Page 77 of Without You

“No. I’m good.”

“Sure?” Her hand rests on my thigh mere inches away from my crotch.

I swallow hard. Nod. Grip her hand and give her a stern look.

“If you want to get to the restaurant safe, you’d better give me a break because this is incredibly distracting.”

“Oh, really?”

I bark out a laugh. “Like you don’t know exactly what you’re doing to me.”

She giggles and starts to extract her hand but I keep it in mine. I like holding her hand. Having the connection. Being with her.

Silence falls in the cab of my truck, but it’s far from uncomfortable. It’s a sense of peace and calm that I wasn’t feeling earlier with everything that went on through the day. After I left my mother’s, I was irritated and had to make a conscious effort to put the day out of my mind and focus on her.

There’s something about Katie that brings me peace. And if I think back, it was that way back in the day, too. In high school, there was something about her that helped calm me down.

I remember a moment so long ago when I got to school mad at the world. My mother had been caught stealing, again, the night before. She blamed me, saying that if I didn’t have so many needs, she wouldn’t need to steal. What she was implying was that I was a pain in the ass and they really couldn’t afford me. It wasn’t true. She just liked to throw blame on anyone other than herself. I was on edge at school and didn’t want to be there. I was sure that everyone knew about my mother and it pissed me off.

By the time lunch came around, I was contemplating ditching the rest of the day because I didn’t want to be around anyone. The only thing that stopped me was that Katie walked up to me while I was standing at my locker. She must have noticed I was in a shit mood but she didn’t back off. She took me by the arm, dragged me through the lunch line, told me to follow her, and we ate lunch together on the bleachers in the football stadium. She didn’t ask me any questions about why I was so angry. She simply sat with me. Neither of us spoke a word the entire time we sat out there. I chalked it up then to the fresh air and nice weather but now I know it wasn’t that.

“Nothing’s changed,” I murmur, glancing over at her, giving her fingers a little squeeze.

“What do you mean?”

“Nothing’s changed. Back when we barely knew each other, there was something about you that helped me feel relaxed and calm. And it’s still that way.”

I go on to tell her about going to my mother’s and by the time I’m through venting to her, she looks so angry I’m surprised smoke isn’t billowing out of her ears.

“See I don’t have the same effect on you.” I chuckle, pulling into the restaurant parking lot.

“You do. But right now, not so much.” Katie shoots a glare in my direction. “That woman sounds awful. I don’t think I like your mother all that much,” she grumbles, now crossing her arms over her chest.

“Yeah. She’s not necessarily a ray of sunshine.”

“And Hannah? What the heck is she doing having lunch with your ma? She has her own mother and her own mother-in-law to have lunch with!”

Ahh. Is she a little jealous? I kind of hope so. That’d be great if she was. I’m a smart man, though, and I keep that little thought to myself. “That I have no answer for. I told Ma to quit it but who knows.” I turn in my seat to face her. “They don’t matter. Tonight is about us, okay? I want to have fun and show you off and go back to my place and… play with Sabrina.”

“Play with Sabrina, huh?”

“Or whatever else we come up with,” I say, my eyebrows wiggling.

Her teeth sink into her bottom lip. “I like that idea.”

I get out of the truck and round the front. She’s already climbing out by the time I get to her so I shut her door behind her and hold her hand.

“This okay?” I motion to the restaurant.

“Ooh, yeah. I haven’t had Hibachi in a long time! Plus, it’s like dinner and a show. It’s like we’ve got our entertainment portion out of the way.”

Chuckling, I usher her inside, my hand on the small of her back. “In a hurry to get through the date?”

She wraps her arm around my waist so we’re walking side by side, leaning into me. “Absolutely.”

Yeah. Me, too.

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