“I got an internship.” I watch her face for reaction while I talk. So far so good. “It’s at this totally legit engineering firm, which is really good experience for my resume. And they’ll let it replace my senior seminar and my business practicum, and I’ll still get credit. And I’ll get paid.”
By the time I’m done talking her skepticism has faded, replaced with a genuine smile. “That’s great, Fred. Congratulations.”
“I’m pretty stoked about it.” I pause, watching her. “And it just so happens that the internship is based in the city. Which means the commute from Ann Arbor would be rough.”
Her eyes have narrowed a bit. “Yeah?”
“Yeah. So Jet kindly offered to let me stay in his second bedroom.”
“You’re moving back?” I can’t tell what she’s thinking but I’m getting a distinct suspicious vibe from her.
“Just part of the week. I’ll still have classes Thursday and Friday.”
“But you’ll be here the rest of the time.” It’s more of a statement than a question. I decide it’s time to put on the charm. I slide towards her a bit on the couch, raising my eyebrows a little.
“Yeah. Right down the street, in fact.”
“Fred—”
“What? I thought you’d be happy that you’d still get to see me every week.”
“I am happy,” she says quickly. “I just…I’m a little confused.”
“Why?”
“Because you told me this was going to be really casual and low pressure. And that you were going back to school so there wouldn’t be any expectations.”
“None of that has to change, Ellie.”
“Yeah, but now you’re going to be here.”
“You think you won’t be able to keep your hands off of me if I’m around?”
She rolls her eyes but I can’t help but notice a tinge of red come to her cheeks. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
“I’m just curious,” I ask, sliding another inch closer. “You seem to be doubting your ability to keep it casual with me so close by.”
“I’m doubting your ability,” she snaps, crossing her arms. “Nothing has changed for me, Fred. I really hope you didn’t make this move for me.”
It’s my turn to roll my eyes. “This is a huge opportunity for me. Huge. Don’t be so conceited, Ellie.”
“Hey!” she cries, her eyes wide. “Who are you calling conceited?”
“Well, you seem convinced that I’m obsessed with you. Sounds a little self-centered to me.”
I can tell I’m pissing her off but I don’t care—she needs someone in her life who isn’t terrified of her, and I’m determined to be that person. I have a feeling it’s the only way I’ll get her to respect me.
I reach for her hands, kissing her knuckles while she sputters in anger. “But you’re in luck because I think it’s pretty cute.”
“Fred—”
“What? Why are you so convinced this is going to change things?”
“Because you’ll be here all the time!”
“I’ll be working, actually. And back at school part of the week. I never said I was going to be here all weekend, every weekend—I do have a life in Ann Arbor, you know. Friends. Interests.”
She scowls.
I move a bit closer so that our knees are touching. Her eyes dart back and forth between my face and the point at which our bodies are making contact. Am I imagining that her breathing has sped up?
“I see no reason why we can’t continue in the way we discussed at the party,” I tell her, my voice low. Her eyes focus on my lips and I feel a swooping in my stomach. God, I want to kiss her. “Unless, of course, you think you might get too emotionally attached.”
“I think you forget who you’re talking to,” she says, but her voice is equally low and her eyes are still on my mouth.
“I guess there’s only one way to find out,” I whisper, moving in for the kiss. The moment my lips make contact with her she sighs, as if in relief, and I can feel her entire body relax into mine.
“Wait,” she whispers against my mouth, pulling back. I want to groan—how does she expect me to stop kissing her when she feels so good?
“We need to set some ground rules here, Fred.”
“Fine,” I mutter, dropping my head to kiss her bare shoulder. I grin when she shivers. “Go ahead.”
“Okay, first of all…” She sighs a little when I run my tongue across the skin of her collarbone.
“Yes?” I urge.
“First…first of all…” She sounds shaky, unsure of herself, and it’s all I can do not to laugh in triumph.
“First of all?”
“Yes. First of all…” She takes a breath, seemingly getting herself together. “We are not dating.”
“Fine with me. All dating means is I would have to spend a bunch of money on you.”
She giggles, the sound turning to a whimper when my lips travel further south below her collarbones.
“Secondly,” she continues weakly. “We are not exclusive. Either one of us can see or hook up with anyone we want.”
I don’t like the sound of that one bit, but I had known she would stipulate it. She needs to feel like she’s in control, and that’s fine with me. I’ll just have to make sure that she’s spending so much time with me that she doesn’t have time for anyone else.
“Any more rules?” I ask, nipping at the smooth skin above her breasts with my teeth.
“Um…”
I grin against her skin.
“Just so long as we’re on the same page,” she says, her voice shaking.
“We’re not dating and we’re not exclusive,” I repeat. “Got it.”
“Do you have any rules?” she asks, her fingers coming up to my hair.
“No more ignoring my calls,” I tell her.
“I haven’t done that since your party!” she argues and I nod against her chest.
“I know, I’m just saying I don’t want it to come up again. If you get freaked out or something you have to tell me, and not shut me out. Okay?”
“Fine.”
“And no hooking up with guys when we’re in the same vicinity.”
