I lean away from the door and open it up without answering her, ready to escape the conversation. Then I hurry and hop out of the truck and head up the sidewalk, hearing the truck door open.
She quickly rounds the front of my truck, skittering in front of me with her arms out to the side of her. “That’s not fair,” she says with a frown. “You know my sad little story, at least part of it, and it’s only fair I get to know yours.”
“The only thing I know is that you were going to live with some old pervert who likes to hit you and now you have no place to live,” I clarify and dodge around her, heading for the entrance doors.
She walks across the parking lot beside me. “Do you have someplace to live?”
I rake my hand over the top of my head. “Does it really matter?”
“Maybe.”
“That seems like your go-to answer.” I bite my tongue, deciding whether to shout at her to back the f**k off or run like hell. “Don’t flip this to being about me.”
“Why?” she says, spinning around and walking backwards in front of me. “You know I’m homeless, so why’s it a big deal if I know you are?”
I stop at the curb, feeling something force its way up inside me. I’ve never been asked questions like this. People are usually too afraid of me and that’s the way I like it. And if it was any other girl I’d probably think she was just trying to get an invite home with me, but I’m starting to understand Violet enough to know that she’s probably getting a kick out of being a pain in the ass.
“You’re right.” I throw my arms up in the air exasperatedly. “I have no f**king place to live.” I breathe heavily. “There, are you happy?”
She shakes her head, pieces of her hair blowing in the warm breeze as she looks over at a couple laughing beneath the trees. “No, not really.”
“Me neither.” I glance around the campus yard, scanning the trees, the few cars in the parking lot, my boots, looking anywhere but at her, otherwise she’ll pull me into her, like she’s been doing since she made me care enough to follow her to her car after she kicked me in the face.
“So now what do we do?” Her eyelids flutter against the sunlight as I glance up.
“You’re asking me what we should do?” I arch an eyebrow at her. “Really?”
She looks around defenselessly and I wish she’d bring back that detached attitude so I wouldn’t feel such a need to help her. “I’m running out of ideas, but if I have to I’ll sleep on the streets,” she says.
“You’re not going to sleep on the streets… we’ll figure something out.” I close my eyes when I realize I said “we’ll,” like we’re a couple, which we’re not. We’re just two strangers who keep crossing paths and can’t seem to get rid of each other. “If we have to, we can sleep in my truck.”
“Yeah, I’ve seen how well that goes. You’re a serious seat hog.” Humor laces her voice.
“You can sleep sitting up,” I retort, opening my eyes. “Or take the back.”
“Wow, what a gentleman,” she jokes with a small smile and the tension around us crumbles.
“I’m not trying to be gentleman,” I say, fighting a smile. “And I’ll never try to be one.”
“Good, because I don’t want you to try. Guys who claim to be gentlemen are full of shit.”
“Okay…” I say. “I’m glad you don’t want me to be a gentleman.”
She grins and it reaches her eyes and reduces the hideous swelling in her cheek. It must hurt like hell. “I think I won that one.”
I can’t help but smile and it feels strange and unwanted, yet it’s there. “Were we playing a game?”
“Aren’t we always?” she counters, plucking strands of her hair out of her mouth as the wind blows through her hair.
Again, she throws me out of my element, but instead of continuing to lose whatever game we’re playing, I surrender. “We should go get something to eat,” I tell her. “Because I have absolutely nothing in my room but a bottle of vodka and a lemon.” I glance down at her hands, the palms covered in dry blood. “And we need to pick up some peroxide and Band-Aids.”
She folds her fingers into her palm as she chews on her lip. “Are you giving up our game?”
“What game?” I fake forgetfulness. “I’m just hungry. It’s like one o’clock and I haven’t had anything to eat. And the peroxide is for you—your hands look like shit.”
She looks down at her palms, cut up from the rocks, blood oozing out, and then back up at me. “Haven’t had your hangover food yet, huh?”
“Yeah, and I’m dying. I need to get some tacos in me.”
“Tacos? I thought you said you didn’t like hamburger?”
“Tacos are about ground beef. Not hamburger.”
“Potato, potato. It’s pretty much the same.”
“It is not,” I argue as I turn around and we start back toward the truck. “It’s completely different.”
“Maybe you should go get cleaned up first.” She runs her thumb down the side of my lip and the connection sends uninvited emotions coursing through my body. I have to clench my hands into fists, just to keep myself from grabbing her and crashing her lips against mine. She withdraws her hand and wipes her thumb and her finger together. “You have blood on your face and clothes.”
I shrug, smothering the desire to jerk her hand back to me, rip her clothes off and bend her over the hood out of my truck. “I’m fine with looking like a man who just beat the shit out of someone, but if you’re too embarrassed to be seen with me, you can sit in the truck.”
“ ‘A man who just beat the shit out of someone’?” she muses, stopping at the passenger door of my truck, her hand hovering above the handle of the car door. “Or a guy who just got his ass kicked?”
I can’t tell if she’s toying with me or not, but it’s both irritating me and exciting me in ways I didn’t know were possible. Half the damn time I have no f**king clue whether she’s being serious or not. Being a control freak, this should send me running, yet it’s having the opposite effect when it comes to her.
I decide to give her a taste of her own intense medicine, throw her off a little, regain the upper hand and hopefully scare her away. “Are you saying that I’m not tough?” I position myself in front of her, trying to get her to back up into the truck, but she stays still. “Or that I’m not a man?”