“Just to be clear, I don’t owe you anything,” I say. “You decided to help me all on your own.”
“I know.”
“And if this fiancé thing is a ruse to get me back to Jersey, then just know I’m on to you, so you might as well give that up.”
He smiles, devastating me with his innocent look. I know I’m talking crazy; I can tell this boy has never been in a fistfight. Although, if pressed, he would win. I know that much, too. He has an untapped fire in him.
“If I was that person, would I have bothered to call Mr. Ly?”
I lift one shoulder and give him a challenging look. “How do I know Mr. Ly isn’t mobbed-up, too?”
Ozzie runs his fingers through his hair and softly grunts. I ignore the way my skin warms at the sound of that.
“Mila, I don’t know all that much about the mob, but I’ve seenGoodfellasa few times. I think I would simply kill you dead and then vanish.”
The way I see it, I have two choices now. Leave school and hightail it to Mexico and hope this killer (if he is a killer) never catches up with me. Two: go with him to his family reunion and suck it up.
As I’m considering my options, he catches me with sound logic that I can’t ignore.
“I also think you will be exposed if you stay on campus during fall break when nobody else is around, not even your sisters. You need to go somewhere safe to lay low, especially now that there might be a police report about this. And…I need a fiancée.”
“You mean you need a fake fiancée.”
“Right. Fake.”
“Why, though? What’s the pressure?”
Ozzie squints and bites the inside of his cheek like he’s deciding how much to tell me.
“I need to beat them at something,” he finally says.
“Excuse me?”
“My brothers and sisters, all of them are the golden children. Everything they touch, they master without even trying. I’ve had to work my ass off at everything. Right now, I’m trying to graduate the earliest. It’s an unhealthy competition in the family. Who can graduate earliest. I’ve never brought home a girlfriend. I’m seen as the awkward introvert who doesn’t know how to talk to women, while my brothers married … well, let’s say they married. If I come home engaged, I’ll be the first person to have a fiancée before going to grad school. And then maybe they will shut up about my social anxiety. The timing would be the cherry on top.”
That is the most words this man has said to me since we met.
“Who…who the hell are these people?” I ask.
“The Gwynns,” he says as if that explains everything.
We stare each other down for a few moments, and I communicate with my sourpuss face that I’m not doing this with any enthusiasm.
I cave. How can I not succumb to this giant with puppy eyes?
Although I’m not so sure Ozzie’s family sounds close to normal, I’m curious. And that glint in his eyes is too much. If anyone thinks this kid doesn’t know how to attract women, they haven’t been paying attention. Ozzie, at minimum, has boyish charm in spades. Not to mention thighs that could take me for a ride.
He’s got enough to make me want to know more. A lot more.
“Guess I’m going to Asheville.”