Page 56 of It Happened on a Sunday
“Don’t worry about them,” he answers, glancing down at my bare feet. “Do you need me to carry you?”
“No!” I can only imagine what the fans will make of that. “Please don’t. I’m good, honest.” Though I do pull my skirt up to right above my knees to make it easier to run.
Then we’re sprinting through the back parking lot to the street that runs along the side of the building. “Which way?” I ask, a little breathless now because Sly can runfast.
He doesn’t hesitate. “Left!”
I follow his lead, trying to ignore how the screams seem to be getting closer. If they catch us, we’re going to get mobbed. Of that, I have no doubt. But I’m going to take a leap here and trust someone other than me and my security team to keep me safe.
I don’t know much else about Sly yet, but I do know he’ll take care of me. I saw it in the way he treats his grandmother, heard the certainty in his voice the night he told me most beautiful things start out messy.
More than anything else, it’s the man behind that certainty that’s kept me up every night this week.
And it’s that man I’m putting my faith in right now.
If he disappoints me, it won’t be the first time. It’ll be a mess, sure, but Marco and the others can’t be far behind the screaming mob. We’ll figure it out eventually.
But if Slydoesn’tdisappoint me…that would be even messier than I imagined.
We make it to the corner of the street just as the front runners in our little mob burst out of the parking lot. But they must have called in reinforcements, because a smaller group is closing infrom the other side, cameras at the ready.
“I think we’re fucked,” I tell Sly.
But he just grins as the door of the SUV on the corner slides open. The plain gray, nondescript SUV.
He holds a hand out to me. “Need a ride?”
“When did you get this?” I ask as I take his hand and jump into the back.
“Does it matter?” Sly answers as he slams the door and the vehicle pulls into traffic. “Just know I’m not the kind of guy who would get you into something I couldn’t get you out of.”
Then, because I’m struggling with the seat belt, he leans over and helps me slide the buckle home before doing up his own.
I feel something inside me give a little.
How am I supposed to resist this guy? Any questionable moves he and/or Marquis made in the past are totally getting buried beneath all the right ones he’s making now.
As if to underscore the unfamiliar feelings stirring inside of me, Pink’s “TRUSTFALL” comes on the radio. For a second I want nothing more than to rip the door back open and jump out of the car. Who cares if it’s right into traffic? Getting run over has to hurt less than wherever this is heading.
But since I can see the headlines already, I stay where I am as we skate through one yellow light after another, finally leaving the media far behind as the song continues to play. I don’t say anything for a few minutes, and neither does Sly.
Instead, I focus straight ahead, watching the other cars go by and pretending not to notice that the only thing Sly is watching is me.
But with every second that passes, the tension inside me ratchets higher. Until, finally, Miley Cyrus’s “Flowers” comes on.
As the opening lyrics fill the car, Sly glances down at the flowers I’m somehow still holding. And I crack up. I can’t help it.
He laughs, too, and then we’re taking turns belting out thelyrics at the top of our lungs. It’s all fun and games, until he changes the post-chorus to say “you” instead of “me,” and my heart all but explodes.
“What are we doing?” I whisper.
“Whatever you want,” he whispers back, his gaze never wavering from mine.
“I don’t know if I’m ready.”
“That’s okay.” He smiles. “I can wait.”
And then he goes back to belting out the lyrics just the way Miley wrote them. I sing right along with him until the song finally ends and one of my own comes on.
