A. Jackson - When We Met

Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Blake scowling. All at once his arms shot to the back of his neck, and he began tugging his shirt over his head. His flat and tight stomach was on full display before the second shirt that was hidden beneath fell back over his abs.

I pretended not to look too long and instead took a deep breath, focusing on my task. Suddenly that same shirt was in front of my face. “Here, put it under your knees.”

“What? No, I don’t need—”

“Yeah, you do,” he said. “I can tell you really care about your clothes. They probably cost a lot more than my damned T-shirt.”

Was this his way of apologizing or making fun of me?

“It doesn’t matter,” I whispered.

He thrust it closer to me. “Please, take it.”

I stared at his shirt a few moments more before grasping it, smoothing it out on the floor, and then placing my knees on top of it.

“It’s my mistake for not bringing a change of clothes,” I mumbled.

He turned away and continued working on the far wall in silence.

I wanted to redeem myself, or at least say something to break the ice. I looked back at him. “I noticed your piercing . . . um, earlier. I like it.”

I held back a cringe. I was usually more of a fan of clean-cut guys.

He barked out a bitter laugh. “Really?”

“Where, um . . .” I struggled to come up with a question to keep the conversation going. “When did you have it done?”

He heaved a deep sigh. “A couple years ago . . . on a dare.”

My eyebrows shot up. “A dare?”

“Yes, a dare. Bet you’ve never even done anything on a dare, princess,” he muttered. “Bet it’s too spontaneous for you.”

“What the hell, Blake? Of course I have,” I spat out. Now I was seething.

He squinted at me. “Yeah?”

I shrugged and met his eyes in a challenge. “And stop calling me princess.”

“Fair enough.” Then a devious glint registered in his eyes. “So . . . truth or dare?”

Blake

I didn’t know why I was being so obnoxious to Chloe; she just seemed to bring it out of me. I knew I had her now, though. No way would she play this game with me. She was too damned uptight.

“What?” she sputtered. “Here . . . now?”

“Yes, now.” I laughed. She was slightly endearing when she was so flustered—when she let her prim and proper mask slip. “You’ve got somewhere else to be?”

“I . . . barely even know you.”

I could see her pulse pounding at her neck. She was getting even more nervous. Was it because she was trapped here with someone like me or because I was calling her out of her comfort zone? I let the minutes tick. We were about to find out.

“Fine.” She took a fortifying breath and then said, “Truth.”

I turned away, trying to hide the pulse in my jaw. I knew it. She’d chosen the safer response.

“Here’s hoping for honesty,” I said, meeting her eyes.

She nodded and twirled a lock of her hair, looking unsure of herself again.

Something about her made me want to dig deep, to find out what she was really made of. There had to be a different person—a decent, compassionate person—under all of that restraint. I’d already seen glimpses of her. But maybe I was only headed for disappointment. “Since you didn’t think I made a fair assessment earlier, tell me what you were really thinking the day you walked past the construction site.”

Her eyebrows rose to her hairline. “Like I said, I . . . I was pissed and disgusted. When you came to my defense out of nowhere, it stumped me.”

She thought she was done, but I planned on getting more out of her if I could. I just had this natural curiosity, despite being completely frustrated by her. Because when she was caught off guard—like she’d just been by my question—she became more real and I wanted more of that.

“And?”

“A . . . and . . . well, first, I wondered what you were doing there.”

I looked down, avoiding her gaze. No way could I talk about dropping out with this girl. Unless she gave me more—showed me more.

“And second, what you said about me—the ‘not in a million years, not my type’ part . . . well, it . . . it sucked to hear you say that.”

I met her eyes while her chest heaved. I had affected her back then? Because truth be told, I was completely captivated by her vulnerability right now.

“Okay,” I said softly. I needed to make sure that I played this situation carefully, because I didn’t want to scare her away. I cleared my throat. “I get it. Makes sense.”

I got busy on the other wall, effectively dropping the subject, and letting her off the hook. Letting us both off the hook. For now.

We were silent for a few more minutes before I heard her tentative voice. “Your turn. Truth or dare?”

