Chapter 5
5
Dylan
“ S o, are you finally going to tell us how it went with the hot chick from Nolan’s?”
Cole and the guys had been pestering me with questions all day. I’d managed to keep busy, but things were quiet now and they were pissing me off.
“Fuck off,” I said, flipping him the bird over my shoulder as I left the common room.
Ryan and Liam followed me into the kitchen with expectant looks on their faces.
“Seriously? Since when do we have to sit and talk about our feelings?”
“You’re the only one talking about feelings. I just wanted a snack,” Ryan said.
“But since you brought it up,” Liam said. “What’s going on? I’ve never seen you like this, brother.”
I searched the pantry, keeping my back to them. Liam was right. I’d never felt like this.
“Are you pissed she turned you down?” Ryan guessed.
I spun around, tossing a box of crackers on the table. “You think I’m an asshole who’d get mad at a woman for not wanting to sleep with me?”
“No. But I think you could be upset if a girl you liked rejected you.”
“It’s not that she rejected me. It’s that she left in fucking tears.”
Liam slowly placed cheese, pepperoni, and fig jam on the table, his eyes hard on me. “Why was she crying?”
“Fuck if I know! That’s the problem. I have no fucking idea what the hell happened after we left Nolan’s. Things started out perfect, then it got weird as shit. It’s like I spent the night with two different people.”
I didn’t want to tell them that she was stuttering and slurring her words so much, I only understood half of what she said, that she spoke so softly I could barely hear her—except occasionally when she was suddenly oddly loud instead—or that she had a hard time looking me in the eye and gave short answers to every conversation I tried to start, or that she fumbled awkwardly with everything she touched and didn’t seem to enjoy the food she ordered.
They hadn’t talked to her much at the bar, but her speech had been clear. Not at all like at dinner. They didn’t see that other side of her, and I wouldn’t disrespect her by sharing something I knew would upset her.
“She was crazy?” Ryan said.
“No! She was sweet and nervous and embarrassed.”
“And you like her?”
“Yeah, I do. I’m intrigued. I care about her. I hate that she left so upset. I can’t stop worrying about her going home believing I thought the worst about her when that couldn’t be further from the truth.”
The truth is that the look in her eyes when she left had haunted me every minute since. I’d knocked on her window, wanting to clear the air before she drove away. It took her a minute to look me in the eye, but when she did, fuck, the sadness after the pool cue incident was nothing compared to that dejected look on her face.
The tears swimming in her beautiful eyes were like a knife in my chest. I knew it was crazy to feel so strongly about a girl I’d only known for a few hours, but that’s how I felt. But what could I do? So I’d just told her to lock her doors, assuaging the tiniest bit of my need to protect her, then I had no choice but to watch her drive away.
“Are you going to call her?”
I popped a cracker topped with pepperoni, cheese, and fig jam in my mouth before shaking my head. “She wouldn’t give me her number.”
“You haven't been interested in anything more than a few hours of fun since Kayla. You keep saying you don’t want to make someone compromise their life to fit yours, or compromise yours for someone else. But now you’re all torn up over a girl who cried on your first date? She seemed great at Nolan’s, but that’s weird. And needy. Crazy even. Maybe it's good you didn’t exchange numbers.”
“Don’t be a dick,” Liam said to Ryan, wadding up his napkin and throwing it at him. “If he likes her, he likes her.”
Liam turned to me. “What are you going to do?”