Chapter 24
Keeping her head down because she could not look at Reed one more moment without wanting to punch him right in the throat, Verity let out a soft, humorless, self-pitying laugh.
She’d thought Reed was being nice. That after all his sneers and the snarky way he called her princess and his assurance two weeks ago that it was super easy for him to walk away from her, he’d changed his mind.
Now she wanted to punch herself in the throat.
Yep. Complete idiot standing right here.
She wanted to slink away, but her Jennings pride wouldn’t let her.
Stupid pride.
Stupid handsome boys and their stupid smirky faces and stupid hurtful I owe yous.
But when she peeked up at him from under her lashes, Reed wasn’t smirking. He looked almost… nervous, his broad shoulders rigid, his blue eyes skimming over her face, as if trying to get a read on her.
As if her answer mattered to him.
Right. Like she was supposed to believe that ridiculousness.
“No payback necessary,” she told him, proud of how dismissive she sounded. “I was just doing my job.”
And while she wished she could cheerfully bid him a happy rest of his summer, she was petty enough to hope the rest of his summer sucked.
He’d had his chance with her. He’d blown it.
She wanted him to regret that. Not live his best life.
She stepped to the left to go around him.
And he moved to stand in her way.
Again.
“I didn’t know you worked here.”
She raised her eyebrows at both that statement and his prolonging this already too-long encounter between them. “Why would you? It’s not like we’re friends.”
That stumped him.
She’d give herself a big ol’ pat on the back, but she was too busy trying to figure out why he was acting weird. Standing out here, like he’d been waiting for her. Asking her to get something to eat. Talking to her still even after she’d told him no.
Come to think of it, he hadn’t smirked or sneered at her once today.
Must be saving them up for a big finale.
“If you had known,” she asked slowly, “would that have stopped you from bringing Titus in? Because that would’ve been stupid. Dr. McNabb is the best vet in the county. Maybe the state.”
Then again, Verity may be just a little bit biased.
She had a huge crush on Dr. McNabb.
Which only proved her taste in crushes didn’t always suck.
Not that she could be blamed for certain feelings that popped up when she was around Reed. She’d seen him shirtless that night at his house, his hair damp from the shower, so she knew, exactly, what was under the gray fabric of that tight shirt he wore.
Ridges upon ridges for abs. Toned chest and shoulders. A scorpion tattoo above his right hipbone, the word Strength scrolled above his heart to go along with the rose tat on his right forearm and the full-sleeve tribal tat on his left arm—the intricate, swooping, swirling black design probably symbolizing his personal motto of fuck off.
He was beautiful in all his long, golden-haired, tattooed, muscly glory.
Especially with those coveralls tied at his waist, his sleeveless shirt molded to his chest, his strong jaw, slightly crooked nose, and light blue eyes.
The boy was too pretty for his own good.
And hers.
“Even if I’d known you were here,” he said, “I still would have brought Titus in.”
Did that mean he still would have brought Titus into the clinic despite knowing Verity was there? Or that he would’ve brought him in because Verity was there?
She bit her lower lip so she wouldn’t ask.
Reed cleared his throat. Shifted, his gaze darting to her mouth, then at a point over her shoulder. He opened his mouth. Shut it.
Wow. Turned out there was more to the whole stoic, silent thing guys like him pulled. More than keeping people guessing and at a safe distance.
It was a power move.
She might never speak again.
It was a nice thought, but delusional. She had things to say. Plenty. And staring at him while they stood in their own little cone of silence, waiting for him to decide his next move in whatever messed up game he was playing, was torture.
Tor. Ture.
“I thought you watched the kid during the day.”
“By the kid,” she said, “am I to assume you’re referring to my nephew? Whose name you know very well is Ian?”
“Yeah. Him.”
She rolled her eyes. “And now you’re just not using his name on purpose.”
He lifted one well-defined shoulder, and she couldn’t help but track the movement. But then, it seemed her eyes had a mind of their own because they kept right on tracking other things. The ends of his hair lifting in the light breeze. The flexing of his forearms as he curled his fingers into his palms. The way his throat worked as he swallowed.
The slight lift of the right corner of his mouth as he caught her checking him out.
“I still watch Ian during the week,” she told him, unable to follow through on that whole silent thing. “Just as I still work at Binge most evenings. And now, thanks to my brother, I volunteer at the clinic on Wednesday nights and Saturday mornings.”
“The cop have you doing community service?”
“Not Miles. Urban. My eldest brother. He thought it’d be a good idea for me to shadow Dr. McNabb for the rest of the summer.”
“You want to be a vet or something?”
Dropping her gaze to the spot where the sleeves of his coveralls were knotted together low on his waist, her mouth twisted, she shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe? I mean, I thought I did, but it’s a lot, you know? Trying to figure out one thing you want to do for the rest of your life. Which was why Urban suggested—and by suggested” —she lifted her hands, still holding her phone in her left hand, and made a set of air quotes— “I mean insisted in his quiet, beardy way that I spend some time at the clinic to see if veterinary medicine is really the career path I want to pursue.”
