by Sam Mariano
“For what?” she asked, a little cautiously.
Since he had more than one thing to be sorry for, and he didn’t want to acknowledge the moment that just passed if she didn’t, he said simply, “For everything.”
Willow nodded her head but didn’t say a word. They spent the rest of the ride back to her house silent, each stewing in their own thoughts.
As he pulled to a stop outside her house, she opened up her purse and dug around until she found her house keys, then she hesitated. He thought she was probably afraid to go outside alone and he was just about to offer to walk her to her door when suddenly she turned and leaned over the center console, throwing her arms around him in a sideways hug.
“Thanks,” she said simply.
Before he could think to respond—return the hug? Intentionally not return the hug?—she pulled back, flashed him a faint smile, and opened up the passenger door.
She hopped out of the car and sprinted to her front porch. He hated himself as he watched her dress ride up when she made her way up the steps.
“Jesus,” he muttered, nonetheless watching her until she was safely inside her house.
Although he was still a bit dazed, he also didn’t want to be castrated, so he pulled himself out of it long enough to put his car into drive and make his way down the road.
It was the longest ride home of his life.
Ethan hadn't talked to Willow since that night at the park.
His curiosity was killing him. Was she pissed at him after she had recovered? Did she feel like he’d tried to take advantage of her?
Since determining not to take advantage of her had caused many a cold shower, he thought it would be almost humorous if she did think that and she was pissed at him.
Almost, but not quite. He would feel terrible if she felt that way. He simply hadn't been prepared for anything like that moment. The dreams he had that night were X-rated, but they weren't memories or bad dreams, that was for sure.
She had been back in school for a little over two weeks, and he was curious as to how she was doing, but he felt weird about contacting her to find out. Instead, he checked her out online again. Her profile picture was still the picture of her wearing that damn tight dress that showed off her shoulders. He loved and hated the photograph—where most of the salivating males commenting only loved it.
Not that he could comment, obviously, but he could read the comments of the little shits who did and roll his eyes at them.
He hadn't checked her profile in a couple of days and he had some time in the office while he waited for a fax, so he found his way to her page, just to see if anything changed.
When he saw what had changed, he was floored.
Willow had been tagged in a status by some boy named Angel Rodriguez that read, "can't wait to take out my girl tonight," and had a fucking winking smiley face next to it!
His girl? Since when was Willow anyone's girl? That wasn't even the boyfriend she had broken up with, this was some new asshole.
Fax forgotten, he spent the next half hour investigating Angel Rodriguez and concluded he was not the kind of guy for Willow.
Not that he had any right to decide who her type of guy was... but someone needed to look out for her, right?
Willow was still listed as single, but he didn't even know if she would keep her information current.
He debated sending her a text message. Just a brief one to ask her how life was...let her know he was thinking about her?
No. No, that was stupid. He was only thinking about her because he knew she was vulnerable and he didn't want her to fall prey to any vultures that might be circling.
Like that Angel kid.
At the end of his stalking session, he concluded that he had no good reason to contact her and he should leave her alone, even if he did think that kid seemed shifty.
It was not his concern.
The fax came through, reminding him that he had actual work to do, and he put the girl out of his mind.
As it approached 9 pm, he was back in his office. He found his way over to the computer again, figuring he would just see if there were any updates. Strangely the first post about taking "his girl" out had disappeared from her page, but she was tagged in a new picture, and what he saw made his jaw go a little slack.
Willow was all sexed up. She had straightened her long brown hair, put on more make-up than she needed, but it enhanced her beauty and made her look older, and she was wearing a tight-ass black mini skirt with some flowy bright coral-orange shirt. Her legs looked fucking incredible, except for the hand resting on her hip—the hand of her date, Angel.
Ethan scowled. One look at the picture and he knew what was on that kid's mind.
His fingers itched to send her a text, but he stopped himself. He wasn't a fucking kid; he couldn't interrupt her date to warn her that the guy she was out with undoubtedly wanted to have sex with her.
She was also an attractive teenage girl, so she probably already knew that.
He still didn't like it.
What if that kid tried to take advantage of her vulnerable state? Teenage boys were little bastards, only thinking with the little head and certainly not mature enough to handle Willow.
What the hell was she doing?
None of his business, he reminded himself.
If Willow was moving on with her life, good for her.
Yep, good for her. She was probably capable of handling herself around a horny teenager—surely he wasn't the first she had dealt with.
But he was the first since losing her virginity.
Or having it ripped away from her.
By him.
He had absolutely no right to dictate who she shared her body with now that her virginity wasn't holding her back.
He told himself he was just worried about her well-being, but since the images in his mind were of her in that mini-skirt, and flashes of memory of the night he held her in his arms and she looked like she wanted to be kissed...he wasn't sure he was being honest with himself.
It didn't matter.
He was a married man and she was an 18-year-old girl.
It was not his concern.
