teenage fantasies like the rest of us?” I can’t help but finish for her. She elbows me and I give a good-natured grunt.
“It’s okay to admit you’re like everyone else. I too have been known to wax poetic about love-making.” I lower my voice and hold my hands to my chest. “Oh, Brenda, thine lips shine like the raspberry lip gloss you use and your boobs are bountiful lumps of…” I pause and cut my gaze to her. She’s biting her bottom lip to keep from laughing. I shrug. “Crap, I can’t think of anything. Maybe this is harder than I thought.”
Ronnie giggles and I laugh gruffly. She pushes her red hair behind her ear with one hand and my gaze tracks the movement. Ronnie is so unlike any other girl I’ve met before. She’s delicate and sweet, and most of all, real.
“It’s harder than you would think. Do you know how many synonyms for body parts romance writers have to come up with?” Her face lights up with a smile and my chest feels tight.
“I can only imagine.” Heat flashes through my body as dirty words float through my brain. Cock, pussy, tits…does she really write down all of those words? I wonder what they would sound like coming from that pretty mouth. For a moment I’m distracted and turned on, until her soft voice reaches me with its sad tone.
“I know it’s hard to understand why I like to read and write romance so much, especially since I’ve never experienced any of it.” Her voice is so wistful that I squirm. I’ve experienced a lot of sex in my twenty years, but the truth is romance hasn’t been a part of any of it.
She’s soft-spoken once again as she continues. “I would like to think that there’s more to life than what we have right here, you know? I mean, day-to-day life can get kind of boring. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to think that there’s one great love out there for everyone?” She opens her arms wide. “Someone that can suddenly make life seem exciting, and sweep you off your feet?”
“I know I’m certainly waiting for someone to sweep me off my feet. I can’t wait to meet the woman who can pick me up and carry me away.” She giggles and I smile at the sound.
She continues to laugh, clutching her stomach now. “Now, all I can think of is this big woman carrying you around saying, ‘he’s my man’ or something like that.” She laughs harder and a small snort comes out of her nose.
