20. Lyla
Chapter twenty
Lyla
We don’t lie, Lyla Brooks.
First, Deacon had the audacity to pull another “atta girl” on me, making that two in the same twelve-hour period. Now, he was pulling our line to talk about something I wasn’t even sure how to talk about.
Our line. What the actual fuck was happening to me? I gestured for us to keep walking, and another gust of wind rippled through the trees on the street. While Bowling Green’s campus was beautiful in the fall, it was also in the middle of nowhere, which meant that when it was windy, it was windy .
Suddenly, my leather jacket and jeans weren’t cutting it. I picked up the pace, and Deacon followed my lead. All we had to do was cross the street, and we’d be at my apartment.
Deacon was waiting for me to speak. So, to buy some time, I crossed my arms and said, “We don’t lie.”
He was fighting a smile, and when he stripped off his hoodie and handed it to me, I had to remind myself what the original question was.
So this wanting to leave tonight, it didn’t have anything to do with—
Oh, that’s right. My episodes that happened every now and then when I was feeling overwhelmed. Maybe overwhelmed wasn’t the right word. I hadn’t felt overwhelmed when Jake grabbed my hand. It was like someone strapped a belt around my chest and pulled. I couldn’t explain it. I just had to escape the scene, and somehow, Deacon knew that.
I stared at his hoodie, and he shook it in front of my chest. “Take it,” he said. “You’ve been pretending you're not cold for about ten houses now.”
I rolled my eyes and took his offer. I’m sure my loose curls looked horrible after being laid on and thrown back into the dewy morning air. I pulled the hood over my head. “It happens sometimes.”
He nodded. “Okay.”
“Okay?” I repeated, surprised to see him so accepting of my simple response.
Deacon threw his arms out in front of him. “What? You told me I’m not allowed to ask about your past. You know these rules sometimes get in the way of each other.”
“Touché. I like the new line, by the way.” We approached the last road we needed to cross, and Deacon slipped his fingers through mine. He looked both ways and then once more at me. “Atta girl,” I said before I dragged him across the street.
He dragged his teeth across his bottom lip, trying to hold back a smile. “I wasn’t sure about that one.”
“Definitely hot boyfriend shit. Did you talk to Cassie that way?” I was officially intrigued. I was dying to get to a level where I could talk about sex with Deacon.
He was hot and undeniably sweet.
He was hot and seemed sure of himself.
He was fucking hot , and I just wanted a preview—a snippet of what Deacon Scott was like in the bedroom.
He took too long to answer, so I bumped his elbow with mine. “Is that a yes?”
Deacon let go of my hand and pulled out his phone .
“Do you have recordings ?” I exclaimed.
He laughed, tucking his phone back into his pocket. “No! I was making sure my brother got in okay. But to answer your question . . . I did sometimes. It just depended on the mood for the night.”
“What kinds of moods were there?”
Deacon shrugged, and my cheeks hurt from smiling. “I don’t know, Lyla. I guess the mood depended on if Cassie still needed to get off.”
Damn. Now, why did that sound incredibly sexy leaving his mouth?
“I had a hunch you were a pleaser.” I squeezed his forearm, and when he glanced up at the sky, I knew he agreed with my statement. “Deacon, I have to say. I am really struggling to see the reason for the breakup here.”
“I always make sure whoever I’m with is taken care of. What’s the fun of one-sided sex?”
“You just said a mouthful there, sweetie. Have you met half of the guys on this campus? Or any college campus ever ?”
We approached the staircase leading up to my apartment and slowed our pace. Deacon licked his lips, and a playful light appeared in his eyes. “My turn to ask you a question.”
I looked right past his innocent expression.
“All of your fun. All of the guys.” He cocked his head while he thought of what to say next. “You can say—with confidence—that your satisfaction rate is . . . let’s say eighty percent.”
“You lost me at numbers, Scott.”
“Just answer the question.”
“It’s three-thirty in the morning, and I’m discussing percentages with you. I don’t really know how to answer that,” I argued .
“Pick the last ten guys you’ve slept with,” Deacon urged, holding up ten fingers.
Fortunately, my calendar method made it pretty simple to retrace my history. I crossed my arms and played into his demonstration. “Okay. Done.”
“Now, with all of those guys, how many times did you get off?” Deacon ticked his fingers down one by one the longer I took to answer.
I laughed and shoved his hands. “It’s sex, okay? It has to be worth it to keep them around.”
I turned to head up the stairs, and Deacon reached for my hand. I wasn’t sure if the familiar scent of cedarwood and lavender had been in front of me for the last few minutes because I was wearing his hoodie or if I just noticed it because his face was dangerously close to mine.
He tilted my chin with his hand and smiled down at me. “Baby, there’s a difference between having sex and being satisfied.”
If there was a moment when I thought my stomach could fall out my ass, it was this one. My breath caught in my throat, and suddenly, every witty response I had a moment ago flittered away with the butterflies in my stomach. Alarm bells sounded in my ears. Red flags were waving at such a concerning speed to keep the fucking butterflies out of the picture. My body was betraying me, and it was bullshit.
Deacon’s sexy smirk returned. He skimmed his thumb across my cheek, cupping the back of my head through his hoodie and placing his mouth on my forehead. “Goodnight, Lyla Brooks.”
He backed away slowly and started walking across the parking lot. I forced my mouth to close before I opened it again to respond. “Wait. ”
Deacon looked over his shoulder, surprised to see me standing where he left me.
What was I doing? I didn’t share beds with guys. Was I really about to offer my fake boyfriend a spot on my couch ? I couldn’t have my roommates walk out to my knight-in-shining-armor boyfriend on the couch. That shit wouldn’t fly.
I did have the futon in my bedroom. That was always an option.
I gestured to the stairs behind me. “Did you wanna just stay here?”
Deacon didn’t ask questions. He didn’t comment or shoot me a look that read, “This bitch is crazy.”
Instead, he walked back over to me, wearing a soft smile. “Yeah, Lyla. I can just stay here.”