Redemption (Forgiven Series) (16 page)

“Hoboken,” she muttered shyly.

“That’s in New Jersey, right?” I asked. I’d heard of the city but didn’t know much about it.

“Yeah, it’s right outside New York City,” she answered.

“So, I’ve got a Jersey girl on my hands,” I chuckled as I pulled into the lot of the pizza place. Getting out of the car, I met Lauren at the front and wrapped my arm around her shoulders. Her eyes snapped up to mine in question, as I pulled her tighter to me. “That explains the feisty attitude at the bar.”

“What can I say, I’m a Jersey girl through and through,” she said, laughing as we walked into the restaurant.

“Alright, Jersey it is then.”

“Jersey is what?”

“That’s what I’m calling you from now on,” I said with a smirk, and she rolled her eyes.

We ordered our pizza, which thankfully arrived quickly, and got back into the car to head to my apartment. In the car on the way back we talked, mainly about pizza toppings since we were both starving. The conversation was easy and light-hearted, well, apart from one thing. I just couldn’t understand how anyone would like green peppers on their pizza.

“That’s just gross,” I said, pulling up outside the apartment and shuddering at her statement.

“Have you ever tried it?” she challenged.

“No, why would I? Veggies don’t belong on pizza, just cheese and meat.”

She shook her head at me while I got out of the car. “Don’t be such a caveman,” she laughed as we walked up to the apartment door.

Caleb’s car hadn’t been out front when we’d pulled up and I figured they’d gone out somewhere to give us time alone, so we decided to eat in the living room. Heading towards the kitchen to get plates, I called over my shoulder, “Jersey, what do you want to drink?”

“Water’s fine. I have practice early tomorrow morning.”

“Got it.” I smiled and made my way into the kitchen. I still couldn’t believe what I was doing. Pulling two plates out of the cabinet, I turned toward the fridge and paused. Never having done the whole “date” thing before, I really wasn’t sure what to do.

Watching Caleb and Angie over the past few months hadn’t helped me. Theirs was the instant type of love, whereas, for me and Lauren, there was a strong attraction that I could see building up to love. I’d never met anyone like her. Almost all of the girls I’d slept with had tried to get me to take them out again but Lauren had tried her best to avoid me. Grabbing two water bottles from the fridge, I shook my head just thinking about that night again. No matter what I tried, I couldn’t get the image of Lauren on top of me out of my head.

Starting back out to the living room, I stopped in the doorway. Looking at Lauren sitting on the couch, her long hair flowing down her back, I was instantly hard. As uncomfortable as I was, I did my best to adjust myself before walking back over to her. The last thing I wanted was for her to think all I wanted was sex.

She looked up as I sat down next to her. Lauren was tall, but at six foot two I still had about six inches on her. Handing her the water bottle I brushed my fingers along her hand and heard her sharp intake of breath.

“Thanks,” she murmured as the blush ran up her cheeks. Damn that was sexy.

I moved my hand up to push a piece of hair behind her ear. “You’re so beautiful,” I whispered and slid my hand around the back of her neck, moving my lips down to hers. Her lips were soft and tasted like strawberries.

I slid my tongue out and ran it lightly across the crease. Succumbing to the moment, her mouth opened and her tongue slipped out and tangled with mine. The kiss was slow and sexy. All I wanted was to taste her for hours but the need to breathe made me gently pull away.

Looking down into her eyes I could see the same desire that was coursing through me, but there was something else. Fear, maybe? It was understandable, since her last boyfriend was a total douche and cheated on her but I was not the cheating type. Watching my mom deal with all the bullshit from my dad had taught me that if you can’t handle it, just walk away. Don’t cheat or keep coming back, just walk away.

“You look nervous,” I said, reaching down to take hold of her hand.

Her eyes dropped to the floor. “I know, it’s just—”

I stopped her by covering her mouth with mine. When I pulled out of the kiss I used my fingers to lift her chin so that I could look her in the eye. “I know, but I promise I won’t hurt you.”

I kept my eyes locked to hers, willing her to feel the sincerity of my words. After a moment she blew out a breath and nodded. I could tell she was still worried, but she was trying to fight it off. To take her mind off of it and bring us back to the easy conversation of before, I turned towards the table and picking up the plates, put a slice of pizza on each. Handing over her slice, I made a face at the green peppers. That did the trick.

She took the pizza and gave my arm a little shove. “Would you stop it,” she laughed. “You’re not allowed to make faces unless you’re willing to try it.”

“There is no way I’m eating veggies on my pizza,” I said and folded my arms over my chest.

“Oh really? I dare you… or are you too much of a chicken?”

Great, I’d never turned down a dare. It was only veggies on pizza—I’d been dared to do much worse before. More than that, I was curious as to how she knew that about me. Or was she just that good at reading people?

Light brown eyes scanned my face, waiting for an answer. Accepting her challenge I grabbed the pizza off her plate and took a bite. She smirked at me and said, “I knew I’d get you to do it.”

I finished chewing quickly and swallowed the pizza. It actually wasn’t that bad, but there was no way I was telling her that. Picking up my bottle of water, I took a drink. “And how did you know I’d take you up on your dare, smarty pants.”

“You’re just the type of guy that can’t resist a dare.”

I laughed because there was nothing else I could do. She’d figured me out quicker than I thought she would.

“Touché,” I said, grabbing her another slice of pizza, while I finished hers. When she quirked her eyebrow at me, I admitted, “All right, it’s not that bad.”

“That’s what I thought,” she smirked, taking her pizza from me.

Leaning over to pick up my original slice, I turned to her and asked, “So, how’d you know about the dares?”

She shrugged. “It was just a guess. I’m usually pretty good at reading people.”

