Because I Love You (17 page)

And with those words, my insides knotted. I rubbed my heavy chest. I needed to talk to him, to see him. Maybe I was strong enough to find my parents and grow fat on my own. Maybe I could just shut down and let the world pass me by. But, God, I didn’t want to. I really, really didn’t want to.

Mom stood with tears in her eyes. She brushed hair out of her face. She was about to speak when the phone rang. I answered it, not wanting to hear another word.

“Hey, can I still come over?” Jill asked.

“Yes, please.”

“Okay, cool. I’ll be there soon. Got the car tonight!” She sang the last sentence then hung up.

Good
.
Because we weren’t going to be here long.

As soon as I heard Jill pull into the driveway, I flung open the front door before she could even knock.

“Okay,
that
was creepy,” she said. “Do you have ESP?”

“No, just supersonic hearing.”

She gave me a look that said
yeah right
, but I could see in her eyes that she was hopeful. What would she do if we were ever attacked by aliens? Or zombies? Probably have a heart attack from nerdy excitement.

I half-smiled and pulled her into the office. “I need you to do me a favor.”

Jill tipped her head slightly. “Okay?”

“Can you take me to Neil’s?”

“Ooh, he was extra cranky at school today. He’d probably egg my car if I did that.”

I bounced a little and pressed my hands together. “Jill, please. I promise we’ll do a sleepover tomorrow, and we’ll even watch
Star Trek
. But I really, really need to see him.”

She brightened at the mention of her favorite show. I’d said the magic words.

“Okay, fine. But you have to give me something to look up tonight because your adoption paper thingy made me feel like a private investigator, and I can’t wait to start.”

Grabbing a piece of paper and pen from the desk, I scribbled my birth date and the hospital I was born in. “Here.”

Jill grinned like I’d given her a Golden Globe. She followed me into the foyer where I called up to Mom—she hadn’t left her room since our argument earlier—that I was going to Jill’s and would be back by ten or eleven. I didn’t wait for Mom to remind me I was grounded, and I barreled out the front door while texting Neil.

Are you home?
When I sat in the passenger’s seat, my phone chimed.

At Owen’s. Y?
Neil typed.

I need to talk to you.

Jill sat behind the steering wheel, staring at me with a raised eyebrow. I was about to make a comment about being patient when Neil replied with
Come on over
and sent Owen’s address.

Thank you
.
Be there soon.

O baby. I’ll have a cold shower running.

I rolled my eyes. Even through text messaging, he had to throw in a sarcastic comment.

“He’s at Owen’s,” I told Jill. “He lives by—”

“I know where he lives.” Jill put the car in reverse. I raised an eyebrow, and she shrugged. “Did some research on him to make sure he wasn’t the one helping Beth with her video prank.”

“And?”

“He’s clean.” She smiled.

I sat back in my seat. “You do realize that’s kind of CIA creepy.”

Her eyes widened. “Really? That’s my dream job. Well, the CIA or NASA.”

I shook my head. Thank God I was on Jill’s good side.

“By the way, are you not allowed to see Neil or something? I thought your mom liked him.”

I crossed my arms. “She figured out his last name wasn’t really Danielson.”

“Oh.” Her face lit up. “This is
so
cool. We’re, like, on a secret, undercover mission.
Classified
.” The way she said the last word reminded me of Batman.

I laughed. “You are the strangest person I know.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment.”

I smiled and looked out the window, excited and terrified for what would happen when I saw those aquamarine eyes again.

chapter seventeen

Owen’s house was in the nice part of River Springs, the area where all the doctors and lawyers lived. We drove past a gate and down a long driveway lined with beautiful trees every shade of red, orange, and yellow. I pictured myself riding a horse-drawn carriage down the road, dressed in a big gown. How much fun would that have been?

His house was a classical mansion, with three stories, a stone front, and a dark green, perfectly manicured lawn. They probably even had a butler. The driveway curved to the left, and a massive, matching detached garage sat next to the house.

In front of it were four shirtless boys playing basketball, Neil included.

Seeing us pull up, the boys halted their game, and Neil rested the ball on his hip, a cocky grin on his face. My eyes bulged. I’d never seen him half-naked before. His arms, chest, and abs were carved, but not bulky like those guys who spent too many hours in the gym and could crush someone if they squeezed too hard.

Since the day Heather and I had discovered boys were sexy, we’d spent many sleepovers flipping through magazines and ogling the shirtless models. If Neil had been one, his picture would’ve been taped to my wall. And regularly drooled over.

The two boys I didn’t know wandered toward the house, but Owen turned around, stared at me with a goofy grin, then howled like a wolf at the moon. He made a few inappropriate gestures with his hips before a basketball hit him, hard, on his bare back. He laughed and flipped Neil off, grabbed the ball, and then jogged toward his house. My cheeks burned.

Jill laughed at me. “Oh, man. Seeing you right now was so worth the drive.”

And now my face was roasting. “Thanks for the ride.” I stopped gawking at Neil, who was still smirking. “I’ll see you tomorrow?”

“You bet. I’ll be anxious to hear all about this little rendezvous.” She wiggled her eyebrows.

I rolled my eyes and pushed open the car door when she laughed again.

Neil held a cigarette to his lips as I walked across the asphalt. He flicked the cigarette into the grass and crushed it before the lawn caught fire. “Like what you see, Princess?”

“Shut up.” My cheeks burned hotter. The closer I got to him, the more I could see. Each lightly-defined muscle. The tattoo on his left pec—two skulls entwined with twisting vine, a ripped ribbon, and words that, when put together, read:
Don’t forget the music
.

You’re here to talk to him. That’s it.
My heart fluttered, and I turned my gaze toward the house. “They didn’t have to leave.”

