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His eyes narrow. “Thirty-two.”
I nod, happy I wasn’t too far off with my estimations. I clocked him to be around thirty-five. It’s the beard, certainly. And the smattering of chest hair I got a peak at the other day. And the general grumpiness he’s got going on. If it wasn’t for those things, I would’ve guessed younger.
“My first time in rehab, I was eighteen too,” he says in that reluctant tone of his. He sighs and waves a hand. “But I’d been drinking for years already at that point. It just didn’t really seem like a problem ’til I got my first DUI.”
My eyes widen a fraction and before I can stop myself, I blurt, “Your first?”
He scowls, and I wonder if maybe I pushed too hard. But with his next words, I realize it was toward himself. “Let’s just say I didn’t take my first stint too seriously. Didn’t see I was spiraling, so I just did what I had to to get released, and went right back to it.”
“What happened?”
He gives me a pointed look. “Anyone ever tell you you’re really fucking nosy, kid?”
More heat creeps up my neck. “I’m not a kid,” I say on reflex.
“But you are.” There’s that unfazed, point-blank tone of his again.
This time I don’t like it.
Leveling him with a hard look, I say more firmly this time, “But I’m not. Haven’t been for a long time. The law just acknowledges it now.”
His brows creep up his forehead, disappearing behind the waves of brown hair curtaining his face. It’s a couple shades lighter than mine, and long enough to tuck behind his ears, unlike my dark, nearly black hair that’s cropped short on the sides, and left thick and wavy on top.
I sit up a little straighter, pulling back my shoulders. Father always said people take you more seriously when you have good posture. Not that it’s gotten me far in life, but it does seem to get Nolan’s attention at least.
Though his scoff tells me it’s not the good kind.
He did this on the beach too.
It’s like he takes me even less serious when I try to be serious, and that’s just really confusing.
“And no,” I say in a surprisingly steady voice, despite that angry flutter in my stomach turning to an all-out stampede up my chest, shortening my breaths. “No one’s ever actually said that to me before.”
I’ve been called rude, yes, usually for staring. Or for not responding when someone’s talking to me, or in the way I’m supposed to.
But nosy? Never.
Some of his annoyance seems to dissipate, replaced by that begrudging curiosity again. He searches between my eyes like he can find the answers there.
He won’t though.
I could be gagged, restrained, and silently beg all I want, and it never makes a difference. He’ll see what he wants to see. That’s all anyone ever does. They only see themselves. They see the truth they want to believe in.
Or…
They look away.
But, then again, I lied to myself when I saw desire in another boy’s eyes, and look where I ended up. So maybe looking awayisthe answer.
“I find that hard to believe,” Nolan finally says skeptically, pulling me back to the conversation at hand.
I glance up, lifting a shoulder, not sure how to explain. Frankly, it’s baffling even to me. I’ve never been this comfortable around a stranger right off the bat. Hell, I don’t know if I’ve ever been this comfortable and open ever. I feel like I’m bursting at the seams with all the things I want to say. Things I’ve never told anyone before.
There’s just something about him—about the way he talks to me and looks at me that holds me captive. He doesn’t handle me with kid gloves, but nor does he treat me like a pariah. A freak.
My whole life it’s been one or the other—dismissiveness or scorn.
With him I’ve gotten neither so far. Even when heisdismissing me—or trying to—he’s…not. He’s still looking right at me, even when I get all flustered and have to look away. He’s still listening to me, even when he clearly doesn’t want to be.
