I don’t like thinking on this stuff too much, so instead of focusing on it, I hurry and get dressed. I slide on a pair of comfortable jeans and a T-shirt, pairing them with my old-as-hell Chucks. When I’m convinced that I’m presentable enough to pretend to be happy, I walk out of my bedroom and stop dead in my tracks.
The mess I’d scattered about from my ice-cream binge is gone. The lid to the carton isn’t on the arm of the couch, and the dirty dishes aren’t in the sink anymore. Everything is clean. Like, the kind of clean that mysteriously happens about once a month when my mother sneaks by while I’m out on a long-term job to clean the place up. Only, Diesel’s put everything back how I like it, not how he likes it. My mother does that. She helps out in her own obnoxious way. And judging by the look on his face and the way he’s leaning back against the kitchen sink, he knows I’m way too pleased with his effort.
“Something you’re gonna get about me eventually is this—I tell you I’m gonna do something, I fucking do it. I say you’re gonna trust me, you’re going to because I’m showing you that you can trust me. I say we’re gonna happen, it’s because I’m gonna make us happen.”
My mouth forms an O shape, and it’s a long moment before I can process everything he’s said. His speech is perfect, but that’s not reality, so there’s something missing here I can’t see right now. Something is going to unsettle this bullshit perfect-man vibe he’s got going on.
“You lay into all the girls like this?” I ask and scoff as I move to grab my purse off the small dining table that sits in the open space between the narrow living room and even narrower kitchen. I have my back to him by the time I see him moving. Not fast, not scary. Just slow, and predatory, and all man. And I thought I wanted him because of the words he spoke before I showered. I thought I wanted him more just a moment ago when he laid it out for me, but seeing him close in on me, slow and unyielding, makes me want him in a way I can barely express.
Men don’t know how to handle me. They either let me walk all over them—which I can’t respect—or they want nothing to do with me. The few who do think they can handle me have wanted to do it with an iron fist, and not as theoretically as I’d like. Diesel’s different, though. I keep trying to see through him, figure out what his angle is, but so far I haven’t found one. When he says he’s gonna show up, he shows up. When he acts like he cares, he seems to genuinely care. And fuck my life, I don’t know what to do with an honest man who isn’t exactly verbose with his feelings but lets them be known and isn’t shy about it. And I especially don’t know what to do with a Forsaken man who has feelings for me and doesn’t seem to be full of shit. Because they’re all full of shit, and most of them are good at hiding that fact, and some of them don’t even know they’re full of shit.
So basically, I’m fucked.
“Not even gonna respond to that,” he says with a slight shake of his head.
“You just did.” My lips quirk up slightly, betraying the badass exterior I thought we agreed to have, and I’m smiling. Yep, fucked. Because even though I know he’s full of shit—even if he doesn’t realize it himself—I’m eating it up. I guess when you either feel everything to a painful extent or nothing at all, you’ll take anything that doesn’t make you hurt or hate yourself.
We’re just getting into town—me wrapped around Diesel on his bike, and I’m not even going to let myself fantasize about this later when I’m alone in my bed—when I realize that I left Izzy’s present at home. I’m a shit big sister. I wish it weren’t so, but I’m too self-involved to be an adequate role model or loving feature in a kid’s life. Stephen, my half brother and Izzy’s full brother, is two years older than her, and he’s finally wised up to the fact that I have certain limitations. Izzy, though, still acts like I can move mountains for her. I don’t deserve the way she looks at me, and I don’t like how much responsibility she gives me to be in her life.
I’m not an unfeeling monster. I like the kid. She’s sweet. I love her even, but I’m just missing some kind of gene that makes women caring and thoughtful or something. I used to feel awful about it, and now I kind of just own it and hope other people don’t count on me for squishy feelings and shit. At least Amber’s kids don’t expect squishy from me. I’m just the aunt they see once a year or so who shows up with cool gifts—something I can’t even seem to do for Izzy.