“Game was over anyway.” He shrugged and crossed his arms over his chest.

I jumped when his muscles flexed. He really needed to find his clothes.

“Can we go somewhere?” I asked, tucking hair behind my ear and fighting the blush in my cheeks.

“Well, that’s a little faster than I usually go, but if you want—”

I groaned, and he laughed.

“Come on,” he said. “We can talk in the garage.”

I followed him, my arms wrapped around my waist. Neil flung open the door to the detached garage. The building was big enough for four cars, but only Neil’s truck was parked inside. The other side was filled with lawn equipment, a small cot, and a refrigerator with a crumpled shirt on top of it plugged into an outlet in the back wall.

Neil flipped open the hatch on his truck before reaching inside and pulling a blanket from behind the seats—a blanket that matched those on the cot. I frowned. He slept here often. This routine was too natural.

After spreading out the blanket inside the truck’s bed, he jumped down and patted the tailgate. “Hop up.”

“Only if you put a shirt on.”

He smirked. “Well, all right. If it’ll help you concentrate.” Neil wandered to the refrigerator, snatched the shirt, and pulled two green bottles from the machine. I climbed onto the truck’s bed, and he handed one to me. I eyeballed the bottle like it was a bomb.

“Don’t worry; it’s not booze. It’s a clear, fizzy drink some idiot named Sprite,” Neil said.

I took it from him with a glare. Popping the cap, Neil tipped his soda back and chugged the entire thing. Then he tossed the empty container into a yellow trashcan on the other side of the garage. A goofy grin split his face. I half expected him to shout
three pointer,
but he just turned back to me, leaning on a rear corner of his truck.

“So, what’s up?” he asked.

I bit my lip.

“Come on, Andie. I know you didn’t come all the way out here to stare at my abs and hold an unopened bottle of soda in your hands. Now, spill.”

Butterflies threw a party in my stomach. “How many girls have you been with?”

His eyebrows rose. “Seriously?
That’s
what you wanted to ask me?”

I flinched. It wasn’t what I’d come here to say; it sort of just popped out. But now that it had, I was curious, and I couldn’t stop my mouth from continuing, “It’s just . . . my mom heard from some of the girls at the university—”

“Here we go again.” Neil’s face reddened, and he stepped away from the truck, turning his back to me with his hands in his hair.

My fists clenched. “Why can’t you just answer me?”

He spun around, flinging his hands out to his sides. “Because I thought we were past this! What do I have to do to get you to trust me?”

“Answer my question.”

He growled. “I don’t know, all right? I didn’t keep track. Happy now?”

I clenched my teeth and turned my head, my cheeks burning. What had I hoped for? Him to fall on his knees and shout
Oh, but none, my love! For I have been waiting for you!

The real world didn’t work like that. I was proof.

“The first,” Neil said, his voice calm, “was when I was fifteen, and it was awful. Like, I’m pretty sure that the majority of my slobber went up her nose, and I spent the whole rest of sophomore year terrified the nickname ‘One Second Man’ would follow me to Hell.”

Unable to stop a smirk, I pressed my lips together. I didn’t look at him, but I felt him getting closer.

“The second was Owen’s sister, Lila. She was two years older than me, and we had a thing for a few months. But it never went anywhere. She was the one who first got my reputation going, though. Never did thank her for that, but I probably should have. And the rest . . . they were stupid, one-time hookups to—I don’t know—forget about all the shit at home.”

I winced. Any tiny grin that covered my face moments before died. Was Mom right? Was a fling all he wanted from me? I should’ve stayed blind to his experience. Not that I had any room to talk. Yes, I was inexperienced—Carter was my only, and it lasted, like, two minutes—but I was
pregnant
, for goodness sake. Definitely shouldn’t be judging Neil.

“Why are you telling me all this?” I asked.

“Because I’m tired of you thinking I’m trying to hide the truth or manipulate you.”

Looking at the ground, I picked at the cap on my Sprite bottle. I hadn’t really thought any of those things, not anymore. Why had I let my mother get in my head?

“What’s this really about?” Neil asked. By now, he stood in front of me, and he took the bottle from my grasp and then set it on the ground.

I stared at a spot on the wall. “I can’t remember.”

“Okay, well, let me take a stab at it. I like guessing games. I usually win.”

I rolled my eyes.

“Your mom figured out who I was and warned you to stay away from me. But because you’re stubborn, you came here to prove her wrong, and now you’re concerned that she might be right, and you think that if you let yourself feel, for even a millisecond, that I’ll break your heart.”

Finally, I looked at him, and the dread in his eyes made me want to wrap my arms around him and tell him he was wrong, that I was
100
percent confident he’d stick by my side through the good and the bad. But that was a lie.

For someone who worked so hard at pretending he didn’t give a damn, Neil was one of the most observant, intuitive people I’d ever met.

“The last time I let myself care about anyone, he did break my heart,” I said.

“Then screw him. He’s a freaking fool.”

My eyes burned. “But how do I know I’m not just going to be another one of your flings?”

Neil sighed, blinking slowly. He pinched the bridge of his nose, and the short pause made my pulse sprint. Then he dropped his hand and lifted his gaze to mine. “Because you make me feel something. Because I can’t stop thinking about you, wondering if you’re okay, aching to spend another minute with you. Because I always notice when you walk into a room. Because being with you doesn’t just make me happy—it makes me want to make
you
happy.”

I held my breath. My stomach was in my chest, and my heart was in my knees. He was being honest—I saw the truth in his glossy, unblinking eyes.

“I care about you, Andie. I’ve cared about you since the third grade, since the moment you put that flower in my hand and told me I was worth something. Every day, I’ve regretted what I did two years ago, when I fucked up everything between us. But I promise you, I will never make that same mistake again.”