On the Plus Side

Page 41

I gave her a pleading look and then turned and walked away.
I didn’t realize until I was outside leaning up against my car that I actually meant what I’d said to her. I did miss her. Seeing her all hugged up with Matt let me know it. It also let me know how much I cared about her. I didn’t want her to get hurt by me or any other asshole around here.
Seeing Matt with his filthy hands on her made me sick, and hearing him talk about doing things with her made me irate, madder than I’ve been in a very long time. That kind of anger hadn’t washed through me since that day in the bank when the bastard of a bank manager down talked my family.
No one talks badly or hurts the people I care about. When they do, I see red, and that’s it. Maybe I’m more fucked up than I thought.
After sitting outside for about thirty minutes, I watched from afar as Matt left the house, got into his car, and then left. It took everything I had not to go over and beat the hell out of him again.
It felt like forever, but soon I heard the front door open again and I watched as Lilly stepped outside and looked around. She spotted me and then walked toward me with an angry stride.
She looked so nice all dressed up with her hair curled. Once she was close enough I could smell vanilla and cherries, and I smiled to myself.
“You think this is funny?” she asked, outraged.
She used a finger to jab me in my chest and it turned me on. I liked that she wasn’t afraid of me. She poked me again and I grabbed her small hand in mine.
“Well, do you?” Her angry eyes flashed.
“No.”
“Then why are you smiling? I could smack that smile right off of your face, you know that?” she huffed, and then blew her bangs out of her reddened face.
The thought of her being angry enough to smack me was making me hard for some reason. She was a lioness, a tiny lioness, but a fierce one still.
“You smell good.”
I watched as her blazing eyes softened.
“Don’t change the subject,” she said as she broke our eye contact.
“What were you doing with Matt? You know what he’s about, Lil. He’s after one thing and one thing only.”
“I don’t know,” she sighed as she ran her fingers through her hair. “It just kind of happened. I didn’t invite him, Shannon did. Why do you even care, Devin?”
Good question. I ran it through my head over and over again. There was only one answer and that was the truth. The moisture in my mouth disappeared. I tried to swallow and almost choked on nothing.
“I care about you, Lilly.” Those tiny words seemed to take all of my oxygen as I spoke them. I suddenly felt like I couldn’t breathe, like saying things that involved feelings would be the death of me.  “I don’t want to see you get hurt and if you keep playing around with men like Matt, you will.”
Her shoulders relaxed a bit. “You mean men like you?”
“Yes, definitely stay away from men like me,” I chuckled softly.
If only she knew how serious that sentence was. Stay away from me. I wanted to scream at her all the things that were blatantly obvious to me. I was bad for her. I was going to hurt her in the near future and I knew that coming into this gig, but I had no choice. There was nothing else I could do.
She smiled at me and it was such a sweet, heart-shattering smile. For a second, I couldn’t do anything but smile back at her.
“I missed you, too,” she whispered. “And I’m sorry about that night at the party. I think I may have had too much to drink. I mean—I understand if you don’t see me that way and I’m sorry for throwing myself at you like that. It’s so embarrassing.” Her face was blazing with humiliation. I watched as she awkwardly tried to think of something else to say.  “So… friends?”
She held her hand out for me to shake on it.
I almost laughed out loud. She was so far from the truth that it wasn’t even funny. First of all, the fact that she was apologizing when I should be the one apologizing completely threw me for a loop. Secondly, she obviously had no clue how I really saw her. I thought she was sexy in her own little, sweet way and as a person she was amazing. Yeah, she’s a little chunky, and yeah, a month ago that really wasn’t my thing, but now she’s beautiful to me, inside and out.
I grabbed her hand and slowly pulled her to me.
“I’m the one that should be sorry,” I said as I wrapped my arms around her.
“Why should you be sorry?” she whispered in that innocent, tempting kind of way that I can’t explain.