Addicted to You(3)
He knew how much I hated being the driver. Especially in storms. I shrugged and gave a noncommittal I guess.
He knocked his knee lightly against mine. Freaking friend-zone.
“I can eat two burgers in the time you eat one.” He stood, made himself a second, then plopped back down.
And my stomach did a flutter while my body got all warm and tingly. There was no denying it. Hopeless.
The last few lingering guys finally said their goodbyes and soon it was just us.
“So what do you want to do?” He pushed his plate to the center of the small table and leaned back. “I can probably find a movie. Or we can keep drinking. Now that all the guys are gone, there might actually be enough beer for us.”
I laughed and mumbled my agreement while inside my head, a tiny voice screamed now or never. It made me nervous as all hell, and I doubted I’d even be able to go through with it, but it was time to give it my all.
“Well, if we plan on drinking, we should play a game.” I pretended to think it over. “But there aren’t many choices with only two people playing.”
“Would You Rather?” he suggested.
“That would work.” I glanced at him. “And if we run out of ideas for that, we can always play Two Truths and a Lie.”
“That’d be fun. Wonder what all I can learn about little Miss Isla.” He grinned. “Like maybe what really happened that night with Hunter.”
“Oh my god, are we still stuck on that?” And for the record, nothing happened that night. We went on one date. And it didn’t even end in a kiss. But I had zero desire to talk about other guys with Colby.
He shrugged. “Inquiring minds want to know.”
“Why haven’t you asked him?”
He shook his head and huffed, “Because I want the real story. Not some dude’s fantasy version.”
“How do you know I won’t lie too?” I teased.
He grinned, eyed me up and down. “Guess we’ll figure that out, won’t we? Remember: two truths and only one lie.”
“I know.” I stood, grabbed our plates and put them in the sink. “Same goes for you. I’m gonna need some truths with your lies.”
“Eh, I’ve never been that good at lying.”
I turned around and smiled. “But you are pretty good at hiding your truths.”
His eyebrows scrunched together. “How’s that?”
“You don’t talk much. At least about things that matter.”
He lifted his baseball cap, smoothed his hair several times, then placed it back on his head centering the John’s Charter Boat logo perfectly. “Fair enough.”
I opened the fridge, pulled out two beers, and set one in front of him. “But tonight I get two truths.”
He laughed. “You do realize if we suck at this game, no one will be driving anywhere.”
I smiled back. “Yep.” And little did he know how much that very thought thrilled me.
—
An hour into the game I’d discovered two things: Colby and I were both horrible liars, and we knew way too much about one another. And the depressing realization that we were both permanent residents of Friendsville, population two, settled over me. Or maybe it was the dreary weather combined with alcohol.
No matter which type of lie we tried to construct, using facts about ourselves ranging from mundane to random, somehow the other knew. Colby didn’t break his arm at five. He was seven. My favorite color wasn’t green, it was yellow. His favorite type of food wasn’t Italian, it was seafood. Coconut shrimp to be exact. And even when we went for things there was no way the other person could’ve known—like the color of our underwear—we’d pinpoint the lie. Every single time.
Though the game made little progress, we kept drinking, which was good. I needed to numb my reality, fuel my confidence, and, well, just give my hands something to do besides fist Colby’s shirt and yank him to me because, really, he was gorgeous. And that wasn’t the beer talking. No, that was the voice of my sexually deprived hormones.
Falling for Colby had started with this gradual buildup. He was nice, he was cute, he was sweet. And from the time we were kids, he was always there, tugging at my emotions, teasing at the naïveté of first love. Like a roller coaster slowly clicking up the tracks, I had it all. Butterflies, excitement, a little fear. But then one day, it happened. I fell. Hard. My stomach bottomed out and I was plummeting heart-first into Colby. From that day on, I’d been hopelessly in love…of course, maybe it didn’t have to be so hopeless after all. Not if—
“Hello, Isla…You there?” Colby waved his hand in front of my face.