Thief:A Bad Boy Romance(28)
The floor drops out from under me. And I want to feel crushed, or broken, or hell, even sad.
But all I feel is anger.
“Is there another girl.” My voice is edged, my hand gripping the steering wheel of the dark car with a death-grip.
Blaine clears his throat. “Ivy-“
“IS THERE,” I belt out. The front door to my parents’ house opens as Sierra pops her head out. She raises her brow at me, but I shake my head, waving her back.
“Blaine.”
“I don’t know how you want me to answer that.”
The sound that comes out of my lips is anything but a laugh - this harsh, cracked sound. “I think you know how I want you to answer that, Blaine.”
He sighs again. “Ivy, it’s more complicated than that.”
I slump in the driver’s seat as Sierra slowly makes her way down the front steps, a worried look on her face.
“No, Blaine, it’s not. Just answer the damn quest-”
“Yes.”
The world goes quiet.
“Yes, there is.”
It isn’t until I hang up the phone that I let the scream that’s been bottled up in my chest come ripping out. I yell as loud as I can, squeezing my eyes shut and pounding on the steering wheel, only barely aware of my younger sister opening the door and helping me out. She hugs me, stroking my back like I need comforting.
Except I don’t. I don’t need comforting, not for what I feel inside. Because I’m not sad or heartbroken or anything like that. I’m furious.
“I need to get out of here,” I mumble out, starting to open her car door again.
“Hang on,” Sierra looks at me with her lip between her teeth, her face fallen. “Where are you going?”
“Out. Somewhere.” I shake my head, breathing hard and feeling the blood pounding in my ears. “Anywhere. I don’t know.”
She shakes her head. “Not in my car you’re not. Not like this.” She gingerly pulls her keys out of my hand, and I scowl at her.
“Sierra-”
“Blaine?”
My scowl deepens as I nod and look away.
She puts a hand on my arm. “You want some company?”
“Nope.”
She closes her mouth and nods. “You do know I’m not going to let you drive like this though, right?”
“Fine.”
I turn and start to head back down the driveway on foot.
“Ivy!”
“I’m just going for a walk, okay?” I throw back, my sandals flapping against the sidewalk as I stomp down the street.
I want to break something.
I need to feel something.
But most importantly and most immediately, I need a drink.
“This stupid town is small enough for me to rage-walk to O’Donnell’s anyways,” I mutter out loud to myself as I storm off into the night.
It’s gorgeous out too, which only pisses me off even more. The smell of salt brine, the warm summer air, the glow of a three-quarter moon illuminating the trees.
It should be romantic. A night like this is for young love and forgetting about the future in favor of the now. A night like this is for stolen first kisses.
Because a night like this is when a game of flashlight tag turned into something more - a first kiss, heated, stolen, forbidden, quick and light across my lips and leaving me breathless. And a week after that night, on another night much like this one, is when I confronted him about it. After a week of feeling like I had a wonderful hidden secret but also scared to death of what it meant.
“You can’t just kiss me like that.”
He grins, the moon flashing off his teeth and the whites of his eyes. “Sure I can.”
“I- you-” I have no words, lost when those eyes look into mine, that cool look on his face.
“You shouldn’t have kissed me.”
“Why not.”
“Cause.”
The weekly Saturday night game of flashlight tag plays out across half a block of back yards, my siblings and a dozen other neighborhood kids from the neighborhood howling and giggling in the late summer night. Silas is “it”, but I know full-well we’re playing an entirely different game, hidden here together behind Ms. Hempstead’s garage.
I’ve got my back to the dark blue clapboard siding, my hair pulled back in a ponytail and my pulse skipping like crazy in my chest. Silas leans close, one hand on the garage wall behind me.
“Cause you didn’t like it?”
“No.”
He grins. “No you didn’t like it or no-”