Erin McCarthy - Believe

“Of course I eat. I just don’t cook. I eat simple stuff.”

“Do you have syrup?”

“Yes. For my frozen waffles.”

“Those taste like cardboard,” I told her, pulling out the eggs and bread. “I’ll make you some French toast then.”

“Really?” She looked dubious.

“Sure, why not?”

As I cracked eggs into a bowl I found in the cupboard, she poured out the coffee. “Do you want cream and sugar?”

“No. Just black.”

“So do you have to do anything today?” she asked.

“No. I can find a ride home, don’t worry about it.” Even if I was making her breakfast, I had probably outstayed my welcome.

“I was just thinking that if you’re not busy, maybe we could go to Eden Park. There’s a free concert there, and I was going to go and sketch.”

My hand stilled as I was about to dip a slice of bread in the egg. “I don’t have any plans, no,” I said, my throat suddenly tight. “That sounds cool.”

She shifted a coffee mug toward me on the counter, and when I looked up at her, she was smiling. “I have an extra sketchbook if you want to borrow it.”

Oh damn, I was in trouble. If I had any sense at all, I would get the hell out of there and never come back. But a cactus isn’t going to tell a rainstorm to go fuck itself. I had never had anyone offer me this sort of innocent friendship. I wanted it like the greedy motherfucker that I was.

“Cool. Thanks.” Then I took a huge sip of my coffee, knowing I was going to scald the shit out of the roof of my mouth. I wanted to. I wanted the pain to ground me. “Shit,” I cursed, when the liquid burned tender flesh.

“Are you okay?” She looked alarmed. “Do you want some ice?”

“I’m fine.” Which wasn’t true at all. Focusing on scraping my tongue over the raw spot, I finished making the French toast, flipping it from one side to the other as it cooked, then dropping to the kitchen floor to do some sit-ups to burn off the anxiety I was feeling.

“What are you doing?” She gaped at me.

“Just some crunches.” I liked to sweat, to work out. It made me feel above my body. I pushed hard, knowing she probably thought I was a complete tool, but figuring this was the reality of it. I shouldn’t hide the fact that I was not a well-adjusted, middle-class college student like the guys she probably usually hung out.

But for some reason, she just bent over and touched my knees. “You’re moving too much. My high school track coach would make you redo all of those.”

“You were on the track team?” I asked, slowing down my crunches and sucking in some air. She was right. It was harder when you couldn’t move your legs at all.

“Yep. Distance runner.” Her hands were firm on my skin, showing the strength I didn’t expect her to have given she looked so fragile.

But as I bent up, my abs burning, I spotted using her lips, those perfect plump, cherry lips that made me want to suck on them. She was smiling, and she didn’t look vulnerable. She just looked beautiful.

“Think you can do a hundred?” she asked, the challenge in her voice unmistakable.

I would do it or die trying. “No problem.”

“Let me turn the burner off.” With one hand she reached back and turned the knob. “Okay. Go. One. Two.”

“I already did at least fifteen,” I protested.

She readily agreed. “You’re right. Okay, sixteen, seventeen.”

But somehow that meant I had a point to prove. When she reached a hundred, I was in pain and out of breath, but I pushed on to a hundred and fifteen to make up for the ones I copped an attitude about.

When I came to a stop, laying down on the cool floor, breathing hard, she eased her grip on my knees. “Wow, that was awesome. Good job.”

“Thanks.” I peeled myself off the floor, knowing I was going to be wincing every time I moved for the next two days. But at least I had proved I was badass. Mental eye roll.

Robin transferred the French toast to plates and put them on the table. I carried our coffee mugs behind her. The kitchen was huge, with one wall sporting a cutout that overlooked the stairs. Robin’s bedroom was on the third floor with the living room and a bathroom, but the kitchen and two larger bedrooms were on the second floor with another bathroom. Robin’s room was tiny, and it seemed to me that she had a lot of privacy even if the living room was down the hall from her, because how often would her roommates go out of their way to come upstairs? They would probably end up spending half their time hanging out in the kitchen.

The fact that she didn’t want to stay seemed to be a mystery to everyone and I was curious about it, but I wasn’t going to pry. She was respecting my privacy and not asking ten thousand questions about my record.. I could give her the same space.

“This tastes amazing,” she said enthusiastically as she took several bites. She ate quickly, but then seemed to fill up super fast. She was only halfway through one piece when she set her fork down and put her hand on her stomach.

“You done?” I asked her, raising my eyebrow.

She nodded. “I can’t eat too much at once, it gives me a stomachache.”

I had two pieces already, but I reached out and stabbed the remains of her piece. “I’m not letting that go to waste.”

She laughed. “Such a guy.”

“Last time I checked, yep.”

Robin’s nose scrunched up. “I’m going to take a shower if you don’t mind.”

“Nope.”

As she went upstairs I shoveled food and coffee into my mouth and tried not to think about her naked.

That worked for about five seconds then the hard-on was back with a vengeance. Five months was a long time to go without sex, and unlike some dudes, I wasn’t up for jacking off in my cell. Then the memory of prison brought a hot, metallic taste to my mouth, and I immediately lost my arousal.

A girl like Robin didn’t deserve to be tainted by me.

Which made me selfish.

But even knowing that, I still just stubbornly sat there and ate French toast.

Everyone was entitled to some fucking French toast now and then, weren’t they?

I thought so.

