TROUBLE, A New Adult Romance Novel (The Rebel Series) (2 page)

“Come try a piece!” Teagan says.
 
“I’ll put some butter on it for ya.”

His shoulders sink in defeat as he moves farther into the room.

I go back to staring at my e-reader, but I’m not seeing any words there.
 
My eyes are stuck, focusing on my reflection on the screen.
 
It’s like I’m starving for words that only he can deliver and he’s just about fresh out of them.
 
It’s almost painful how much I want to talk to him, while at the same time how much I don’t want to.
 
I really wish I could just be somewhere else entirely so I wouldn’t have to battle with myself so much over something so stupid.
 
He’s just a guy, and a felon at that.
 
Definitely not my type.

I scoff at my own thoughts.
 
As if I have a type.
 
I’m never going to be with another guy ever again, for as long as I live.
 
The price is just too high.
 
I rub my belly as the baby chooses that moment to flip over.

“I can’t stay long,” says Colin, watching me rub my stomach. “I have to go to the grocery store.”

Teagan comes out with two small plates, putting one in front of me on the coffee table and handing one to Colin.
 
She gestures to the small chair next to me.
 
“Here.
 
Sit.
 
Eat.”

She leaves us in the room alone.

I look at the slice of bread with trepidation.
 
I’m over the part of my pregnancy where I have a sensitive stomach, but that doesn’t mean Teagan’s concoctions haven’t challenged me.
 
She has gotten better with her cooking, but better than solid-black burnt still isn’t edible as far as I’m concerned.
 
So far, I’ve been able to hide different bites of food in Rebel’s potted plants, the toilet, and other places, rather than eat them.
 
I don’t have the heart to tell her that her stuff is soooo bad.

“Do we have to eat it?” Colin whispers.

I try not to smile.
 
“Yes.”

“You go first,” he says.

“Nice. Make the pregnant girl be the taste-tester.”

He screws up his mouth.
 
“Fine.
 
But if I keel over, promise me you’ll call nine-one-one.”

There’s no hope of me not smiling now.
 
I can picture him falling over in his chair as he chokes and turns purple.
 
Death by banana bread.

He lifts the bread to his nose and sniffs it.
 
“Smells like bananas.”

“That’s a plus,” I say, still smiling.
 
He really is too cute, especially at times like this when he doesn’t realize he’s being watched.
 
I’m just a fat old pregnant girl with no future; there’s no need for him to pretend to be the dangerous player around me.
 
It makes me feel special, which is really, really pitiful.
 
My smile fades away at the thought.

His tongue comes out and he licks the edge of the bread.

My heart stops beating for a few seconds at the sight of it.
 
Sweat breaks out over my upper lip.
 
I have to look away so I don’t have some sort of apoplectic fit.
 
These pregnancy hormones are seriously messing me up.

“Tastes like bananas,” he says, oblivious to my distress. “I don’t sense anything burned yet.”

I nod, still not looking at him.
 
If I see that tongue again I’m going to have to excuse myself to go to the bathroom so I can splash some cold water on my face.

When I catch movement out of the corner of my eye, I look.
 
He’s taking a bite.
 
I’m breathless waiting for the verdict.
 
I have no idea why.

He chews.

He chews some more.

His expression tells me nothing.

“So?” I ask.

He gestures at me with his plate.
 
“Go ahead.”

I glance once at the kitchen and then at the slice of innocent-looking bread on my plate.
 
“If this is inedible, you’re in big trouble.”

It’s possible that I catch a hint of devilry when I look at him, but the expression is gone so fast I’m not sure if I saw it or not.
 
Just in case, I do the same examination he did.

I smell it.
 
I lick it.
 
Colin looks away at that part.
 
When he’s no longer watching me, I grab the bread off the plate and take a bite of it.

Colin swallows his bite with effort.
 
“What do you think?”
 
He’s smiling, the butthead.

My face twists up as the sourness overwhelms my tastebuds.
 
“Oh my god,” I say in a whisper.
 
“What the fudge?”

Colin is laughing silently now, his shoulders shaking with the effort of remaining quiet.

“Oh my gob.
 
Oh my gob…” I’m searching the room, desperately seeking a container of some sort to hide my bread in.
 
I might be able to swallow this bite, but not the whole thing.
 
No way.

“Here.
 
Give it to me,” Colin says, grabbing my plate.
 
He dashes over to the bathroom and I hear two plops into water and then a flush.
 
He’s back to sitting in the chair, his face a mask of innocence when Teagan comes into the room.

“Wow, you guys finished that up fast.”
 
She’s smiling very big.

I feel incredibly guilty. My attempt to return her smile could probably be mistaken for a reaction to an intestinal cramp.

Then she frowns.
 
“Did you think it was a little sour?”

I’m still trying to finish the bite I put in my mouth, so I just shrug and play stupid.

“Maybe a little,” Colin says.
 
“Gave it a little extra kick.”
 
He does an air punch for effect.

Teagan nods thoughtfully.
 
“Yeah.
 
I guess.
 
The recipe said to use lemon zest so I just squeezed it right in there.
 
Maybe the lemon was too big.”

I cringe with the effort of swallowing the hunk of sour banana bread so I can speak.
 
“Did you say
squeezed
?”

“Yeah.
 
So?”

I try very hard not to smile.
 
“Lemon zest can’t be squeezed.”

“Sure it can,” Teagan says, putting her hands on her hips.
 
“I squeezed the ever-loving shit out of it.”

I laugh.
 
It’s impossible not to when she has that offended look on her face.
 
When I can breathe properly again, I explain.

“Zest is the yellow part of the rind.
 
