Page 21 of The Love You Hate
Nate licks his lips. “I like the views.” That’s a dumb explanation for his demeanor. The man is constantly on guard. Again, I’ll blame it on the military background. I guess. “Not looking at anything,” he adds when he reads my face as suspicious.
“What about you?” I deadpan. “You aren’t from here. Can we have a one-night stand without ruining our blossoming friendship?”
He goes from being on guard to looking at me incredulously. “Presley, are you serious?” His lips twitch and I feel my face getting red, the embarrassment coursing hot through my veins. “Are you propositioning me right now?”
“No. Of course not.” I get into my Jeep, but he follows, opening the door and getting into the passenger seat. “Why are you in my car?”
“If you give me a ride to Jake’s, I’ll never mention what you just asked of me.” He covers a cough that I think was actually a chuckle. The bastard!
“You are such an asshole.” Shaking my head, I pull out of the dusty lot, and turn on the main road. “That’s not what I meant,” I explain, trying to rescue myself knowing there’s no way to get out of this one. I let Ratchet Ryleigh, my drunk alter ego, out of her cage. She’d been shaking the bars for too long.
“You call me an asshole, but you’re the one asking for a one-night stand. Isn’t that prime asshole behavior? You’re assuming I’m the kind of guy who hits and quits, and you know I have a woman in my life even as distant as we are from each other at the moment. I’m not that kind of asshole. I’m offended. You’re not allowed to be.” I hate that he’s perfectly right, that the man has figured out how to twist this into some attack.
“I’m sorry for calling you an asshole. Most men in my life up until this point wouldn’t think twice about a one-night stand. I slept with my best guy friend on the regular and we stayed best friends. It was no big deal. I was merely suggesting that we take out our annoyance on each other because we seem to be the odd ones out in Gold Hawke. Something to…pass the time.” My cheeks flame as I talk myself in circles, and incriminate myself even more. “Not that sex is that insignificant all the time,” I say, tripping over my words, “just that it can be insignificant if you define it as such ahead of time.”
One glance at Nate, and I know I need to shut my trap. He’s staring at me with wide disbelieving eyes, thick lips open. “You really don’t know when to stop,do you?”
“Stopping with regards to anything hasn’t ever really been in my wheelhouse.” That’s why I ended up here. The apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree.
I turn my eyes back to the road and pull into one of the spaces at Jake’s. Noises of scraping metal and dog’s barking reach us from inside the can. “That’s actually a really useful thing to know about you if we’re going to be friends.” Nate pauses. “Like platonic friends, not the kind of friends you had in high school.” I groan and lean my forehead on the steering wheel. “I’m going to throw this out here and let you know that whoever that poor best friend guy was, did not want to only be your best friend.”
I scowl, but keep my head down. “Of course, he did. We made a pact. It was friendship ninety percent of the time and then sex whenever the mood came about. He didn’t want anything more from me.”
Nate chuckles. “Did he ever say anything after you fucked?”
“Well, that’s personal,” I bite back.
Nate nods, knowingly. “Exactly. If you were really just friends, sex wouldn’t be personal. It would be a comfortable topic to speak about to anyone. Sex is never just sex, Presley.”
There’s no trace of a smile on his face to signal that he’s joking. “Should I call him up and ask him?” I’m joking, but if I could prove Nate wrong, I think I would suffer through that phone conversation. “I’m right,” I say, turning off the car. “You’re wrong. It can be just sex.” I have the internal scars to prove it.
“Thanks for the ride,” Nate says, ignoring my argument. I don’t relish arguments, but I like them to be solved neatly so I can store them on a shelf for a day when I might need to pull them out once more.
“What are you doing tonight?” I ask the question in order to change the subject to something safer. I can prove my point about sex another day. “Anything fun?”
“I’m not sure how to answer that,” Nate replies, leaning in from the open passenger-side door to look at me. “Are you asking because you want to join in or are you asking because you’re a heat-seeking missile and think I’ll fuck you if you corner me with bad jokes and a hoity-toity attitude?”
“Oh, you really are an asshole, I rescind my apology.”
His grin is wide, and my damn stomach flips and flops the same time my core clenches with need. He’s right. Again. “There’s a concert down at the rock quarry. Some band from up in Aspen. I was going to take a drive over because I haven’t seen the quarry yet. I’ve heard it’s pretty cool.”
If I hadn’t been so self-involved with myself and my desires all morning, I would have remembered the concert. When I learned about it a few weeks ago I assumed I wouldn’t go because I’d be by myself. “Oh, I heard the same.”
Nate still hasn’t closed the car door. “Do you want to go with me? I think the line in the sand is reinforced with liquid magma at this point. We could go as friends,” he says, winking. My stomach flips. He looks hot when he winks, and now I’m the butt of his jokes. “Who knows maybe there will be some fresh meat there for you to fix your, err, other problem. Do people actually come to Gold Hawke for stuff like this?”
“Yes, I’ll go. Not because I want fresh meat or because I want to be your friend right now but because it might be the highlight of my year.” I mumble, “Highlight of my entire new life.”
Nate pauses, curious gaze fixed on my face. “What did you just say?” he asks.
I shake it off. “I said I can’t believe I forgot the concert was happening tonight. I’ve been so distracted.” I know he knows I’m lying, and somehow, I know he’s not going to call me on it.
“You mean frustrated?” Nate asks, biting his bottom lip. I shoot him a side-eye and his smile disappears. “I’m going to get that truck, hopefully not get bit by any animals, and I’ll pick you up. No sense both of us driving, and I’ll be the one with the new car.”
“I got mine yesterday, Nate.”
“Mine’s newer. Technically I haven’t even bought it yet.”
“If you pick me up, it feels really date-ish,” I counter.
