Right Kind of Wrong(30)
Soon after, Mama began fostering children and ended up adopting the three most amazing little girls in the whole world.
Life turned out okay for my mother. But I didn’t want to go through all she did just to get to be “okay.”
So the moment I felt myself falling into Jack’s eyes, tripping into his heart, I knew I had to shut it down. Too much was at stake.
He told me he was crazy about me. He told me we were good together. He told me I was everything he ever wanted. He said all the things any girl would appreciate.
But all I heard were the broken promises of my dad and the betrayal of my grandfather. So I said no. I stopped eating pancakes and left Jack’s apartment with his scent still on my skin and fresh tears running down my cheeks.
Across the car, I glance at his profile as we cross the Texas border and my heart clenches. I wasn’t lying when I said I didn’t know what the truth was, but I wasn’t exactly being honest either.
What I feel completely contradicts what I want. I feel more attracted to Jack than I do to anyone else, but I don’t want him to be my boyfriend. I feel possessive of Jack when he hooks up with other girls, but I don’t want to be one of the girls he hooks up with. I feel empty when we go a few days without seeing one another, but I don’t want him to be the source of my contentment.
I have a plan for my life, my future. A good plan. A solid plan.
I’m going to graduate college. I’m going to sell my sculptures and promote my artwork until I raise enough money to open an art gallery. Then I’m going to showcase artwork until I have enough money to buy myself a home. And a car. And health insurance. And maybe then I’ll get a small pet. Like a black cat or a little pig.
But Jack doesn’t fit into those plans.
So when he asks me for the truth, and I’m caught between my need to explain why I don’t want him and my desire to rip his clothes off, it messes with my head.
If only I were a stronger person, I’d stay away from Jack completely. But I can’t. I don’t want to. Cutting him out of my life, at least right now, isn’t an option. He’s too important to me—even if he’s being kind of weird about his family situation.
My phone rings and I glance at the screen. Speaking of family…
“Hey, Mom,” I answer, lifting the phone to my ear.
Jack glances at me for the first time in at least an hour then looks back at the road, where endless miles of dry, empty desert surround us on all sides. There is literally nothing out here in nowhere, Texas. No trees. No signs. Nothing.
“Hey, sugar.” The sound of my mother’s cheery voice makes me suddenly eager to get home. “How you doing?”
“Doing good,” I say. “How’s Grams?”
“Oh, she’s hanging in there. But she’s sure looking forward to seeing you. How’s the trip going?”
Staring out the window, I blow out my cheeks. “Long? Boring? Dry? Pick one.”
“That good, huh?”
“That good,” I repeat blandly.
“Well at least you’re not alone,” she says. “Your cousins flew in today and informed me that you left with a passenger. They weren’t sure how long he’d last, but since you answered your actual phone instead of putting me on your car’s speakerphone I’m assuming you still have your travel companion.”
My mom prides herself on her powers of deduction. When I was a teenager, I used to call her Sherrylock Holmes because I could never pull one over on her. The woman was just too damn intuitive, and she always knew when I was lying. It made sneaking out at night and other getting-up-to-no-good shenanigans rather difficult, but I managed.
“Yes, Mama, I do have a travel companion,” I mock. “What are you, seventy? Why are you talking like Andy Griffith? Ner-dy.”
She huffs. “Mm-hmm. Who’s more of a nerd, the forty-five-year-old woman who says ‘travel companion’ or the twenty-one-year-old girl who knows who Andy Griffith is?”
A small smile pulls up my mouth. “Touché.”
“So are you bringing Jack home with you or what?”
I frown. “What makes you think my travel companion is Jack?”
Jack looks at me again, his gray eyes curious as they scan my face. Feeling my skin grow hot, I turn away from his gaze.
“Because he’s the only guy I ever hear you mention by name so I figured he’d be the only guy you’d tolerate on a road trip,” she says.
A beat passes where my heart completely flips out, shifting into full-on panic mode as I try to come to terms with my mother’s words.
Do I talk about Jack that much? Am I one of those silly girls that calls home and blabs about the boy she likes? AM I?