Erin McCarthy - Believe

“Are you okay here on the couch?” I asked him as I stood up and stretched.

“Is there another option?”

That was a loaded question, and I didn’t know the answer.

Seeing Robin’s face freeze, I realized I shouldn’t have said it like that. I wasn’t talking about sex, but that was obviously what she heard.

It was easy to read her expressions. She wore them all on her face clearly, and what amazed me about her was everything she said seemed so honest and totally free of bullshit. The other thing I noticed was that she seemed as totally lonely as I was. I couldn’t figure out why.

“I’ll be fine on the couch,” I said. “I’ve slept in worse places, trust me.”

That eased the tension in her shoulders a little, but now the pity was back, which I hated. I didn’t want her to feel sorry for me, for my shitty childhood, or my criminal record.

“I guess so. Let me get you a blanket and a pillow.”

When she eased past me, my hand shot out before I could stop it, and I grabbed hers. “Thanks.” For the pillow. The blanket. For answering my texts. For talking to me. For the milk and the movies. I didn’t say any of those things, but I stared at her, hoping she could read it in my eyes.

“Sure.” She nodded. “It’s not a problem.”

“I got a job tonight,” I said, having no fucking clue why that popped out of my mouth, other than that I clearly wanted to impress her or at least prove I wasn’t a total loser. “I’m going to apprentice at a tattoo parlor I used to work at. Gave the owner a call and he said I can start on Monday.”

Her face softened, and her hand, so small and warm in mine, relaxed, fingers entwining with the callused ones that belonged to me. “That’s awesome,” she said, and I knew she meant it.

I also knew that I shouldn’t have stayed so long.

Because now all I wanted to do was pull her down onto my lap and taste her lips. I wanted to see how her eyes would change then, with passion or with something more.

It was dangerous but oh so fucking tempting.

That she was as chemical free as me was only the beginning of what I found amazing about her.

I hadn’t expected her to have an opinion on much of anything, but she did, and a solid one, too, every time.

I had also counted on the fact that she was a suburban college girl and I would be intimidating to her, the dude just out of jail, so it would be easy to stay disconnected. But she hadn’t been nervous, and she hadn’t been bothered by my sitting next to her. She hadn’t glanced at the clock on her phone or worried that I was going to attack her in a fit of lust or rage or both. She didn’t even ask why I was in jail in the first place.

But she wasn’t flirting either. Or just flat out going after me, the way Angel had. I had ended up dating Angel because she had decided we were going to date, and I appreciated the effort. Of course, the lesson with a girl like that was the loyalty was short-lived.

Somehow, I didn’t think Robin would be that kind of girl. The sad girl was always a loyal one. It’s why she was sad.

“I’m looking forward to it,” I said, because I was. Not only did a job mean money so I could pay my cousins back for helping me out and feeding and clothing me, but I was going to be able to draw and play around with tattooing any customers in the shop who would let me do it for free. I had worked there for just a few weeks before I’d gotten arrested, so I was seriously glad Bob, the owner, had been willing to rehire me. But why the fuck did Robin want to hear about it at five in the morning?

I let go of her hand. “Good night.” Look, don’t touch. I couldn’t afford to buy this model. I had to remember that.

“Good night, Phoenix.” For a second, she looked like she was going to say something else, but then she just went down the hall.

A minute later she reappeared with a blanket and a pillow. I stripped off my shirt and punched the pillow. She hovered in front of me for a second, then she gestured to my tattoo on my chest.

“It’s tragically beautiful,” she said, eyes on it, not my face.

Like her.

I didn’t say anything, just watching her, feeling a warning clanging loud and clear in my skull. If I had any fucking sense I would walk back to my cousins’ house, because a dark room and a girl who looked this vulnerable and pretty was dangerous.

Then she seemed to realize she was staring, because she spun on her heel and walked away, turning off the light on her way, leaving me alone in the dark. Lounging on the couch, I pulled my phone out and scrolled through it checking news headlines, the weather, social media, anything to attempt to distract my thoughts from Robin. I was too keyed up to sleep. Jail hadn’t been great for getting a solid eight hours I had felt like I had slept with one eye open most of the time, given that my cellmate was a crazy motherfucker with wide eyes and a twitch. So when I got to my cousins I had crashed for almost forty-eight hours.

But now I couldn’t. I was wide awake.

The cell phone was Riley’s old smartphone that he had dropped at a construction site, shattering the screen. It worked still, so I had borrowed a hundred bucks from him and reactivated my account. I was in like three hundred bucks easy to Tyler and Riley, and I owed them big time. Going through my contacts list, I deleted Angel. I didn’t want to hear from her ever again. Then I deleted another five people who hadn’t bothered to text or ask how I was the whole time I was away. If they didn’t give a shit, why should I?

It left my list pathetically small. But it was hard to make friends I could trust. We had moved every year or so most of my childhood, and I changed schools constantly depending on which block of the neighborhood our new apartment was in. My sophomore year in high school I didn’t even start until November because my mom kept forgetting to get my vaccines updated and the school wouldn’t admit me. I’d had a group of guys I’d hung out with until the last year or so, but with us all being out of school, some working, some not, and me spending time with Angel, we sort of lost touch. More of my contacts were girls than guys. Girls who wanted to be the one who got some sort of emotional reaction from me.

I was a challenge.

It was unintentional. I had a tight rein on my emotions. I had to.

I did have a text from Tyler. U ok, man?

