Book Boyfriend (Someday #5) (2 page)

I scowled at him. “The fuck are you talking about?”

“Library Girl? That’s who you’re thinking about, right?”

“And again, I say. The fuck are you talking about?” I was full of shit. I knew what he was talking about. Obviously I did. But I didn’t like him giving me crap about it. So I continued lifting weights as I did my best to ignore his pointed questions.

He shook his head, his knowing smirk telling me all I needed to know about how damn transparent I was. Of course, after having roomed together for going on two years, not to mention playing on the baseball team together, Jackson could read me like a book. But it didn’t even take that level of familiarity to be able to call this one. I was an
open
fucking book when it came to Michelle. I couldn’t help it.

He set down the hand weight he’d been lifting and lightly punched my arm when I was on the downswing. “Don’t even try it. Ever since you spotted that girl across the auditorium in debate, you’ve been walking around in a zombie-ass trance.”

“Maybe I’m thinking about the season starting. Or worrying about grades. Or obsessing over where my next Cali burrito is coming from.”

He snorted. “The undisputed frickin’ awesomeness of carne asada, french fries, and guac wrapped in a tortilla aside, I don’t think
that
obsession would constantly lead your ass to the library. Where you’ve been hanging out a lot lately. And which is where Library Girl works. Call me crazy, but I don’t think that’s a coincidence.”

“Whatever. Maybe I’m going to the library to, oh, I don’t know…study? Research things?”

Jackson hit repeat on the snort. “Bullcrap. That’s why God invented the Internet. You’re there to creep on Library Girl. Trust me. I’ve known you long enough to know there’s not a damn thing of any interest to you in that building except her sweet ass.”

The protective flame that ignited in my chest was completely foreign to me. Normally, I was as easygoing as they come. Quick to smile, and even quicker to laugh. But when Jackson joked about her ass, I wanted to punch him in his smirky goddamn face.

“You shut your fuckin’ mouth about her.”

That fuckin’ smirk grew into a full-fledged self-satisfied grin. “Ah, yeah. But it’s not like you
care
or anything. Right?”

I stared straight ahead as I attacked my reps without saying anything. I didn’t want to speak while I was this angry. I didn’t want to lose control. I liked control. Michelle was the only girl I’d ever met who had the power to cause that control to slip. That made me nervous as hell, but at the same time, it thrilled the fuck out of me. Whenever I was with her I felt like I was jumping out of an airplane—sure, if your parachute didn’t open, you were gonna end up going splat in a big way. But, damn. What a way to go.

The one thing I knew was that she made my head spin—constantly. And, whether I loved that or hated it didn’t really matter. The point was, I couldn’t get enough of it. I kept going back for more. Again and again. No matter how much of a lost cause it seemed to be.

The single-minded repetition of the exercise served to cool my blood. I saw the situation with Jackson in a new light. Even though it sucked that he had guessed what I felt for Michelle, maybe I could use it to my advantage. They didn’t call him J-Dog for nothing. He was as big a hit with the ladies as I (usually) was. I could lay out the situation and get his perspective. After all, a month of hitting on her hadn’t gotten me anywhere, and it was starting to drive me a little nuts. I needed a new approach, and maybe Jackson could help me devise one.

“Look, I’m not saying you’re right,” I begrudgingly admitted.

“Except for the part where you just did exactly that,” he smart-assed.

I finished my set and carried my weights back to the rack. On my way back to the bench, I flipped him off, but laughed as I did. I had never met anyone in this world who loved being right as much as Jackson did.

“Setting that aside, let’s go back to the part where you said I don’t have a chance with her. Why is that, ya think?”

He shrugged. “Because you’re not the kind of guy that gets emotionally destroyed over song lyrics by some band that wears eyeliner.”

“The fuck now?”

“You’re not her type, compadre. She’s a…whatever you call it. Emo. Hipster. Goth. Whateverthefuck. She thinks safety pins are jewelry is my point. Until you start wearing skinny jeans and paint your nails black, you ain’t gonna be getting in
her
jeans. Accept it and move on. She’s not worth the damn trouble.”