---
As Angel accompanied her to her front door, shoving his keys in his pocket, Willow got the distinct impression that he wanted to come inside.
"Well, thanks for dinner," she said, offering him a smile as she stood with her back to the door.
"No problem," he said, grinning at her. "You looked great tonight."
"Thanks."
"I mean, you always look great," he amended.
"Thanks," she said, feeling a touch more awkward.
“We should do this again.” He flashed her a smile.
“Yeah, we could probably do that.”
Since the date had gone well—and it was their second, technically, even though she hadn’t realized that hanging out in a group the first time had been a date—and she was agreeing to another one, it wasn’t at all unreasonable when he leaned in to kiss her.
Quickly dodging him, she went in for a hug instead, and he seemed surprised.
When she pulled back, he looked a little less excited. Still, he assured her he would text her later, gave her another once-over in case she hadn’t yet understood that he thought she looked good, and then finally turned to leave.
Willow opened the door and made her way inside quickly, locking the door behind her. Her stupid heels were killing her, so she happily kicked them off.
“So, how’d it go?”
Spinning around, she saw her mother in a robe, smiling at her.
“It was fine,” Willow said briefly, heading for the kitchen to get a drink. “The food was kind of salty, so I need an IV of water, but other than that.”
“Did you like him?”
Rolling her eyes as Lauren followed after her, Willow said, “Sure, Angel’s pretty cool. He’s funny, I like that.”
“Are you going to see him again?”
“I don�
��t know, Mom. I wouldn’t start picking out the monogrammed bath towels just yet, okay?” she said lightly.
“It’s nice to see you doing something normal again,” Lauren remarked thoughtlessly.
Willow’s mood drooped slightly, but she knew her mom meant no harm. Still, she quickly grabbed a bottle of water out of the fridge and told her mom she needed to go change into something more comfortable, then made sure to tell her good night, just in case she was expecting Willow to come back down and share more details.
Once she changed out of her clothing and into comfy pajamas, she flopped down on her bed and checked her phone. She went online to clear her notifications and saw a few new complimentary comments on the picture Angel had posted of them together. He looked more territorial in it than she was altogether comfortable with, and she didn’t want him to go thinking they were a couple just because they went on—by her standards—one single date.
Her stupid ex posted some passive aggressive meme about a “whore” ex-girlfriend, which she suspected was aimed at her, but who really knew? When he passed her in the hall earlier that day, he had given her a pretty sour look, so it probably was. Seeing his bitchiness definitely made her regret dumping him though, so way to think that one through.
There was a new comment from one of her old friends that simply read, “deets!!!!!!! call me” which only served to enhance her annoyance with Angel.
Earlier in the day, he had posted a stupid status calling her “his girl” and he tagged her in it. As soon as she saw it, she removed the tag, lest everyone think she was in a new relationship, but since some of her friends lived on social media, she had not been quick enough.
“Stupid, stupid, stupid,” she muttered to herself as she closed out the app and opened up her messages.
She had to scroll down to get to the last one she had gotten from Ethan.
Just thinking his name made her smile faintly, even though she was sure that wasn’t the appropriate response at all. She hadn’t even heard from him again after that night at the basketball court, so he was probably either weirded out by her, or he felt he had paid his penance by being her punching bag for the night.
Not that they talked regularly, but there had been a moment that night when she had actually thought he was going to kiss her—which was crazy, obviously, but she still figured she would hear from him after that.
It had effectively changed the tone of her dreams though. Since that night—when for a moment, he was just a handsome, mature guy who was consoling her in her time of need—her dreams about him were much more pleasant. Having sexual dreams about him prior to that had been weird for her—especially when she didn’t know him at all. As she interacted with him more, the less awkward it became, and the less she cared if it was acceptable or not. No one else knew, and if it made everything easier on her, then nobody needed to have an opinion about it.
It might also be helping that she finally told her therapist the truth after he advised her to. The woman hadn’t seemed surprised at all, and her expression remained stoic as Willow went on to explain the added complications and how Ethan wasn’t actually a bad guy. By the end of her rambling, she wasn’t sure what her therapist thought about it, because her face was so impassive, but Willow had an idea of how it must sound.
The only flicker of surprise she betrayed was when Willow said that Ethan was actually the one who told her she needed to come clean in therapy, followed by, “You’re still in contact with this man?”
Still feeling like a tattletale in kindergarten, Willow went on another long-winded defense of Ethan’s character and explained that she was the one who contacted him afterward. It was a close approximation of the truth, even if she left out all of the crucial details.
Although the therapist hadn’t said anything about it—the session flew by—Willow felt incredibly defensive about Ethan. It felt like a little secret that was only for her, yet her more logical side recognized that the basis of their relationship was… well, a little warped.
Since she hadn’t heard from him since that night, she also wasn’t sure that their odd acquaintanceship even qualified as a relationship, but since she had rezoned him, she liked the idea that he was looking out for her. As absurd as it seemed, she even convinced herself that maybe he was why she had only been raped once. The other girls had all been used multiple times, generally by a couple different guys, except for one girl—Lane’s favorite, who was solely “used” by him.