Getting ready to go to the park with Phoenix sent me into ambitious activity, displaying more energy than I had all summer. I grabbed a blanket for the ground, packed a cooler with water bottles and energy drinks, along with chips and string cheese, and collected my pencil kit and two sketchbooks. Then I applied sunscreen to my nose and cheeks. I had even shaved my legs in the shower, though I didn’t bother to blow-dry my hair. I just towel dried it, then let it do it’s thing.

Phoenix showered after me while I was packing things up, and he came back downstairs just as I had everything by the door to go. His hair was wet and dangling in his face, but he had put his shirt back on, which was good. I had decided at some point during the last twelve hours that why yes, I was in fact attracted to him. Very much so. The realization had come to me sometime between midnight and five a.m. and was absolutely undeniable when he had come into my room and laid down beside me. I had been aware of every inch of my body, yet he had never made a single move toward me.

As far as I could tell, Phoenix just wanted a friend.

So it was better if he stayed covered because there was something totally drool-worthy about his muscles and all that skin displaying his bleeding heart tattoo. It covered so much real estate, it must have hurt like a bitch to get that done. Given that his shorts were too big, they tended to strain down, exposing the ab muscles I now understood how he’d gotten. He had been tenacious doing those crunches. But I was determined that I could ignore any reactions my body made toward his and embrace a new friendship.

I liked his company.

I didn’t want him to leave.

I wasn’t really sure why but I figured it didn’t matter.

For the first time all summer, I wasn’t spending the majority of my time hating myself.

“Here, let me carry that,” he said, taking the small, soft cooler from my hand. He also picked up the blanket and tucked it under his arm. He gave me a smile. “Are we going on a picnic? Man, I never thought I’d be doing this.”

“Too lame?” Maybe it was too tame of an entertainment for him. I admit I was a little disappointed.

“No. It’s just no one has ever invited me on a picnic before. Once when I was about ten my mom and my aunt took me and my cousins to the fair, but they got high behind the grandstand, and Riley got busted for stealing a hot dog for Jayden. The cops cuffed him for twenty minutes to scare him before letting him go. I don’t think Easton was born yet. Or maybe my aunt was pregnant with him at the time. I don’t know, I don’t remember. I just remember thinking that it was like a whole fairground full of families doing normal shit and having fun and eating craploads of food, and I couldn’t have any of it.” Phoenix made a face. “And I have no idea why I just bored you with a shitty story like that.”

What did I say to that? I knew he didn’t want my pity. And he seemed to be musing about the past more than anything. “I don’t have any hot dogs,” I said. “But I can pretty much guarantee insects and oppressive sun, so you’ll get the genuine picnic experience.”

Phoenix gave a short laugh. “Thanks. That’s nice of you.”

“When I was ten I had a bird shit on my head at the fair. I tried to wash it out in the bathroom but it was still gunky and I cried for an hour before insisting on sitting in the car alone sulking.” The memory made me smile. “I was kind of a jerk about it. And my brothers called me Shithead for the rest of the summer.”

“Brothers are good for that. Probably the only reason I’m glad I don’t have any. Are they older than you?”

“Yes.” We started down the stairs. “They’re thirty and twenty-seven. I was born when my brother was in kindergarten. I think I was a bit of a surprise.” Though I was pretty confident it was a happy surprise. My mother had always wanted a girl, and one of her favorite things to do was take me for a mani/pedi.

“Why is everyone so surprised by pregnancy?” Phoenix asked. “If you have sex, the probability is there.”

Wondering if he was thinking about Angel, I locked the front door behind us. “True. But my mom is sixty now. I think she thought she was too old to get pregnant again.”

“I don’t know how old my mom is,” he said as we walked down the driveway. There was a frown on his face. “I guess she has to be about . . . forty-three?”

“How old are you?” I asked him, starting to hate his mother. She sounded awful. We got in my car, Phoenix loading the cooler and blanket into the backseat.

“I’m twenty. My birthday is September second.”

“That’s in a week and a half. Do you have plans?”

“I plan to sit outside somewhere and appreciate my freedom. Maybe I’ll buy myself a Dilly Bar at DQ.”

It had been a stupid question. What kind of plans did I expect him to have? A big event at a restaurant? A party bus? “That sounds awesome. Can I steal that idea for my birthday in November? It’ll be my twenty-first, too, and I know everyone is going to expect me to go out and party and get loaded and it just isn’t my thing. Not anymore.”

“It’s your birthday. Do whatever you want. Fuck ’em.”

“I have a feeling you’re better at living that philosophy than I am. I worry too much about what people think.” Part my personality, part the way I’d been raised, I was definitely a people pleaser. I wanted everyone to be happy. To like me. I backed down the driveway and paused at the street, but as I looked left and the right, I saw Phoenix was doing it again, staring at me in a way I didn’t understand.

“We’re pack animals. It’s natural to want to belong. But some of us never will. We’re meant to be alone.”

Was that me now? God, I hoped not. I was so lonely I ached with it. But here, in the hot car with Phoenix, I felt like at least one person understood what I felt like, and I wondered if two loners could make each other less lonely. So far, the answer for me was yes.

“Do you want to drive?” I asked, putting my car in park. I didn’t want to have to focus on the road. I wanted to watch him, and I wanted to feel . . . I don’t know . . . taken care of.

But he shook his head. “I don’t have any insurance.” Then for some reason he laughed. “Actually, I don’t even have a license.”

“You don’t have a license? I thought you said you borrowed Riley’s car. Why don’t you have a license?”