She probably expected me to say dare because she figured we were so different. I studied her eyes and then moved down to her lips. They were red and shiny like her tongue had just skimmed across them. She was a pretty girl. And right now, all soft and uncertain, she was even more gorgeous.

I shook that foreign thought from my head. “Truth.”

Chloe’s lips parted and she stared at me for a long moment until she finally recovered. I immediately regretted my decision. Especially if she was going to ask me why I dropped out of school. If she did, I probably wouldn’t answer.

“Why did you . . . say that about me . . . that day?”

She looked past me to the wall, wringing her hands. It made me want to soothe her, put my fingers over hers to still them. Never in a hundred years would I have guessed that my reaction that day would still be bothering her, months later.

“I hear catcalls all day long. So when it happened again, I looked up to see who their next target was.”

“Target,” she said, scrunching her face into a grimace.

“And then I saw you. And I got it—you’re a great-looking girl, Chloe. Plus that outfit you had on that day really . . .” I needed to stop talking before I dug myself a grave. She’d probably think I was having dirty thoughts about her. And I wasn’t. At least not more than a couple of times.

“What?” Her face was relaxed and open like she truly wanted—or maybe needed—to know what I thought of her. For reasons I might never begin to understand.

“It just . . . it showed off your curves, okay? The guys were going nuts. Like big fucking apes or something.” I laughed and shook my head thinking about what a bunch of dumb-asses they could be. And most of them were older than me. “Even still, they were being idiots, and girls shouldn’t have to put up with shit, which is why I came to your defense.”

She stared at her sneakers, a rose hue stretching across her neck and up to her ears. Then she reached out her hand and patted mine, just once. “Well . . . I guess I owe you a thanks for that.”

Something in my chest gave way, like a release of my pent-up frustration over this girl.

“And . . . I wasn’t really being honest when I said that about you . . . ,” I said. “I was just pissed at the way you responded, like you had lumped all of us together.”

She nodded and our gazes clashed for one long moment. Like we’d finally found some authentic middle ground, other than sharing similar taste in coffee. “Truce?”

She shot out her hand and I took it in my own without hesitation. Her fingers were warm and delicate, a contradiction to the impenetrable shell she’d presented this entire time. I figured this was our way of starting over and I was cool with that.

Tonight I stood in line at the Common Grounds and was about to order two iced hazelnut coffees when Chloe walked through the door in her work attire and spotted me. Her cheeks glowed pink like she’d had the same idea about getting us drinks for our night ahead.

We had worked on the space three more times these past two weeks. She progressively became more relaxed, allowing her dry sense of humor to shine—and even swapped out her outfits, so I didn’t have to give any more of my T-shirts to the cause.

She’d change into jeans—designer, of course—with those pink Converse sneakers as soon as she got to the space, using the small bathroom in the back. It was hard not to notice her perfectly round ass in that tight denim, and I looked every chance I could get. I was a guy, after all, and I knew how to appreciate a woman’s body.

But no way did I want her to know that I thought she was hot. Not that it mattered anyway. We were way too different and she wasn’t the kind of girl that would be down for a casual hookup. She was very driven and expected a lot of herself, and maybe her mother did as well, given the phone calls she was constantly fielding from her.

When Chloe heard her name ring out from a table near the coffee shop door, her eyes darted around nervously and then back toward me, as if she’d wished she hadn’t spotted me in the first place. A couple of impeccably dressed ladies sat drinking cappuccinos and as she trudged over to them, her head bent as if in frustration.

As I placed our drink order, I noticed how she gave one of the women a quick kiss on the cheek. She had Chloe’s same coloring and eyes, so I could only assume it was her mother. Given their hushed conversations by phone, I gathered her mother liked to hear the details of her daily life. I might kill for that kind of attention.

I looked down at my dingy cutoffs and heat prickled my neck, as my instincts told me that Chloe wouldn’t be comfortable with me stopping by her table. I hadn’t had time to change out of my construction boots today, but at least I’d brought a fresh T-shirt to pull over my head as soon as I got into my truck. So I walked past Chloe and out the door without another glance in her direction.