“We said we weren’t going to be tied down to each other,” she argues. “We said it wasn’t exclusive.”
“I’m not talking about exclusive,” I tell her. “I’m saying I don’t particularly want to see you with your tongue down some guy’s throat right in front of me.” I know my voice has turned a little cold, but I can’t help it. I’m remembering that asshole from the party, the way I felt when his hands were on her, and it makes my entire body tense up.
“So you don’t care if I see other guys so long as it’s not in front of you?”
I nod, releasing a breath. Of course I care if she sees other guys, but I can’t tell her that now.
When are you going to tell her? A voice in my head questions. What’s the end game here, Fred?
What’s the end game? It’s a good question. If I’m totally honest with myself, the ideal end game is Ellie Canter realizing that she’s every bit as into me as I am into her. The two of us being an honest-to-God couple, with zero possibility of other bastards having anything to do with her.
And I know the chances of any of that coming true are slim to none.
I’m not sure why it is, exactly, but it’s obvious to anybody with a brain that Ellie is not a couple kind of girl. She couldn’t have made herself more clear—she doesn’t want a boyfriend. Doesn’t need a boyfriend. Has absolutely zero interest in having a boyfriend.
So why am I doing this? Why am I going to such lengths to integrate myself into her life? Could it be that I’m just happy to get as much as I can where she’s concerned? Even if it’s only little scraps of affection mixed with some mind-blowing sex? Is that really enough for me?
She watches my eyes for a long time, as if trying to come to some kind of conclusion. Finally, she grins and leans into me. “So long as we’re on the same page.”
&nb
sp; Then she’s kissing me and it’s hard to remember any of the questions that were, only moments ago, chasing each other through my head.
I never thought I would experience anything like our first time together. The feeling of being inside Ellie, after months of wanting her, was so intense I was sure it had ruined me for all future partners. But it doesn’t take long to realize that mind-blowing sex with Ellie wasn’t a one-time deal. As she moves on top of me, as I stare up at the beauty of her body, the wildness of her hair as it cascades around her breasts, the look in her eyes as she stares down at me, I realize that every time with Ellie might just be heart-stopping. Life-changing. Amazing.
Maybe, I realize, as she finally collapses against me, her black hair covering my face, it has nothing to do with being satisfied with scraps after all. You can’t make love like that without caring—can you? Maybe there’s a part of me, a silly, misguided part, that truly believes she might feel the same way as I do. That she’s just too scared, or confused, or freaking stubborn to realize it. It’s a long shot, absolutely. But as she snuggles into me, her breathing already evening out into a relaxed, sleepy state, I decide it’s absolutely worth it to wait and find out. Long shot or not.
Chapter Eight
Ellie
“Tell me something that no one else knows about you,” Fred whispers in the darkness. Even after all of that I’m still affected by the raspy quality of his voice. I love the way he sounds after he makes love to me. I shiver a little and turn in his arms to see his face better.
“Like what?”
He shrugs. “Anything. What haven’t you ever told Zoe? Or Hunter?”
I shake my head. “I tell them everything.”
He reaches for a strand of hair, tucking it behind my ear. “Everything, huh? You didn’t tell them about us the first time we hooked up.”
“I was just trying to protect your honor.”
I love the sound of his laughter when we’re laying together like this, love how I can feel it vibrate through his chest. “I think it’s because you’re scared of how much you like me and you have been from the start.”
I reach up to tug on his ear, hard. “You keep telling yourself that.”
“You’re the one who’s supposed to be telling me something. A secret, remember?”
“I’m an open book, Fred. I keep no secrets.”
“Then how come I don’t even know what your favorite food is?”
I look up at him. “Cheeseburgers.”
He laughs again. “That doesn’t surprise me.”
“What about you?”
“Hmm,” he mutters. “I guess steak.”
“Good choice. Favorite restaurant?”
“The Wagon Wheel,” he says. “I know, I know. It’s totally lame. But I have the best memories of going out there with my family when I was a kid.”
“The Wagon Wheel…” I know I’ve heard of the restaurant on the outskirts of town. I have a sudden image of a place with wood paneled walls and dark red tablecloths.
“Have you been there?” he asks. “You must have, you’ve lived here your whole life. Everyone goes to the Wagon Wheel when they’re a kid.”
I rack my brain to think of why I have such a clear picture of the place. Finally, I remember something, a distant memory that I’ve always kept at the back of my mind but never wanted to examine much in front of other people.
“When I was ten my dad took me there for dinner. For my birthday. And I thought it was the coolest restaurant in the world. Which probably sounds really silly—”
“It doesn’t sound silly to me. I told you it was my favorite place, remember?”
I smile against his chest. “It was a big deal to me. We didn’t go out to restaurants very often, not nice ones where you sat a table and ordered from a menu. We never really had the money for it, I guess. And…my dad wasn’t around very much. He was a truck driver and he had to be out on the road a lot of the time. But he told me he was going to take me out for my birthday, which he had missed when he was on the job, and I was so excited. I seriously talked about it for days straight. It drove my mom crazy.”