Her eyes clouded over for a second before she pushed it away. That asshole didn’t stand a chance next time I ran into him, but there was no way in hell I was going to let him ruin our night, so I set out to do what I did best and make her laugh.

“Well, you must be good at reading people because I’ve done some pretty stupid shit just because someone dared me,” I chuckled.

“This I’ve got to hear.”

The smile that overtook her lips this time was genuine and it reached all the way up her eyes. She kicked off her shoes and turned to face me on the couch, tucking her feet underneath her.

“Well, let’s see there was the time they dared me to do the gallon challenge, and—” She cut me off by putting her hand up for me to stop.

“Wait, wait, wait. What is the gallon challenge?”

I started to laugh because thinking back, it
was
funny… it just hadn’t seemed funny at the time. “The goal of the ‘gallon challenge’ is to drink an entire gallon of milk in an hour.”

She scrunched her nose up at me. “Eww, that’s gross. Why would you do that?”

“They dared me,” I said, shrugging my shoulders. We’d finished eating so I reached out and threaded my fingers through hers and, while looking at her, I continued. “But I didn’t exactly finish the challenge.”

One eyebrow lifted in question, but she looked wary. “I’m almost afraid to ask.”

“Maybe you don’t wanna know, but was no big deal,” I said, trying to stop my laughter. “After about a third of the container, I started to puke my guts up. It took me a year and a half to willingly drink milk again.”

“Disgusting,” she shuddered, laughing at the same time. She’d done everything she could to keep her laughter under control but hearing it let me know that my distraction attempt had worked. Finally, she turned to me with the type of smile that I wanted her to wear every day. “Okay, next question,” she said.

“Should I be worried?”

“No. I was just wondering about football?”

“What about football?” I asked curiously.

“Well, I’ve never actually seen you play before,” she murmured sheepishly, averting her eyes from mine.

I pulled our entwined hands up to my lips and kissed the back of hers. “Well, I guess we’re even then since I haven’t seen you play either, but I have every intention of fixing that in the next few weeks.” I winked.

Her eyes snapped to mine, “You’re going to come and watch me play?” She seemed way too surprised that I would actually go to one of her games.

“Absolutely, I have to see if you’re as good as they say you are,” I smirked.

She blushed. “I don’t know about that.”

“Oh, so a girl who gets invited to the Junior Olympic tryouts a year early, isn’t that good?” I challenged, raising my eyebrows.

Her eyes widened. “How did you know about that?”

I was trying to decide whether to mess with her or just be honest. Oh, who was I kidding? I couldn’t resist a chance to pick on someone, even if that someone was Lauren. If we were going to do this, I wanted her to know me, not the front that I was supposed to put on since we were getting to know each other. “I have my ways,” I replied cryptically. “Google is a wonderful thing.”

I didn’t think it was possible, but her eyes got even wider. She swallowed hard. “You… you… Googled me?” she stuttered

“Maybe.”

She sat there staring at me, as if she couldn’t believe what she was hearing. After a few minutes of silence, I decided to take pity on her and, looking her in the eyes, I said, “Don’t worry, I’m not some creepy stalker. Andrew filled me in today.”

The shoulders that had been so tense that they damn near touched her ears dropped, and she let out a breath that I doubt she even knew she’d been holding. . “Oh.”

“I was actually kinda surprised. Very few people with that kind of talent would keep it to themselves, but then again, I’m learning that you are not like anyone I’ve ever met.”

Her eyes softened even more at my words and I couldn’t resist leaning forward and brushing my lips against hers. I was trying to take it slow for her, but it was hard as hell being this close to her and keeping my hands to myself. Pulling away a lot sooner than I would have liked, I leaned back and watched her eyes for a reaction. She didn’t seem upset, just the opposite, she looked like she wanted me to keep going. But I knew I needed to give her more time.

“To answer your question, I play cornerback.”

When she looked confused I wondered how much she actually knew about football. The way she’d asked the question made me think that she knew what she was talking about. “You have no idea what I’m talking about do you?” I chuckled.

She smiled sheepishly. “No, not really.”

Laughing, I pulled her against me, tired of only touching her hand. “Okay, quick lesson,” I said leaning down and kissing the top of her head. “I play defense. The cornerback is supposed to keep the wide receiver from catching the ball.”

“Isn’t Caleb a wide receiver?”

“And I thought you didn’t know anything about football?”

She giggled. “That’s about all I do know. Angie was trying to teach me so that I’d go to a game with her.”

I put my nose in her hair as I laughed. “You know, Jersey, for an athlete, I have to say I’m shocked about how little you know about certain sports.”

She leaned back a little and punched me in the arm. “Hey, if you want to talk baseball stats, then I’m your girl.”

Hugging her to me, I said suggestively, “I was hoping you’d be my girl anyway.”

“I think I can handle that,” she whispered so quietly I almost didn’t hear her.

The words hung in the air and I sat there for a minute just absorbing them. It was everything I wanted, and I had to have it for the long haul. She tucked her head under my chin and my arms instinctively squeezed her tighter. Realizing that Lauren had asked all of the questions, I decided that I needed to take my turn and find out a little more about
my girl
.

“So is it my turn to ask a couple of questions?”

I felt her nod against my neck. “Sure, what do you want to know?”

“What made you chose a BMW Z4?”

Her whole body tensed up, almost as if this was a question she dreaded answering. That was weird. I mean, what could be so sinister about a car?

I sat still and waited to find out.

I never had a problem talking about myself, but being a little on the shy side, I always waited for someone else to ask the questions. It was very rare that I would volunteer information and I especially hated talking about anything to do with my dad. In my mind, the man was just a glorified sperm donor. But I couldn’t just ignore Josh’s question, so I answered the best I could, while still trying to be vague.

“Actually, I didn’t. My dad picked it out,” I admitted.