She wondered where that girl had ended up. In the bedroom she had been stuffed in, there had been eight to ten other girls depending on the night, but she only knew what happened to the ones at the pizza parlor.
Hopefully she was returned to wherever her home was—hopefully all of them had been.
Thinking about that brought her mood down a little, but she was surprised that when images of herself bent over in front of Ethan started to seep in, she was able to immediately shove them out and replace them with the night at the park, holding onto him as he wrapped his arms around her and let her cry on him.
That was a relief. Still an odd memory, but much better than the stomach ache that always accompanied the other ones.
On a whim, Willow checked the time and saw that it was still before 10, so she typed out a simple message to Ethan that she took his advice and told the therapist.
He responded right away, asking how that went.
“Can you talk right now?” she sent back.
A minute passed before he answered, “Not right this second. I’ll call you in a few minutes?”
“Sure.” After sending the message, she paused thoughtfully, then added, “Or we could meet somewhere. Whichever.”
Another minute passed. “Are you hungry?”
Something like excitement spiked in her stomach, but she did her best to ignore it as she sent back, “I could eat.”
“Do you like Chinese?”
“What a stupid question—who are these people who don’t like Chinese and why are they in your life?”
“Good point,” he replied, then told her to meet him at a Chinese restaurant she had never been to before that was apparently open until 10:30.
Hopping off the bed, she tugged her comfy top off and shimmied out of her pants, grabbing the skirt she had worn to dinner and pulling it on, then grabbing a little red cami top out of her drawer, and the black crochet—completely see-through—3/4 sleeve sweater out of her closet—it was casually sexy, and always fell off one of her shoulders. It was her favorite item of clothing before she went school clothes shopping.
Then she took the red suede ankle boots she had ordered out of the box—they were sexy as hell, but stiletto heels and they were not even remotely pleasant to walk in. Once she had pulled on her new outfit, she went into the bathroom to quickly spruce up her hair and make-up, and she was dragging lipstick across her bottom lip when she froze, remembering her mom was downstairs.
“Shit!” Throwing the lipstick down, she went back to her bedroom, opening the door and creeping out into the hall. The staircase looked dark—maybe her mom had followed her up. Creeping closer, she peered down into the dark hole that led to her living room.
The dark still creeped her out, so she quickly headed back to her room to grab her phone and purse, then proceeded to sneak out of her house.
When Willow walked into the tiny restaurant, Ethan’s last remaining doubt that agreeing to meet her was a bad idea evaporated.
When she flashed him a smile, he returned it and somehow managed to keep from ogling her.
Every time he saw the damn girl, she was dressed more and more provocatively. What the hell was that all about?
Reminding himself of her age didn’t help. It should have, but it didn’t.
The young man working behind the counter grinned widely as Willow approached, and greeted her with much more enthusiasm than he had greeted Ethan with.
“What are you getting?” she asked casually.
Ethan glanced over at her, attempti
ng to keep his eyes on her face, but the temptation to look down at that damned see through shirt was very real. “Uh…I don’t know. What about you?”
“I think I’m just going to get the teriyaki steak-on-a-stick appetizer.”
“That’s it?”
“Yeah, that’s fine.”
Looking at the menu, he suddenly didn’t understand why he had picked a Chinese restaurant. Garlic and various other heavily scented sauces—he was not going to have fresh breath, to say the least.
“If I get fried rice, will you eat some?”
Nodding solemnly, she said, “You will never see the day that I turn down fried rice.”
Finally going with sweet and sour chicken, they ordered their food and drinks, Ethan paid, and the smiling young man told them it would be a few minutes.
Ethan sat down on the red wooden bench against the wall and Willow walked over to join him, but apparently noticed that her boot had come untied. Seemingly without a qualm, she hiked her leg up on the bench beside him and leaned over that long leg of hers to tie it.
It was physically impossible to look away. Her smooth, toned leg was right there, inches away, and there was sexy on each side—sexy suede boots on her feet, an irrationally short skirt at the top. When he finally managed to force his gaze away from her legs to glance at her face, he thought he saw a hint of amusement there, just the slight curve of a smile.
She was doing it on purpose to torture him. She had to be. It was a genius punishment if that was her game. It also meant she trusted him enough that she wasn’t afraid to tease him, which was somewhat reassuring.
She had been dressed the same way on her date earlier that night though, so maybe she just liked to dress provocatively. Effectively dulling his arousal, he considered that she might even be dressing like that because of what had happened to her at his hands.
He hoped not. As long as she had waited to have sex—and would have likely continued waiting—he imagined it wasn’t something she would take lightly, and he didn’t want to see her get hurt.
Knowing what shitheads teen guys could be—or really guys of any age, if he was being honest—he was afraid that would happen.