Page 20 of Sweet
“I don’t think it’s cool.” She kept her hand on his neck, the tips of her fingers hovering right over his pulse. “I also don’t think it’s the end of the world. You were in a gang.”
“Yes.”
“I’m guessing you joined pretty young.”
“You could say that.” Chino’s boys had jumped him in weeks after his father’s death. In retrospect, it was really fucked up.
“And are you still in a gang?”
“Fuck no. Not since I was seventeen.”
“Okay.” She shrugged. “So we can date.”
He stood and knit his hands together behind his neck, trying not to growl. “That’s not the way this works. It’s not that easy.”
“It’s not that easy because you’re making it difficult.” She stood and put her hand on his shoulder.
Spider stilled. His arms fell to his sides, and his palms came to rest on Daisy’s soft hips. He didn’t even feel like he was controlling his own body. She came to him, and he responded. Done and done.
Daisy slid a single finger along his jaw. “I think we should try dating. If you just want to meet here, that’s cool for now. I don’t want anyone to freak out, especially you.”
“Okay.”
What the fuck? No, not okay! What the hell was he saying?
“When you’re ready to hang out with me at the Ice House or something, we can do that. There’s no rush.”
No rush? Spider was going to take this so fucking slow a glacier was going to look speedy. There was no way he was moving fast with Daisy Rivera. He’d be giving her plenty of time to come to her senses.
“Okay.” He nodded. “No rush.”
Her smile was brilliant. “Good.”
She lifted onto her toes and met his hungry mouth with a sweet kiss. This time he kept a short leash on his reaction. He slowly explored her lips and kept his hands planted on her hips. No roaming. No copping a feel.
After all, in less than a year she’d be going away for college anyway. Until then, he could make her feel good. Be sweet to her. Show her how she should be treated when she met a decent guy later.
He could do that. It would be… educational.
Hours after Daisyhad left for a shift at the café, Spider was working on his flash at Bill and Ruby’s place, sketching out some fucking awesome butterflies.
“…butterflies and birds are justgirlthings, and we don’t take girl things seriously, do we?”
She was right, and it made him feel like shit. He did think less of the young women who came into the shop and picked out a pretty picture to go on their shoulder or their ankle. He did fall into the “good-natured” jokes about birds and rainbows.
But seriously, what the fuck was wrong with birds and rainbows?
Was that any less original than the eight hundred tattoos of the Sacred Heart or bloody daggers or gap-toothed skulls he’d tattooed on dudes over the years? What was wrong with some fucking positivity?
Fuck the haters, Spider had decided. Butterflies and birds were fucking awesome, and he was going to make the best goddamn flash those college girls had ever seen. He wasn’t going to just ink butterflies, he was gonna ink fucking awesome butterflies.
’Cause his girl liked butterflies, and she had a damn good point.
“Hey, Spider?” Bill called from across the shop. “Can I talk to you for a minute?”
Spider looked up and froze. Oh shit. Had Bill seen Daisy’s car at his place? Had Ruby seen it and told Imelda? “Yeah, boss. Let me just clean this up.”
He meticulously organized the finished drawings into one pile, the sketches into another, and his blank pages into another. Then he quickly put his pencils in the case, making sure to organize them by weight before he snapped the lid closed and slid them next to his acrylics.
