All Broke Down (Rusk University #2) (17 page)

“Okay what?”

“Okay, I’ll stop thinking so much.”

I wait for her to pause at a stop sign, and then I lean over and kiss her. She makes a surprised sound in my mouth, but then she hums when I drag my lips over her once, then again.

Someone honks behind us, but this time they can fucking wait. I throw my middle finger up to the douche behind us and press her back against her seat just long enough to make sure she knows she’s made a good decision.

I hear the car peel out around us, still honking, but I’m not about to let her run on me again.

When she’s making those little breathy noises again, and her hands have left the steering wheel to clutch at my hair, I slowly pull back.

“I think we’re already making tremendous advances in your therapy, Pickle.”

The dazed look on her face lasts only a few seconds before she pushes me back over into my seat and says, “God, you’re so arrogant.”

I laugh and don’t deny it.

She smooths her hair down and pulls away from the stop sign. She glances at me out of the corner of her eye every few seconds for the rest of the drive. Each look is like a shot of adrenaline and by the time she says, “We’re here,” it’s all I can do not to pin her to the seat again.

She slows to a stop behind a truck parked on the side of the road. The street is lined with cars for several hundred yards ahead of us, and a group of people is gathered in a yard a couple of houses down.

“We’re doing something with other people?” I sound like a whining kid because I’d thought I would have her to myself, that I could continue whittling down those walls of hers.

“Come on. We’re running a little late, and we still have to check in.”

I sigh and push open the door. As we get closer, I see tools and paint and hardware, and the picture begins to come together.

I loop an arm around her neck, and though she tenses, she doesn’t push me away. I lower my mouth to her ear and say, “You’re putting me to work.”

“You want to be a better leader for your team. First step to being a leader is learning to put others before yourself. Besides . . . sometimes a little work is good for you.”

“I can think of another way you could have put me to work that’s much more enjoyable.”

She does push me off then, but she’s smiling.

“I’m not talking about you and your . . . You know. This kind of work is positive. We’re helping people.”

“My way is just another kind of helping. And I promise it would be a very positive experience for all involved.”

“Just when I think I’ve got a handle on your ego, it gets even bigger.”

I grin. “I thought we weren’t talking about me and my you-know.”

She shoves at my arm, barely moving me an inch. “Oh my God. You’re terrible.”

“Dylan?” She stops, and the smile drops from her face as she swivels her head to look at the guy who’s stepped out of the group to stand before us on the sidewalk. Her easy demeanor disappears, and I can almost see her lacing herself up again, reining in her smile, her laugh, her posture. I even watch her pull her hands through her hair, as if she’s trying to tame it into something more presentable.

“Uh, Henry. Hi.”

Henry. The name sounds familiar, but I don’t know the guy. His hair is all gelled, and I’m pretty sure he spent more time fixing it than every girl in the crowd. He looks like he’s dressed for a tennis match, rather than construction, and he’s wearing this pretentious smile that already annoys me.

“What are you doing here?” he asks.

Dylan is calm as she answers, but I can see tension in her face that wasn’t there a few moments ago. “I called Kim this weekend, and asked if she still needed help. I thought you were too busy and decided not to do it.”

He sinks his hands into the pockets of his shorts and jangles what I’m guessing are keys inside. “My schedule freed up unexpectedly.”

It hits me then who this is. The ex. And damn it, I knew this would be the kind of guy she dated.

The kind of guys that are like a fucking magnet for my fists.

“Who’s this?”

“Silas.” I hold out my hand and when we shake, I might squeeze a little harder than necessary. He gives a satisfying flinch, and Dylan hooks her arm around my elbow and starts pulling me away.

“Come on. We need to check in.”

“Nice to meet you, Henry.” I throw him a grim smile and let her pull me away.

When we’re halfway across the yard, she whispers, “You can be such an ass, you know that?”

“Me? I spoke to that guy for ten seconds, and I already know he’s a giant douche. You dated that for four years?”

“He’s nice.”

I scoff. “First, I doubt that. Dude has spoiled dickwad practically written across his forehead.”

