Page 19 of Give You Up

“It won’t be a date, right?”

He skirted the question of whether the pretty brunette is his girlfriend, and I put up my guard. I’ve seen Beau in action, and he acts the same way when he doesn’t want a woman he’s interested in to know he’s seeing someone. Beau is a decent dad, but in the dating department, he is what my stepfather, Gary, would call a prick.

“Do you want it to be?”

Taron says the words with underlying hope, and there goes my heart. I bounce my head on the headrest, growling low under my breath.

“Syn, are you okay?”

“Fine. Look, for the record, I’m not into guys who get the kind of action you do between the sheets.”

“Don’t tell me this Dare guy is a saint.”

“He doesn’t have sex partners in the high double digits!”

Why am I yelling? I rub my temple. He runs his fingers through his hair.

“I knew this would come back and take a chunk out of my sorry ass. Look, what you did fucked me up, okay?”

“So you went crazy with your junk and slept with every vagina that looked in your direction?” I shake my head. “I’m sorry. I have no right to judge. Your body. You can do with it what you want.”

“And you haven’t?”

There is an undertone of something other than curiosity, but I can’t put my finger on what that emotion is.

“I have. I’m not a prude. It’s just I—”—I wave my hand—“I don’t like sex.”

I suck in a breath. I’ve never admitted this to anyone, including Dare.

“Not liking something is okay in my book, Pixie Dust.” No teasing whatsoever.

Taron accepts my confession as though it’s a part of me, like the heart-shaped birthmark on my right inner thigh.

Embarrassed that I admitted something really personal to a guy I haven’t seen in years, and confused that he is not turning my confession into something to jab at and further dissect, I move on to a less heavy subject.

“Cut it out with the dumb nickname. Middle school was ages ago.”

“I can’t forget how we met, Syn.”

Me running around the school cafeteria in circles, dressed in a ballerina outfit with a sparkly wand in my hand and throwing “pixie dust” in the other students’ hair.

“So dumb.”

“Why do it?”

“Mean girl Sabrina would give me twenty dollars if I could get your attention.”

“Hell yeah, you did. You dumped a jarful of soot and gross dirt in my hair. It took forever to get off,andit itched like a mother.”

“It got your attention and I got paid.”

“What’d you need twenty bucks for? If you were desperate for cash, I would’ve given you the money.”

“Not so,” I say. “You would have wanted something in return.”

He smirks. “You know me too well.”

“Since you were twelve, too well.”

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