“What was she like?” I ask him, watching his face carefully.
He considers for a moment before he answers. “Different from my dad. He’s intense. Focused. She was more carefree and fun-loving. She liked to paint.”
There’s fondness in his voice when he says it, and I find myself picturing a little kid version of Sloan watching his mother paint. Maybe he painted with her, making a mess with small hands that smeared paint everywhere while she beamed and praised his work.
Honestly, it’s hard to imagine Sloan being a child at all, let alone a happy one. But maybe he was once.
“I used to look at them together and wonder what she saw in him,” he continues, seeming almost lost in his thoughts. “She was so bright and he was always so…”
There’s a moment where he trails off, and I wait for him to fill in that blank with a description, but none comes.
Instead, he shakes his head and looks at me, raising an eyebrow. “What’s your favorite food?” he asks.
There’s an almost teasing tone to his voice, but I know better than to trust it. I can tell he’s diverting the conversation from himself, purposefully turning the questions back on me.
I lift an eyebrow right back at him, undaunted. “Tacos.”
“Do you like spicy things?”
“Sure. As long as they still have flavor.”
Sloan snorts. “I should have known you’d never be afraid of heat.”
“You should’ve,” I agree, letting the flirtatiousness of the banter build between us. He knows what I’m capable of to some extent, and that I’m not afraid of much.
“How old were you when your mom died?” he asks. I guess he does know about her—Rory must’ve told him as well as Levi.
“Seven.”
“Do you miss her?”
“Yes.” I hesitate, making a face. “I miss what I can remember of her, anyway.”
He nods at that, still watching me while I answer his rapid-fire questions. Surprisingly, I don’t mind them. None of it is too personal, or anything the other guys don’t already know, and that makes me feel safe in answering. I don’t feel like I’m giving up too much of myself, and I hope that by being open, I’ll get him to open up too.
“Best fight you ever had?” he asks.
“Ooh, give me a second.” That one’s tougher because there’ve been so many. I smile at a memory, though. “Tenth grade. This jackass named Bobby Walker was making fun of one of my friends for being gay.” I make air quotes with my fingers. “He wasn’t, not that it would’ve mattered to me if he was. But since he didn’t play football or whatever, that made him too ‘feminine’ to be taken seriously, I guess. It was really stupid either way. One day I just got sick of it and asked Bobby what was wrong with being feminine. He said the usual shit about girls being weak and blah, blah, blah, so I challenged him right there in front of most of the school in third period lunch. He was bigger than me, and probably stronger too, but he didn’t last more than five minutes before I had him on the ground crying.”
“Beating up high school students,” Sloan says, teasing. “Impressive.”
“I was also a high school student,” I point out. “So it was a fair fucking fight. And I hate bullies.”
“I bet all the little tenth grade boys wanted to fuck you back then,” he murmurs, voice going low and curling around me with its tone. “Especially after watching that.”
“I don’t know,” I murmur back. “I think they were all mostly afraid I’d do the same to them.”
“Cowards. They didn’t know what they had in front of them.”
“And you do?” I fire back, pinning him with a look.
It’s a challenge, but much less harsh than the ones that usually fly back and forth between us. Sloan licks his lips, and his eyes bore into me, almost scorching my skin. It’s that constantly burning fire, the tension that always builds between us when we let it—and even when we don’t, to be honest.
We always try to deny it, to cover it up with taunts and bad attitudes, but it’s there, and I can feel it sparking across the table as sure as anything.
“Definitely. I can handle you,” he says. The promise in the words makes me shiver slightly.
I huff a laugh, smirking. “You can try.”