“Why?”
“Uh, because I’m starting college in a few weeks. And I’ve already declared my major in biology,” she added.
“Ohio State gonna kick you out if you change your mind?”
She frowned. Replayed the few conversations they’d had in her head.
Not once had she mentioned where she was going to college. If he was anyone else she’d gone to school with, she’d assume he saw it on her Instagram bio, but he, being the anti-social psycho he was, wasn’t on social media.
“How do you know I’m going to OSU?”
He blinked, once, slowly.
Then he blushed.
The rat fink.
The pink staining his cheeks made him seem softer. More human.
Like he, too, was dealing with all the emotional upheaval that came with being attracted to someone totally wrong for him.
Gaze down, he moved to put his hands into his front pockets but missed. Twice. Giving up, he set his hands on his hips as if that was where he’d wanted them all along.
And his cheeks went an even deeper pink.
Verity tipped her head back and sent up a silent prayer to the heavens to just… make… it… stop.
He shrugged. “It’s a small town, princess. Guess I heard it around.”
That was a neat trick. How he employed that snarky, snide tone while looking like he wanted to crawl into a hole.
“Your obsession with me is cute and all, but I think it’d be best if you didn’t talk about me. To anyone. Ever.”
“That your way of saying you don’t want to answer my question?”
“Hardly.”
“Well?” he asked after a beat of silence.
“Well what?”
He raised an eyebrow. “You gonna answer?”
“I can’t recall the question,” she said, all nonchalance as if his silly question, and the underlying truths it could possibly dig up, had slipped her mind.
He once more stepped forward—another un-Reed-like behavior. Getting closer to her instead of backing away.
Forcing her to stand her ground.
Something that became increasingly harder to do with each step he took. And take them he did, until they stood so close, the toes of his workbooks bumped up against her sneakers and the subtle, mixed scents of sweat and oil coming from his sun-warmed skin filled her nose. Until she had to tip her head back to maintain eye contact.
His eyes, the same bright blue as the sky, searched hers. “What’re you afraid of?”
How dare he ask her something so stupid, so inane, in that husky tone while standing this close to her?
The utter gall!
“Uh… how about everything?” She pursed her lips as if thinking that through. Nodded. “Yep. Everything.”
Surprise flashed in his eyes before he frowned again, but it was different than his usual scowls, glowers, and glares. Less angry and more confused. Then he shook his head and, still using that enticing low tone, gave her a soft and succinct, “Bullshit.”
“Excuse me?”
“That night you put your car in the ditch—”
“I didn’t put it in a ditch. I accidentally went off the road to avoid hitting your dog.”
“—you walked up to my place, alone, in the dark, and then got in my face when I wouldn’t help you.”
With a sniff of disdain, she crossed her arms. “Well, you were very rude.”
“You went around town, asking people for my number—”
“I asked two people,” she grumbled, face heating as she remembered the humiliating lengths she’d gone to just to get his number. She was sure she didn’t look nearly as adorable as he did when he blushed. “Three. Tops.”
“—all so you could text me—”
She tossed her hands into the air. “So I could send you a thank you card!”
Which, technically, she’d never done, but that had been the reason.
And he was back to smirking, this time knowingly, because she was obviously so full of bullshit just like he’d just claimed. “You stand up.”
Frowning, she glanced down at herself. “I am standing up.”
His lips twitched as if her being confused by this long, loopy conversational ride he was taking her on was sooo funny.
“You stand up for other people,” he clarified. “You did it for Tabitha when your cop brother showed up at her apartment. You did it for me when he found us on the road that night and again, when your nephew asked if he was going to arrest me.”
His words sounded a little close to praise for her liking. Had her warming when she needed to remain cool.
“While this trip down memory lane has been fun, I’m afraid I’ve completely lost the thread of whatever conversation we were having. If you have something to say, you’re going to have to actually say it.”
He stood there, mouth a thin line, lips zipped.
“Okay, then,” she said, telling herself she wasn’t the least bit disappointed. “Guess we’re done here.”
This time, when she went to brush past him, he let her.
“You’re brave.”
Whirling around, she wrapped both hands around her phone, pressed it against her chest, her heart beating a little too fast, a lot unsteadily. “What?”
“You’re brave,” he repeated, once again taking the initiative and the steps needed to close the distance between them, his gaze glittering with some emotion she refused to define. “You’re so fucking brave. Brave enough to stand up for people. Brave enough to call people out on their crap. Brave enough to apologize when you’re wrong. Brave enough,” he continued, his voice going gravely, “to say the things you did to me that night at the lake.”
Swallowing, she dropped her gaze to his stubble covered chin. “Don’t.”
