Chapter Twenty-Eight
Twenty-Eight
Tristan
I’m physically exhausted, but not for one minute do I regret planning my latest “lesson” with Michelle for the moment I get back to Los Angeles.
She shifts in the seat next to me, barely uttering a word as I drive her to the last place she expects.
My house.
I glance at her as we drive farther from her apartment, away from whatever shopping center she must have assumed we were going to.
“You’re planning something,” she finally says, her eyes narrowed as she clocks the highway sign whizzing by.
“Of course I am,” I tell her grandly, unable to stop the laugh that comes out. “That’s the whole point of our little bet, right? I plan things to help you figure out how to loosen up.”
“Was that the point?” she asks, arching an eyebrow.
“What else would the point have been?” I manage to ask, but my mouth goes dry.
She shrugs. “I don’t know. It’s just…”
Michelle doesn’t finish her thought, and I nudge her arm with my elbow. “It’s just what?”
“Where are we going?”
I narrow my eyes. “That’s not what you were going to say.”
“Answer the question, Gold.”
“To my house, Oxford.” I mimic her tone, and she laughs, then sighs.
I don’t like that sound. I like her laughing and at ease. “What’s bothering you?”
“Why didn’t you just tell me we were going to your house?” She enunciates each word carefully, and unease threads through me.
“I thought this was all about me planning an experience for you to try new things, to learn to unwind a little. I thought doing something unexpected would—”
“Cut the bullshit, Gold.” Her tone’s icy.
My nostrils flare as I exhale. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, we fucking hooked up last week. Twice. Now you’re taking me to your house. If you just want to…”
Out of the corner of my eye, I catch her flailing her hand between us as she sputters.
“Want to what?” I push, daring her to say it.
“If you just want to turn this lesson into some kind of sex thing, then you need to tell me.”
“You’re killing me, Sweet Cheeks.”
“Ugh. Don’t call me that.”
“What do you want me to call you, Michelle? What do you want?” I phrase it carefully, wanting her to tell me she wants me—all of me, the good and the bad and the ugly. The unserious jokester, the party boy, the team captain forced to be the bad cop.
“I want the truth, Tristan.” Her voice cracks, and I finally tear my gaze from the ridiculous highway traffic to glance at her.
Her lower lip trembles, and she huffs out a shaky breath.
It breaks my damned heart.
“Please don’t cry, Michelle. I’ll call you whatever you want.”
“I’m not crying,” she says with a suspicious sniff.
“Sweet Cheeks, talk to me.” My knuckles whiten on the steering wheel. “Michelle, I mean.” I correct, then pause again. “Oxford.”
She lets out a weepy-sounding laugh that doesn’t help. “I can’t do casual, Tristan. I’m not…I can’t just do what we did and not have feelings for you. I have feelings for you, okay?”
She yells the last bit, glaring at me like she’s angry to have developed said feelings for me.
She has feelings for me.
I go quiet, processing, afraid to believe what she just said to me.
“I’m afraid if I turn on the stupid radio to kill this awkward silence Nine Inch Nails is going to derail this entire conversation.”
That makes me laugh, makes me feel lighter.
“I don’t deserve you, Michelle.” I force out the words as I merge onto the road that will take me home.
Take us home.
“Don’t you dare use that as a cop-out,” she says, her voice low, the threat of tears replaced by a ferociousness that’s much closer to what I expect from her.
“I mean it,” I say gently. “Fuck, do you know how hard it is to talk about this and drive? All I want to do is look at you.”
She falls into silence then, and a sidelong glance at her tells me nothing about what she’s thinking.
That might be even worse.
“When we get to your house, then.” She straightens a little, rolling her shoulders back and lifting her chin.
I push the pedal closer to the floor, and the Bronco shifts into a higher gear as I speed down the road.