I wasn’t used to having anyone notice I wasn’t there, that I hadn’t come home.

Yeah, thanks.

There was no way I was going to tell him where I was. Tyler had come home from dropping off Robin and had hinted that I was to stay the hell away from her. He would be pissed if he found out I had been texting and making plans with her while I was listening to his lecture. I wasn’t offended by his warning. He was right—I shouldn’t be talking to her.

But I couldn’t help it. Nor could I help standing up and going down the hall to see if her bedroom door was open.

Moving silently, I picked my way carefully through the dark, knowing if she woke up and saw me watching her in the dark she was going to think I was a fucking creeper. Maybe I was. Did creepers know they were creepers? I felt normal enough, but hell, maybe I wasn’t. If abnormal is your normal, you feel normal, right?

Her door was slightly ajar, and I pushed it open a little further so I could see her bed. There was a stream of moonlight coming from her window. She hadn’t closed her blinds. The light illuminated her curled up on her bed, on her side, her comforter wedged between her legs so that I could see the long shape of her calves and her thighs. She had changed into a tank top, and her hair spilled in dark layers across her white sheets.

Maybe part of me wanted her to wake up. Maybe I wanted to see fear in her eyes. Not because I wanted her to be afraid but because when someone is scared of you, you’re no longer vulnerable. They don’t have any power over you.

“What is it?” she whispered suddenly, surprising me.

She didn’t look awake. Even now, her eyes were still closed, and I wasn’t sure how she had known I was there. She definitely didn’t look afraid, and she clearly trusted me enough to keep her eyes closed.

Naive, that’s what she was.

It made me angry with her. What if I was there to hurt her? She’d be in serious trouble before she could even think to fight back. She needed to be smarter. Tomorrow I needed to talk to her about that.

“I can’t sleep,” I told her. “Sorry. I was just looking for company.” That was only half of the truth.

“Me either.”

“You look asleep.”

Her eyes finally opened, and her soft lips parted. “Am I talking in my sleep? Or dreaming then?”

I shook my head slowly. “No. I don’t think I would be the man of your dreams.” Then without waiting for permission or an invitation, I ignored the intent behind my words and went over to her bed.

She drew in her breath, startled, when I lay down next to her. How could I explain to her that I didn’t want to be alone? I couldn’t. So I just lay on my back and stilled my body so I wouldn’t scare her. “Do you mind?” I finally asked.

“No,” she whispered.

“Night.”

“Lift your head,” she said.

“What?” I turned and saw she had one of her pillows and she was offering it to me. I lifted my head and she tucked it behind me.

I looked away. God, this was so bad. Things were stirring in me, things that shouldn’t be.

Resolutely, I closed my eyes and counted backwards from one hundred. I got somewhere around fifteen when I lost consciousness.

Dreaming about Iggy, my mother’s latest piece-of-shit boyfriend, the knife in his hand when he threatened her, I felt the anxiety crawling up my spine, my fists clenching. When a hand touched my shoulder, I jerked awake and instinctively sat up, hand going out to grab the throat of my cellmate in warning to stay the fuck away from me.

Except I wasn’t in jail.

I was in Robin’s bed, and I was only inches from her throat with my outstretched hand. I dropped it quickly at the look of stunned horror on her face. “Sorry, sorry. Jesus, I’m sorry. I was dreaming. I thought I was still in jail.”

Her expression smoothed out. She was standing next to the bed, hair tumbling forward as she leaned over me.

“No, no, I shouldn’t have touched you. I’m sorry. I was just awake and going to make coffee and your phone keeps buzzing. I wasn’t being nosy, but when your screen lit up I could see that Tyler has texted you like four times.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “Sorry.”

I shook my head, swallowing hard and tossing my hair out of eyes. I still felt groggy. “No, it’s cool. Thanks. I hope I didn’t scare you.” I knew I had, though. She had curled back up inside herself, and when I moved to push the sheet back, she flinched.

My thought had been that it would be easier if she was afraid of me, but it wasn’t. I despised it.

“No, it’s fine. Do you want coffee?”

“Sure. Thanks.” I searched her face. For what, I wasn’t sure. “You hungry? I could make you breakfast.”

“You cook?” Her arms dropped. “Really?”

I gave her a half smile, pleased that she seemed to have forgotten her fear. “It was either that or starve, so yes, I can cook. Sort of. I’m no Iron Chef, but whatever.”

“Oh. Cool. That would be great. I’ll start the coffee.”

Swinging my legs out of bed, I reached for my phone as she went down the hall. There were four texts from Tyler. He seemed to think I was in trouble since I hadn’t come back to the house. I appreciated the concern, but I wasn’t going back until Robin was sick of me. This might be my only chance to hang out with her.

It’s fine, bro. I’m with a girl.

He just didn’t need to know which girl.

She was in the kitchen, and now that she was wearing a tank top and tiny stretchy shorts, I could see her body much better than when she had been swimming in that T-shirt and denim shorts. It was enough to get my blood pumping without coffee. She didn’t seem to realize how hot she was though, just giving me a shy smile as she reached for two mugs, the tank riding up to expose her smooth skin.

Fuck.

I went into her fridge to see if there was any food in there at all I could do something with and to get a blast of cold air. Plus hide my hard-on.

“Do you ever eat?” I asked her, eyeing the pathetic selection in her fridge. It was mostly filled with condiments and string cheese. There were eggs, though, and a loaf of bread that when I squeezed it, felt a little stale.