I shrug, tucking into my escargot. “Just ask. Stop being so shy. You ought to know there's no need for that after the things we've done since I took your cherry.”
I say the last part under my breath, leaning in, grabbing her hand. Her fingers squeeze mine back and she blushes.
The girl has no reason in the world to be shy. I wish she'd get over it for her own good, but damn if it doesn't make my cock throb in the meantime. Pink glows on her cheeks, and she takes an extra long sip of her wine, like there's something she's trying to find the courage to say.
“Okay, so why is Evie such a bitch?” The way she blurts it out nearly causes me to drop my fork.
“I'm not sure what you're getting at. Give me something specific.”
Bullshit, I know exactly what she's saying. Too bad my mom is the last thing I want us talking about on our final night in this town. It's supposed to be about her and I, even though I know that's only going to make a clean break harder once we get home.
“I'm worried about my dad. It's obvious to us this whole thing is a big mistake...but he's blind. He doesn't see it. She's already screwing him over, I just know it. What I haven't figured out is why.” I stare at her, trying to comprehend why she gives a shit. Our parents' problems aren't mine. “She knows about us, Chris. She came after me before we did anything, warned me to stay away from you and stop screwing you up.”
Fuck, I temporarily lose my appetite. I pick up my glass and suck down the last of my wine before I answer, feeling it slip straight into the fire in my guts.
“I don't give a damn what she says, and neither should you. She's always been a selfish, greedy, train wreck. Your old man's got no backbone. Tell him to break up, throw her out, and pray to God he's got himself a pre-nup before it's too late. I'm stuck dealing with her bullshit because we're blood.”
She shakes her head sadly, staring into her onion soup. “No, he's really in love. I haven't seen him like this since mom walked out. I can't get in the middle. He has to leave her on his own. It's not my place to twist him into doing something he doesn't want to.”
Right now, it's awfully hard to give a shit what Bruce wants. If he'd man up and leave the tornado blowing through his house, then maybe I wouldn't have to try like hell to forget Delia the instant we get off our flight in NorCal.#p#分页标题#e#
It's going to be hell. I'm disappearing to base and never coming back. Every instinct I've got keeps fighting me, though.
I can't think about anything except all the ways I want to keep kissing, touching, and fucking her, pleasures that go way beyond anything we can condense into one final night.
“I'm just trying to figure out what I'm dealing with, Chris. What you've been dealing with all these years. What's her deal? What made her so awful?”
I rip my last piece of escargot out of its shell the same way I pulled the trigger on Abu Alhazred before the Iranians showed up. It's gone in an instant.
“Mom can't handle failure, Delia. She can't take getting old, losing her career, having nothing to look forward to except a few more wrinkles and half a dozen more exes, assuming she doesn't OD first. I spent two summers trying to get her off the junk before I enlisted and left her shit behind. You can't help the people who don't give a fuck about saving themselves, and Evie stopped trying around the time I was five.”
“Jesus,” she says softly. “I read about her, you know. She wasn't always like this, right?”
I roll my shoulders again, wishing this damned conversation would disappear, just like the delicacy sliding down my throat.
“How the hell am I supposed to know? The past was a long time ago. She went to pieces after my old man walked out. She divorced him because he was no good for her – too poor, too savage, too violent. Mom wanted to be another Hollywood princess. Why she thought she could ever make it work with some biker badass she met at a sex club, I'll never know.”
Delia almost chokes on her water. “What? You're kidding. That's really how your folks got together? Not that there's anything wrong with that, I mean.”
I laugh. She's so innocent, and she really doesn't have a clue. I look her up and down, wondering if I'm drawn to her because she's giving me a chance to follow in dad's footsteps.
Part of me wants to. I want to wreck this girl, every fucking inch of her, brand her as mine forever. I know it's insane, I know it's wrong, and fuck if I care.
“Babe, you're a smart chick, but there's a lot you've got to learn about the world. People don't always marry and pop out kids because it's sane and loving. Sometimes they just make a big goddamned mistake because the sex is that good, and mom's drug was kink before she got into the other shit.”