Page 53 of Hot Mess Express
“Why don’t you have friends? Do you scare them all away?”
Bridger’s eyes go somewhere else, even while he continues to look at me. “What if I do?”
I stare back at him.
Thinking of all the so-called friends I scared away myself.
Not that I think I scared away Cole or his boyfriend.
Or Jimmy and Bobby with my behavior in the past.
No one in town looks me directly in the eyes anymore. Not in the fearless way Bridger is right now.
“Is your soul back in your body yet?” he asks, and only he can make such a ridiculous question sound so fucking sincere.
And then I mortify myself by answering: “No.”
Why did I say no? Why would I do that? Why am I—
“That’s fine,” he says.
And holds me a little tighter.
What in the fuck is happening right now?
“Whenevermysoul flies outta my body,” he says so genuinely, I could believe this same exact thing happens to him,too, “I need a good minute to feel like myself again, to rediscover my calm.”
Calm?
I’m so stupidly far from calm right now.
“What’s going on?” I blurt suddenly. “This an excuse to touch me? You getting off on this?”
“Asks the guy who grabbed my ass.”
I shut my eyes, annoyed. “I didn’tgrabyour—”
“Ihavedone plenty of squats to get it nice and firm, like you were so quick to point out. Proud of my ass. Worked hard on it.”
“Shut up.”
“And it’s okay to want to be held,” he says, still frustratingly gentle. “Doesn’t put me out at all. Maybe this is … something you need more of. Being held. No shame, saying that.”
The hell is he getting at? “Why are you so weird suddenly?”
“Why did you call my face pretty?”
The question, asked yet again, sobers me right up, right to the bone. I step away from him back into the street, his arms dropping to his sides. “What’s with that again?” I let out a laugh that gets swallowed right back up into my throat the second it leaves it. “Pretty? When the hell would I have said that?”
Bridger’s hands slide into his pockets. “Last night.”
“When last night?”
“Before you fell asleep in my arms.”
Fell asleep in his arms. A flash of his face, yet again.
The touch of soft lips against mine…