The tidal wave of protective rage boiled up again, and I wanted to defend her. To tell him to take his dumbass opinion and deposit it where the sun don’t shine. But I shoved that impulse down. Fighting with Jackson would be counterproductive to the goal of picking his brain. I needed to think of this like a game. Eye on the prize.

“Well, what if I think she
is
worth it?”

He stopped lifting and looked at me for a moment, his expression thoughtful. For the first time in this conversation, I thought he might actually be taking it seriously. Finally, he sat on the weight bench across from me and said, “So, this isn’t just a joke, then? You’re not just trying to game her? You’re actually serious about this one?”

I put my weights down and considered the question. “Shit, I don’t know yet if it’s serious. I just know I’d like it to be. I want to get to know her better. Hell, I
need
to get to know her better. But I’m getting fucking nowhere. And, not to be a cocky bastard or anything—”

“Oh, no. Not you.” His voice was full of good-natured sarcasm.

“—but this is not how it usually is for me.”

“Nah, I get it. This one’s making you work for it.”

“Yeah. I guess so.”

“That’s probably a good part of the appeal.”

“Maybe,” I admitted. “But there’s a helluva lot more to it than that.”

“Like?”

“Like…
fuck
. Like everything. Like the fact that I get more damn satisfaction from causing her lips to twitch just the tiniest amount at a joke than I do from making ten empty-headed sorority girls belly-laugh. Like the fact that looking at the artistic pictures she posts online has actually made me start looking at the world differently because I want to see it the way she does. To see that kind of beauty in small things. Like the fact that—”

“Look, I’m gonna cut you off there because, to be honest, I’m afraid that, if I listen to any more, I’m gonna need to buy some tampons. But whatever. I get it. She’s a special snowflake, and she’s captured your tender little heart.”

“Please don’t make me beat the hell out of you right now.”

“All right, all right! I’ll get serious. So, here’s the thing: If this girl’s really that different than all the other girls who have fallen for your shtick—oh, sorry. I mean your
charm
—in the past, then why are you so surprised that the same moves aren’t working on her? She’s different. That’s why you like her. So take a different approach.”

“Yeah. Makes sense. But what approach would that be?”

He laughed. “Hell if I know. Shit, dude. Why do you think I stick to the baseball groupies? No strategizing required. The uniform does ninety percent of the work for me. But damn. I mean, if you want some real advice… I guess…be yourself or some shit? I don’t know. I feel like that’s what the Reading Rainbow dude would say. And he seems like he gives good advice.”

I laughed. “Yeah, I’m sure LeVar Burton would be happy to know that his legacy was to inspire a generation of young people to ‘I guess…be yourself or some shit.’ That’s some sage-ass wisdom right there.”

Jackson laughed as he resumed lifting weights. “Hell, bro. And the sad part is you’re the one coming to me for advice. So, how pathetic does that make you?”

Michelle

“D
amn it!” I
banged my head against the steering wheel as I turned the key in the ignition for the fifth time.

Just like with the first four, there was no response except for a weak and stuttering grind. Not a whole lot of things in the world could drive me from zero to livid in .728 seconds, but my grandmother’s old ’82 Chevette—a.k.a. my college car—was one of them. Damn. I was supposed to be going to the grocery store to get food for my grandma and then bringing it over to her house. She didn’t have her driver’s license anymore and couldn’t do it for herself. If I couldn’t make it over there, what was she going to eat?

A loud knock sounded on the driver’s side window next to me, echoing through the car. My head shot up as my heart began to race, my startle response in full effect. Unfortunately, I whipped my head up so quickly that my nose crashed into the steering wheel, causing my hands to fly up to my face as I shouted a curse. When I turned to see who had knocked on my window—the person who was witnessing me at my absolute nose-crush-cursingly worst—there was the gorgeous and ever-grinning face of Sebastian Winters.

Oh, God. If my suspicion that he was only interested in me as some sort of project, the human version of a fixer-upper, was correct, then his witnessing me in this situation was giving him plenty of fuel for that fire.

I put my head back on the steering wheel, slowly shaking it from side to side. “This. Is. Not. Happening,” I groaned.

The knock came again.

