So I do. I just ask him.
“Won’t Jane mind me sleeping in her room?”
“No,” he says. “She won’t.”
I look at him, but he’s staring ahead. The lights turn green and he drives on.
“Will you tell her about me? That I’m staying, I mean.”
“No,” he says, and his smile is all gone.
I wish I’d never asked. I should’ve picked another question, something about the office or his house or his car. I stare out the window, and the route is already becoming familiar. The roads get quieter and there’s the big tree I know means we’re five minutes from home.
“I’ll tell you about Jane,” he says. “If that’s what you want.”
Kelly Anne’s stupid paranoid speculations make me nervous, and I’m not so sure I do want to hear about Jane.
I feel his eyes on me for a moment. “Maybe talking about Jane will help you understand the ground rules.”
“It will?”
He tips his head. “Maybe.”
I don’t say anything until he pulls through the gates and takes us up the driveway. I grab my college bag from the backseat, and he grabs his briefcase, and we’re home again. Home.
He puts the kettle on and pours me a glass of juice, and I wonder if I’ve ever told him I don’t like hot drinks all that much. He seems to know.
I sit at the table and watch him make his tea, just waiting. His eyes are so serious.
“Ground rules,” he says, and I get a strange tickle between my legs.
He sits opposite me and I watch his hands around his mug. They’re so big. So strong.
“What are they?” I ask. “The rules, I mean.”
“I want to know you’re safe, Laine, always. I’ll need you to check in often. I don’t want you taking rides in people’s cars, I don’t want you heading anywhere you don’t know. Accidents happen that way,” he says. “When people are careless.”
“Careless,” I repeat. “I don’t take rides in many cars, Nick.” I smile. “I don’t have that many people that offer.”
“A pretty young girl like you would have plenty of people offering to give you a ride, Laine. Maybe you just don’t see it.”
“I don’t.” I laugh. “I’ve never seen it. Kelly Anne is the popular one.”
“Kelly Anne is reckless,” he says. “Reckless and foolish, and selfish on top. You’re too good for her, Laine. I’d prefer it if you didn’t let her drag you into any more situations.”
I nod. “I’m not planning on it.”
“Good girl,” he says.
I meet his eyes, risk a smile. “Is that it? The ground rules? That I don’t take rides in strange people’s cars and don’t hang out in clubs with Kelly Anne?”
“No,” he tells me. “It’s much wider than that.”
That tickle again. It’s something in his tone. Something so… strong.
“I want to take care of you,” he says, and I can’t stop that feeling between my legs. It makes my thighs clench together. “I want to look after you. I don’t think anyone’s ever looked after you, Laine. I want to be the first.”
The first.
I want him to be my first. In every way.
“I can, um… take care of myself…” I offer. “You don’t need to…”
“I want to,” he says. “It gives me great pleasure.”
And I don’t know what this is. I don’t know what we are, and I don’t want to ask, and I do want to ask.
I do ask, but it comes out messy.
“You mean, like, a um. You mean like a… a guardian… or something like that?”
His eyes burn me and I can’t look away. “Say it, Laine. Say what you mean.”
My cheeks burn. “Like a, um. Like a dad?”
“Is that what you want?”
Yes.
I know that’s what I want.
But I’m all icky again. All screwed up inside at the thought of wanting him like that. Wanting him the way that makes me all tickly between my legs.
“What?” he asks. “Tell me what you want.”
I take a sip of juice and it’s hard to swallow.
“You can tell me, Laine. You can tell me anything. We talk, about everything. That’s another of the ground rules.”
I nod, force down another sip of juice.
“This is a strange situation,” he says. “For both of us. I was driving, just driving, and there you were, lost in the rain, needing someone. Just like I needed someone.” He drinks some tea but his eyes are still on me. “Sometimes I think life has this way of putting people together in the most unlikely of circumstances.”
“Like fate?”
He smiles. “I like to think of it as synchronicity.”
“I believe in fate,” I tell him. “I believe in horoscopes, too. I read mine every day.”
“Maybe you should read mine,” he says, and there’s humour in it. “I’d love to know what fate has in store for us, Laine. I think it’s good things.”
“Me too,” I say, and I mean it.
“So,” he prompts. “What is it that you want?”