The mention of my mom gives me pause and I have to swallow hard to make myself go on. “So my dad comes home from his last trip and we get all ready to go. I’m, like, bouncing off the walls at this point, but my dad just laughs and off we go. And, for a while, it was everything I thought it would be. Just me and my dad, his total attention on me for once.” I close my eyes, remembering how it felt when he smiled at me like I was the only person in the room. My dad has these great brown eyes that crinkle up when he smiles—he has a way of making you feel all warm inside, important.
“Ellie?” Fred asks, and I realize that I’ve trailed off.
“It’s a stupid story,” I say, shaking my head. “I don’t know why I even told you.”
“I want to hear,” he insists, pulling me a little closer.
“It’s dumb. He ended up picking up some woman at the bar. And taking me over to my Grandma’s to spend the night.”
Fred is very quiet for a long time. “He picked up another woman? With you there?”
I nod. “Yeah. Like I said, it’s stupid. Not really the fun kind of secret you were looking for, huh?”
“Ellie, you don’t have to feel stupid for telling me anything,” he insists. “Were…were your parents together at the time?”
“They were separated. I just didn’t realize it.”
I wonder if Fred can hear how sad my voice sounds, and I want to kick myself for going down this road. Lots of kids have parents who get divorced, it’s really not that big of a deal. So what if my dad picked up some bar floozy—it was his life, and it’s not for me to judge him. Even if I had been looking forward to that night with him for weeks. Even if it had felt like he was getting rid of me, taking me to my Grandma’s for the night when I had just wanted to be with him.
“Ellie—”
“Your turn,” I say, my voice bright. “I told you my deep dark secret,” I laugh a little, to show him how not a big deal it is. “Now I want one of yours.”
He’s quiet for a long moment, as if debating whether or not to let me off the hook. “Please, Fred,” I say softly, wishing he would understand how badly I want the subject changed, how much I need him to talk about something else.
“Did I ever tell you about study abroad?” he asks. I can still detect a note of worry in his voice, but I’m so relieved he dropped it I could kiss him. Instead I shake my head.
“I went to Spain for a semester last year. Madrid.”
“Wow.” I’d never been to a foreign country, not even Canada, which was only an hour away. “That must have been amazing.”
He laughs and it sounds a little bitter. “It was, I guess. But I spent a lot of the time stressing out.”
“Was it hard adjusting to a different country?”
“A little. But…my head wasn’t really there. It was here.” He shifts against his pillow. “You may as well know,” he goes on, his voice bright—I get the feeling he’s faking, just like I was a minute ago. “I’m pretty much a professional worrier.”
“You are?” He nods and I squint up at him. “I never would have guessed that. You seem so easy going.”
“You should check out my medicine cabinet—I not only take anti-anxiety meds, I also have a prescription to treat an ulcer. Pretty impressive for a twenty-two year old, eh?”
He’s trying to be jokey and self-deprecating but I can detect an underlying note of sadness there. Of embarrassment.
“What kinds of things do you worry about?”
He shrugs. “School. My grades.” There’s a pause. “My dad. His business. Jet. My sister.”
He sounds so unlike himself, his voice heavy and dull. I don’t like it—I want to make him laugh, bring back the lightness from before this conversation started. But something tells me it would be worse to brush him off right now. In the same way that he seemed to instinctively know I needed a subject change a
few minutes ago, I know he needs to talk to me now.
“Why do you worry about your dad?”
“He…he’s had a hard time. His business has been struggling for years and the stress of it takes its toll on him.”
“What kind of business is it?”
“He owns a construction company. The last few years have been rough but it’s not the first time. When I was young he almost lost it.” He pauses and I wonder if there’s something else to the story, something else he isn’t telling me. “He was very overwhelmed about it. Very upset, all the time. It was…scary. I was just old enough to kind of understand what was going on. I overheard him talking about losing the house and I started having nightmares all the time about living on the street.” He shakes his head and his next words are so quiet I have to strain to hear. “I started getting sick at school all the time. I would throw up pretty much every day. Eventually they made me see the school psychologist and he recommended I see a shrink.”
I think of Fred as a little boy, so worried about these scary grown up things that he made himself sick. I want to kiss him until the shakiness has left his voice but instead I clench my fists together and wait for him to go on.
“Anyhow, my dad eventually pulled it together, things picked up, and everything went back to normal.”
“Did you stop seeing the shrink after that?”
He nods. “Yeah. I knew it was expensive and the last thing my dad needed to pay for, so I told everyone I didn’t want to go anymore and eventually they gave in.”
“But all of this was when you were a kid,” I point out. “You said you have an ulcer now.”
“What can I say? Old habits die hard.”
I remember him telling me about how much he worries about Jet. He was the one who found him when he OD’d and I get a sick feeling in my stomach thinking about it, about what that must have been like for him. I feel his fingers clench briefly against my skin and decide I’ve had enough of this depressing, feeling shitty heart-to-heart.
“Hey,” I tell him, raising up on my elbows so I can look down into his face. “The way I see it, it’s a pretty good thing you got mixed up with me.”
His eyebrows go up and I detect the trace of a smile on his lips. “Yeah? Why’s that?”
Escape With You Page 7