Never Been Nerdy(20)

Dean looks like he’s swallowed his tongue and then proceeds to cough into his fist, so much so that I’m wondering if I should be thumping his back to dislodge whatever the hell is stuck in his throat. I think it’s just disbelief, or he tried to swallow and breathe at the same time.

When he’s okay, he ends up clearing his throat and gives me a serious face. Until it changes into something else entirely.

His green eyes go dead, flat, ugly. His mouth sets into a firm line, going white around the edges. He blinks at me like I’m an alien he wants to study and examine and figure out what makes me go tic-toc. I swallow hard, and bite my tongue from going ape shit on him.

Then the bomb drops. “Not in a million fucking years.”





Chapter 6



La brutta figura – keep it cool DiNovro. He wants to see you ruffled. Don’t let him win.

Oh, I’m going to push it alright; something about all this stinks and I intend to find out what it is. Sherlock Holmes has nothing on me. I’ve never been shot down like this. A guy is a guy is a guy. Guys want pussy – unless they’re gay, and no matter what I do, well I don’t have the package they want.

“Are you gay?” I ask, and not three seconds after the words are out of my mouth that I find out that this shit storm is going to end very badly.

Dean squints at me, rubs a knuckle along the middle of his forehead, all while his nostrils flare. His muscles get tight underneath his skin, his forearm muscles popping with the veins he’s showing off. His shoulders have hunched in as he crosses his arms over his chest, plants his elbows on the table, and slides his giant hulking mass closer to me.

Well, shit. Dean’s giving me a look that can kill. Luckily, or not so luckily, I’ve got nine lives. Or so they tell me. What use is having bad luck if I can’t experience it for the rest of forevermore?

His green eyes belittle me where I sit, like I’m nothing more than a particular speck of dust floating in the wind, nothing to even think about. Something cold crawls around my chest, dragging itself across my heart.

“What did you just say to me?” His words are low, and oh so dangerous. Flashes of crime scenes in Criminal Minds streak through my head.

Nothing in my life has prepared me for this. Yeah, I talk the talk. I can crush men with a few words, and a look that clearly says you are a waste of my time. But this? Sitting across from Dean without Sera’s diplomacy is freaking me out, more so than hitting the giant with my car in the first place.

I have a fleeting thought that I might die here today.

Also, pretty sure I can’t speak and that I’ve gone and peed myself. In this moment, I’m nothing more than bedazzling on a balloon; pretty on the outside, the kind you keep for a few days for the look of it, but on the inside? On the inside I’m nothing more than stagnant air that was someone’s secondary thought.

I feel it, I feel what Dean thinks of me. He’s got to think I’m nothing more than a princess that’s always had her bidding done for her without any hesitation. He’d be right. I’ve never felt ashamed of that – until now.

“You think,” he says, voice low and quiet and so calm I’m shaking, “that because I turned you down, you have the audacity to think it’s because I’m gay?” Quiet, his voice is so quiet, so even. He’s not even breathing hard, or giving off any of those tell-tale signs like yelling his head off that I’ve gone and insulted his sexuality.

This guy is dangerous when he wants to be; this kind of unpredictability has me swallowing whatever little saliva I have left in my mouth.

I clear my throat, anger infusing my veins with a deadly pride that could get me killed one day. I’m hoping it’s not today. I tighten my spine and sit up straighter in my chair, giving him the Italian stink eye, hard enough that I’m hoping he gets some serious malocchio from this.

“Yeah. That’s exactly what I think.”

Dean’s eyes never leave mine. They’re like green chips of ice that refuse to melt under the sun’s harsh light. They’re frosty and cold, and lack any sort of camaraderie or lust or even respect for me.

Me and my big mouth. It ruins everything.

I’m 100% sure some jerk cranked on the A/C, I can practically see my breath – that’s the only reason why my teeth feel like they’re going to start chattering and the temperature has dropped a good ten degrees.

“You’re an idiot. Just…a complete moron.” Dean seems to bite off what he was going to say next, still glaring at me like his eyes are the knives and I’m the bull’s eye. I feel the pain of that glare on every inch of my skin.