The part just on top of the white skin under it, just on the
outside
of the part you squeeze.
 
There’s no juice in zest.
 
Like … ever.”

“Well, why the fuck would anyone want to put lemon peels in a damn banana bread?” she says, sounding like she’s ready to fight me.

I give her a hesitant shrug to ease the sting of my words. “Maybe because it gives a lemon flavor without the sourness?”

Colin snorts.

Teagan sighs out loud and long.
 
“Fuck me sideways.
 
I screwed up again, didn’t I?”
 
She leans over and grabs the plates out of Colin’s hand.
 
“Did you guys really eat it?”

We both nod, first at each other and then at her.

“Well, you’re just stupid, then, aren’t you?
 
I don’t know why I’m using
you
guys as taste-testers when you can’t even taste a whole buttload of lemon juice in a slice of banana bread.”
 
She leaves the room, and only when she’s completely gone do Colin and I collapse in giggles.

When we can finally breathe again, I suddenly realize he’s on the couch with me and sitting way closer than normal.
 
I try to act cool about it since he seems unfazed by the whole thing.
 
Breathe in, breathe out.
 
You can do this, Alissa!

“Shit, I have to go to the grocery store.”
 
He stands up at the front of the couch suddenly, making me think that maybe he wasn’t as unfazed as he appeared.
 
Looking down at me he smiles kind of awkwardly.
 
“Do you need anything?”

I shake my head, freaking out about the mere idea of him shopping for me.
 
“No.
 
Thanks.”

Teagan comes out.
 
“Oh, I need something.”

“More lemons?” he asks.

“No, smart ass, I need tampons.
 
Not the super size ones, either.
 
Regular size, since I have such a small vagina.”

Colin chokes on his own spit and his face turns bright red as he battles to breathe.

I have to hide my face behind my e-reader so he doesn’t see me smiling.
 
Man, she is so bold and rude, but sometimes I can’t help but laugh at the stuff that comes flying out of her mouth.
 
I’m pretty sure she’s getting back at Colin for fake-eating her bread.

“No way,” he finally says.
 
“No way am I buying tampons at the store, of
any
size.”

“I have to clean up this mess before Rebel gets home.
 
If he sees it he’ll try to eat some of it and then he’ll break up with me for being such a horrible cook.”

“If being a good cook were the reason he’s with you, he’d’ve broken up with you a long time ago.” Colin runs around the back of the couch when Teagan goes after him.

I tuck my legs up around the sides of my belly like a frog, trying to keep from getting tripped over.

Teagan points at him when he finally stops running; they’re on opposite sides of the couch with me in the middle.
 
“When I catch you?
 
You die.”
 
She leaves the room, but not after issuing her last order.
 
“Better get me those tampons or you’re going to be sorry.”

Colin’s at the door in a flash, looking towards the kitchen and then at me.
 
He’s nervous.

“She’ll kill you, you know,” I say, smiling over the idea that such a small girl can make such a big scary guy actually worried.

“Or make me eat her next meal, which is the same thing but slower and more painful.”

I laugh.

“Come with me,” he says.

“What?
 
Me?
 
No way.”
 
I put my e-reader up to my face so he won’t see it going red.

He strides over and yanks it away from me, backing up before I can swipe it back.

“Hey!
 
That’s mine!”

“And you can have it back if you get those damn tampons for me.”

“That’s blackmail.”
 
I’m glaring at him, terrified for some stupid reason about the idea of going to the store with him. I’m pregnant.
 
I’m fat.
 
I’m ugly.
 
And he’s so darn beautiful!

“I’ve done much worse,” he says, darkness moving over his face for a moment.
 
“Please?” The shadow disappears with that one word and suddenly he’s years younger.

It’s the politeness that gets me.
 
There’s so little of it left in my world.
 
My parents were always sticklers for it, but here in this apartment, I don’t hear much in the way of please and thank you.
 
It’s not that I’m a hard-butt about that stuff, but it is possible I’m missing my family and their habits.
 
I hate that this is the case.
 
I want to be as free of them as they are of me.

“Fine,” I say, admitting defeat.
 
Teagan was right earlier; I do need to get out of the house.
 
I feel like a vegetable - a big leafy green one with zero personality.
 
And it doesn’t matter that I’m fat and ugly.
 
Colin would never be interested in me anyway, and I would never be seriously interested in a guy like him either, so who cares if my hair is a mess and I have a stretch mark on my thigh?
 
“Let me get my purse.”

“You don’t need your purse, I’ll get you whatever you want.”

I hate the uncomfortable feeling his statement gives me.
 
“I don’t need your charity.”

“It’s not charity.
 
It’s paying you off for tampon shopping.
 
Trust me, it’ll be worth every penny.”

Giving up on finding my purse, I shake my head at him as we walk out of the apartment and down to the car.
 
“I don’t see what the big deal is,” I say.
 
“They’re just tampons.”

“Could we please just stop saying that word?” he says, as he walks ahead of me down the stairs.

“What word?
 
Tampon?”

“Yes.”

I’m tempted to do a soliloquy on tampons right then and there, but I resist.
 
It would be too much like flirting.
 
Instead, I follow him silently out to his black car and get in the front seat next to him, folding my hands tightly and placing them in my lap.

Just breathe, Alissa.
 
Just breathe.
 
I stare out the window, refusing to give into the temptation and look sideways at him.
 
He’s just a guy bringing you to the grocery store so you can buy tampons for a friend.
 
It’s no big deal.
 
I keep saying that to myself over and over, but by the time we get there, the silence between us has stretched so far and so wide, it’s almost suffocatingly stressful.