Page 45 of New Girl in the City
“Enough,” Liam answered, turning the car as he glanced back at me in the rearview mirror. “Why?”
“I was curious. You said he told you enough to make sure we fit. He had told me he picked you out himself for me.”
I could tell I had his interest then, even if he was focused on the traffic. “Oh, he did, did he?” He was chuckling now, and I nodded, a smile on my own lips.
“He did. Said I’d like you. Called you a kid though.”
He sighed. “Guys seem to be loving that lately.”
“Eh,” I waved a hand with a shrug, “it’s only because they’re old.”
“Yeah, they are. Good point.”
I crossed my arms and drummed my fingers on my arm lightly. “Why were you so worried about our age difference?” I asked him.
“I wasn’t worried,” he said, and I raised an eyebrow at him. He certainly could have fooled me with our conversation the previous day.
“Are you sure about that?”
He sighed, and then finally said, “People talk.”
“They do. People always talk.”
“True, but I don’t want them talking about you. Our age would be the first thing people notice.”
“I was thinking you being my driver or your tattoos, might give people more ammunition.”
“Those would be other things. The age is just easy to pick apart in your world,” he said, and I took notice of his word choice. Your world. I wasn’t sure how to read that.
“What do you mean my world?” I asked.
“I mean the kind that needs suits,” he pulled at the collar of his jacket. “The kind that doesn’t know how to handle tattoos.” He held up a hand and wiggled his fingers at me.
“You make ‘my world’ sound boring. Probably because it is.”
He laughed, the car pulling up to the curb as he said, “It kind of is, Princess. But you are anything but.”
“What about if we spent some time in yours?” I asked. He put the car in park and turned.
“Mine?”He looked a little surprised but then continued on, saying, “What do you mean?”
I nodded. “Yes, yours. I don’t know anything about your world, but I know that it’s already more interesting than mine.”
He put an arm on the back of his seat and raised his eyebrows. “And how do you know that?”
“Because you came out of it.”
A look I couldn’t quite interpret passed over his handsome place. His eyes dipped for a moment before they met mine again. “Sometimes shit makes some people decent, sometimes it doesn’t. My world isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. There’s some things you don’t know about me, Mel.”
“That doesn’t mean I don’t want to know it. I want to be with you, to,” I paused, unsure of what I was really trying to say, but knowing that I needed to say it, “I don’t know,” I admitted and put a hand out on his arm, “to figure out what we are going to be. I’m pretty sure we can’t hide out like this all the time.’
“Nah, we can’t.” One of his hands came to land on top of mine and he squeezed my gently. He bit his bottom lip and I watched him worry it between his teeth before he sighed and asked, “You really wanna see what it’s like in my world?”
“Of course,” I said automatically. That earned a bittersweet smile from Liam.
“It’s not pretty, Princess.”
“I think you should let me be the judge of what is, and isn’t, pretty,” I said, and then asked the question I already knew was going to weigh heavy on me, “this have to do with the stuff I don’t know about you?”
