Page 28 of Stupid Dirty

The thought floats through my brain, but I don’t voice it. He already knows how I feel about his dad’s dictatorial approach to parenting. We don’t need to rehash it.

“When Dad wants me to get married or whatever, he’ll tell me. I can wait.”

I try not to let my eyes bug out of my head. That’s old Silas speaking, not my new, independent version.

“Bullshit, dude. Your dad isn’t in control of shit anymore. You can do whatever you want. Don’t wait around for him to green-light your dating life. It’s not like he’s a fucking role model in that department.”

The words are out of my mouth before I can stop them. If I could pluck them out of the air and shove them back into my big, fat trap, I would. I would swallow them whole. But I said the dumb, insensitive thing, and now I have to watch as he winces at the oblique, unintentional reminder of his father’s relationship history.

I know Travis had a reputation before he got married, like a lot of guys back then. I still don’t know what happened to Silas’ mother. I asked my mom a while ago, and all she knows is that Travis’ wife died when Silas was little. But she spent a lot of my elementary school years experiencing the finer points of domestic violence, so she didn’t pay a lot of attention to town gossip.

And all I know from Silas is that it seems to be a pain that he holds on to more tightly than any other.

I blow out a breath, feeling myself sag in defeat at my own stupidity.

“Silas, I’m so-”

“What about you?” He cuts me off before I can get out an apology.

“‘What about me’ what?”

“It doesn’t seem like you hang out with a lot of girls, except for Wish. What’s keeping you from dating?”

Silas turns to look at me for the first time in this conversation. His brown eyes are warm as always, but his expression is guarded. I still feel shitty for bringing up his mom. I hate talking about this stuff with anyone, but honesty is the least I owe him at this point.

Blowing out a breath, I drop my ass back onto the cold concrete floor, abandoning the pretense that I’m still doing anything with my bike. The hex key I wasn’t really using hangs from my hand, and I twirl it in my fingers to keep myself occupied.

“I mean, it’s not like I’m against dating. It’s more the kid thing. Most of the girls around here are pretty traditional. They want to get married one day and have babies. Which is fine, but I’ve been raising kids since I was one myself. I can’t even think about starting a new family when mine still needs me. I know that sounds presumptuous as hell to act like all girls are trying to trap me or whatever, and I don’t mean it like that. I just don’t want to lead anyone on, y’know?

“I used to do the casual hook-up thing a lot, but as I watched my cousins get knocked up one by one, it felt like this constant looming threat, until hooking up wasn’t even fun anymore. And then what was the point? It’s fine, though. I have an entire lifetime to do that shit. In the meantime, I am in a committed relationship with my left hand, and we’re very happy together,thank you. We’re thinking of making a wedding registry, if you’d like to buy us a gift. Astroglide ain’t cheap.”

I hold up the hand in question, wiggling my fingers at him and wiggling my eyebrows at the same time.

Silas actually laughs at that, which makes me laugh, and thank fuck, the tension is lifting from the room. He’s stopped working as well and takes a seat on the ground, his posture a mirror of mine a few feet away, both of us grinning at each other like a couple of idiots.

Shaking his head, Silas looks down at his own hands and flexes his fingers.

“Yeah, well, I can commiserate. I mean, I’m right-handed, but still.”

Hesitantly, he holds up his right hand to show me, and I laugh again. When it dies off, I turn to look at him, feeling too intensely not to say what I want to say.

“Your dad never should have controlled you the way he did, but he definitely doesn’t control you now. You can do anything you want. I still think you need to move out the second you can afford it. You’re a goddamn adult. If you wanna date, you can date.”

He’s still giving me thatdoes-not-computeface, but I don’t know how I can put it more bluntly.

“So, do you want to date?”

Chapter Twelve

Idon’t know why this feels like the most difficult question anyone’s ever asked me. It should be easy, right? Everybody wants to date. The only reason I didn’t before was because it wasn’t worth the hassle of fighting with my dad to find the time, and then fighting through my own awkwardness to actually get a girl to like me. Especially one who wasn’t a pit bunny.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but I already have one person in my life who only cares about me because of my skills on the track.

Cade is still staring at me because he asked me what should be a simple question, and instead I blue-screened like a moron holding a torque wrench.

The truth is, this stuff never bothered me as much as it should have. Dad kept me too busy to dwell on it and my sex drive has never been out of control. Jerking off occasionally was enough to keep me satisfied. For the most part.

But lately, things have felt different.

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