“Miche? Are you okay? Are you hurt?”

I looked up, smiling ruefully. “Not hurt,” I answered through the glass, “unless you count my pride.”

“Well, probably for the best that your pride isn’t in full working order. You know what they say about it going before a fall. And I don’t know how much more of a beating that cute little nose of yours could take,” he replied in that sexy drawl I was quickly becoming addicted to. “Think you might want to come out here and talk to me? Or at least roll the window down?”

I didn’t, really. I was embarrassed and preferred to exit the car via the hole I wished would spontaneously open up in the earth and swallow me. But, since the odds of that happening were, oh, fifty-fifty at best (or, you know…maybe
slightly
less), I decided I might as well face him.

I stepped out of the car and slammed the door behind me. It would have been a much smoother and more suave move if I hadn’t been forced to slam the door three times, increasing the force with each attempt, before the latch caught for good and the door stayed closed.

“Is this your car?” Sebastian asked.

Maybe I was projecting, but I thought I heard an undertone of pity in his voice.

“Yep,” I said, adopting a tone of studied nonchalance. “Haven’t you heard? This is the latest thing. When it comes to trends, ‘piece of shit’ is the new black.”

“I
have
heard that,” he replied, his eyes sparkling with amusement. “All of the car blogs have been talking about it. I believe they refer to it as ‘classic.’”

“See? There ya go.”

“Can I give you a ride somewhere, darlin’?”

“Nah. I’m good.”

I hadn’t even thought before I’d responded. Turning down help, not to mention turning down anything to do with Sebastian Winters, was simply second nature to me. I’d never really stopped to think about why, I’d just followed the instinct to keep him at arm’s length. However, now that I was faced with actually needing his help, I was forced to take a closer look at my knee-jerk reactions.

“Come on, Miche.” He grinned, nudging me companionably with his elbow. “Give me a chance, why don’tcha? Where were you headed?”

Well, damn it. That’s where he had me. I needed to get those groceries to my grandma, so I could definitely use the ride.

“Don’t laugh, okay?” I prefaced. Damn, asking for help was
not
easy!

“No promises,” he teased.

“I have to go to the grocery store to get food and then bring it to my grandma’s house.”

The jovial demeanor disappeared from Sebastian’s face, and his expression turned to a mixture of concern and puzzlement. “Honey, why would you think I would laugh at that?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. It just seems like the kind of thing that jock types would look down on.”

The wide, bright smile returned, bringing back with it the warmth that shone from his eyes. He slung his arm easily around my shoulder as we started across the parking lot together.

“Well, then, I guess I just need to make it my business to show you that I’m not the typical jock type. Besides, if there are two things Southern boys take seriously, it’s their mamas and their grandmas. I would never look down on you for taking care of yours.”

I relaxed a little at the warmth and acceptance in his tone. “Okay. I have to warn you though. For when we go over there. She’s kind of…a character.”

“All the best grandmas are.” He pulled a key ring from his pocket and pressed the unlock button on his fob.

The horn and lights on a large, shining, red pickup a few cars down from where we were went off.

“That’s your pickup?” I asked.

“Oh, hell yes, darlin’. I forgot to mention the other thing Southern boys are serious about—their trucks.”

Sebastian

“S
o, did you
grow up around here, living with your grandma?”

Michelle shook her head. “No. I wish. My grandma didn’t even live here while I was growing up. She was kind of a nomad. But being with her would have been better than my mom and stepdad.”

“They were kind of a nightmare?”

She stilled, avoiding my eyes as she examined the label on a can of creamed corn. “No. That would be putting it too strongly. They never beat me or anything. My stepdad is just kind of passive-aggressively manipulative. You know? He has this surface charm thing going on, but underneath it are all of these intense expectations nobody could really meet.”

“Sounds stressful, living with that day in and day out.”

“It was. I think the worst part was that he always put my mom in the middle. If I did something he didn’t like, he’d turn to her and say, ‘Charlene, please tell her that we don’t,’ fill in the blank. ‘Not in this house!’ He’d always end it that way. ‘Not in this house!’ Like he was some monarch or something. Like he had a lock on what civilized behavior was supposed to look like.”