“Silas, we’re not talking about this now.”

She steps away from me and up to a folding table where a teenager sits with a clipboard.

“Dylan Brenner,” she says. “And a guest.”

The kid pops her gum and looks over at me. “He’ll need to fill out a release form.”

She taps a stack of papers and holds out a pen. Dylan gives me an expectant look, and I hold back my groan. I fill out the damn form and pass it to the girl.

She blows a bubble, pops it, and then says, “Join the group. Greg will assign you your tasks.”

That out of the way, I start in again, “So . . . he’s
nice.
That’s really the best you’ve got? You give him four years of your life because he says ‘please’ and ‘thank you,’ and you’re scared just to date me?”

“Silas . . .”

“Seriously. Help me understand. Is it because he’s rich?”

“Excuse me?” There’s a vague warning ring in the back of my mind that I should shut my trap, but I can’t let this go. I need someone to explain to me why guys like her ex get anything and everything they want just because they’re labeled “good.” What the fuck does that even mean?

“It’s a valid question,” I say.

“No, it’s not because he’s rich,” she snaps. “It’s because he doesn’t punch people who make him angry. He doesn’t drink or do drugs to deal with his problems. He cared about me. He didn’t just want to have sex with me for a little while.”

There are razor blades in my lungs, and when I suck in a breath, it tastes like fire. And I want it out, want to spit it back at her.

“If that’s all I am, why bring me here? Why do you give a fuck at all?”

Her perfect lips hang open like she’s shocked herself, and I can see something like regret blooming over her cheeks. I want to hate her. I want to storm off and walk the fuck home. I want to pull her to me, pry her lips open with mine, and take whatever that mouth will offer even if it’s only insults and sour words.

The thing is . . . she’s right. I know that’s who I am. She’s just the first person besides me to say it out loud. She starts to reply, but a voice from the front of the crowd calls everyone to attention. A middle-aged guy stands on a chair with a megaphone to amplify his voice.

“Hello. My name is Greg, and I want to thank you all for being here. Today we’re working on the house of this young lady here.” He gestures toward a tiny old woman standing on the ground next to him. Her skin is weathered and cracked like old leather, and when she waves, her flesh moves like it’s not attached to her body. “Mrs. Baker has lived in this house for forty-nine years, and this morning we’re going to be helping her make some repairs and renovations. She worked as a nurse at the local hospital until she retired ten years ago. She spent a lifetime giving to this community, and Mrs. Baker, we’re delighted to be able to give a little back to you today.”

“Silas,” Dylan whispers next to me. I ignore her and focus on the guy in charge. I don’t know why what she said makes me feel so shitty.

I am all of those things she mentioned. But I’m trying. Why else would I be here? But if that’s the kind of guy she wants, fuck it.

I think what bothers me most is the idea that those things are all I am to her. I’ve always thought football was the great balancer in my life. It makes up for all the other things I’m not. But Dylan doesn’t give a shit about football, and unless I get my act together, I won’t even have that.

And what am I then?
Who
am I then?

Greg moves through the gathered crowd, splitting people into groups for different tasks, appointing leaders. I get put in a group with Henry, which is fucking perfect.

I hope he steps on a nail and gets tetanus.

Dylan is put in another, smaller group, and I’m beginning to think this little experiment is going to end with me being even more irrationally angry than I already am.

At least I’m given a cool job. Me and a few other guys are tearing down some rotting and warped siding from the front porch and replacing it with new wood. I’m given a crowbar and a hammer and told to go to town. And I do exactly that.

There’s satisfaction in the creaking sound of the wood giving way. The nails groan as I use the crowbar to lever off the old siding. And when I encounter a few particularly stubborn boards I use the hammer to add some extra force.

I lose myself in the task, sweat beginning to trail down my back as I work. The sun glides higher into the sky, and pours light and heat down in smothering quantities. I strip away the bad wood piece by piece. Sometimes it crumbles in my hand, snaps or bends where it shouldn’t. Then I’m left using my hands, my hammer, my foot—whatever I can to tear the stuff away until finally, I can see the framework beneath. All that’s left are the studs to which we’ll attach the new siding. When I’m done with my section, I move over to the next, where Henry has barely done half of what I’ve managed.