But Reed Walsh never did as he was told.
And she was completely messed up, because that was one of the things she liked best about him.
Bending at the knees, he ducked his head, capturing her gaze with his. “You, Verity Jennings, are one of the bravest people I know. And it fucking kills me that you’d ever be afraid of anything.”
***
Verity shut her eyes as if to block him out. Reed suspected that if she thought she could get away with it, she’d cover her ears with her hands and sing a little la la la song, too.
But it was too late. He’d said his piece.
Even if he should have kept his damn mouth shut.
He’d complicated whatever this thing was between them. Gave her too much insight into what he really thought about her. Came too close to letting her see how he truly felt.
Instead of severing that last, worn piece of rope connecting them together, he’d tightened it, tying it into a knot.
But he couldn’t keep silent when she looked so sad. So lost. Like one wrong decision was going to ruin her life.
A girl like Verity Jennings should never be afraid.
And she sure as hell should never doubt herself.
Then again, she shouldn’t be standing so close to some loser in a parking lot, either, letting him inhale the coconut scent of her hair. Imagining himself wrapping his hands around her braids while he pressed his nose against her neck where it curved into her shoulder, and breathed her in.
Her eyes opened and he stared into them because he could.
Because while she shouldn’t be letting him stand this close to her, she was.
Her tongue darted out to wet her lips and he dropped his gaze, watching the movement. His heart picked up speed. He wanted it to be his tongue swiping across her full lower lip. Wanted to trace the perfect cupid’s bow on her top lip with his forefinger, then cup her cheek and press his mouth against hers.
“They’re not mutually exclusive.”
Even though he watched her mouth move and heard her voice—a little shaky, a little uncertain, exactly how he felt whenever he was around her—he was so lost in wishing for things he’d never get, he had no idea what she said.
“What?”
She did that thing where she tugged her lower lip into her mouth with her top teeth, then released it slowly, dragging her teeth across the pump flesh, leaving it pink and slightly swollen.
Jesus. Just kill him now.
“Courage and fear,” she said. “They’re not mutually exclusive. You can be both at the same time. That’s the definition of bravery. Being afraid but doing it anyway. Which is how I can be afraid of spiders but pick one up from the corner in my room and put it outside. How I could take Ian to the circus last summer even though I’m scared of clowns—”
He shuddered. “Fucking clowns.”
“Right? Why are they the creepiest? Anyway, I have a lot of fears. Like most reasonable people, I’m afraid of the possibility of war and pandemics and climate change. But I’m also afraid of someone else I love dying. Like, all the time afraid of that which I suspect is a trauma I share with my brothers due to our parents’ deaths. And I’m afraid that if I do ever have kids, I’ll be a terrible mother because I don’t remember having one.”
She took a long inhale that was so deep, and because he was standing so close, had her tits coming within an inch of brushing against his chest.
He went still as stone. All except his dick which leapt, like it was trying to drill its way out of his coveralls to get to her.
“But mostly,” she continued, now that she had a refill of oxygen, “I’m afraid that my brothers resent having to take care of me after our parents died. Urban said he doesn’t regret it, but he gave up everything he’d planned for his future. And Urban, Miles, and Toby have done so much for me, but what if,” she whispered, her voice thick with emotion, “deep down, there’s a part of all of them that secretly hates me?”
Her eyes filled with tears and his stomach dropped, the sight of her eyes glittering with tears, making him want to burn the whole world down.
If this girl cried, he’d lose his fucking mind.
“They don’t.”
“How do you know?” she asked with a sniff.
And she crossed her arms again.
Which only lifted her tits up like she was displaying them on a shelf for him. The movement tugged her shirt down, exposing the soft curves of her boobs while simultaneously pushing them together, making them look even bigger.
He wiped his hand over his mouth. Swallowed. And forced his eyes to meet hers.
“I’ve seen them with you.”
“Please. Those two times you were with me when Miles was there, he wasn’t exactly thrilled with me.”
Maybe not, but it was clear the cop was crazy about her.
If he wasn’t, he wouldn’t have been so worried that she’d been alone with Reed.
“Three times,” he corrected. “He and your other brother were at Patton’s wedding.”
The other brother, a heavily inked hipster with glasses, had told Reed to stay away from Verity after he’d asked her to dance.
After she’d said no.
And when she’d finally agreed, only after Reed had reminded her that she owed him for helping get her car out of that ditch, the cop hadn’t stopped her. He’d trusted her to make her own decision.
“They don’t hate you,” he said. “Trust me. I can tell.”
She made a scoffing sound that went straight to his gut. “Sure. I’ll trust you. After all, you’ve only ever been so open and honest with me. Please tell me how, after three brief encounters, you’ve become such an expert about my brothers.”
“I’m not an expert on them,” he said, unable to stop the words that came out next. “I’m an expert on you.”