For a while we work in silence, and I forget he’s even there. Then he asks, “So how do you know Dylan?”

I want so badly to say something to piss him off, some innuendo, but I know she wouldn’t like that. And what I say could make her look bad, and I get the feeling she’s one of those girls who are incredibly concerned with how other people see them.

Maybe that’s why the idea of dating me seems so ludicrous to her.

As satisfying as it would be to piss the guy off, it’s not worth pissing her off, too.

I shrug. “We ran into each other last week. Got to talking. Hit it off.”

Okay. So maybe I’m not completely above implying that there’s something between us. But it’s less to piss him off, and more to make very clear that he has no hold on her anymore. If he thought he could do better than a girl like Dylan, the guy is a fucking moron, and he deserves to have that rubbed in his face a little.

“Hit it off?”

“Yeah. She’s pretty spectacular. You don’t meet girls like her every day.”

Henry nods, pausing in his attempt to remove a stubborn board, and says, “Right.”

I look at this guy, and it makes my blood burn hot that he had four years of her life. That he’s
had
her, and I haven’t. And I let my mouth get away from me. “And just between us, that girl is smoking hot. At first, she seemed a little, I don’t know. Shy. Restrained. But when she loosens up . . . damn.”

Henry tugs hard on the board, and his hands slip, sending his crowbar tumbling to the ground.

“Here. Let me.”

I step in front of him and pry it off with one hard pull.

His expression looks like he’s been run over a few times, and I figure I’ve made my point and can get started on replacing the siding in my section.

He may have had her for years, but I’ve got her now.

Or I’m going to. I’ll prove to her that I’m worth her time. If I don’t, I’m just as big a dumbass as he is.

Chapter 14

Dylan

I
finish the first task I’m on, helping to repair the handrail on the stairs at the back of the house. Greg assigns me to start removing some kind of creeping vine that’s taken over one side of the house, and tells me to look around for a partner who’s not busy. I find Silas at the water cooler, in the middle of pulling up his shirt to wipe at the sweat on his forehead.

I forget how to walk at the sight of his stomach. I just stop halfway across the yard and stare. It’s not like I haven’t seen it before. Totally got up close and personal with it (with a lot of him) yesterday. But there’s something about seeing just a peek of it that unravels my brain. His jeans also hang perfectly on his hipbones, and I swear if I snapped a picture I could sell it to some magazine or clothing designer. He looks that good without even trying.

I watch him take a drink of water and I think for the hundredth time that I’m a jerk. I feel awful for what I said to him earlier. It’s all I thought about while I worked. The way his expression locked up and he wouldn’t look at me—I’m drowning in guilt. Here I am wanting to help this guy because I see something in him, something worth protecting and cultivating, and instead I stomp all over it.

And why? For
Henry
? To keep the walls up between my two worlds? Or maybe it’s because where my jail buddy is concerned, my control is a frayed thread that could snap at the slightest provocation.

Maybe I want it to snap, and that terrifies me.

I take a deep breath and with my head down, march over to the water cooler. I spend a few moments filling up a cup to let myself adjust to his nearness, to the fact that he didn’t move back even an inch when I stepped up beside him.

“How’s it going?” I ask, my head still down.

“Fine. Though your ex has the upper-body strength of a
T. rex.”

I bark out a laugh and nearly drop my water. And I keep laughing because it’s so true. When I moved into my apartment, Henry was completely useless. I cover my mouth while I struggle to get myself under control, and Silas’s smile is so warm and gentle, it feels almost like our last conversation didn’t happen.

With the sun beating down on his back, his hair seems more golden than normal, and he really is unfairly gorgeous.

“You still busy? I’ve got a new project that I need some help with.”

My eyes are drawn to his Adam’s apple again as he takes another drink. That freaking thing is going to be my downfall.

“No, I’m done. With my part anyway. Henry might be here until nightfall.”