His face screwed up even more. "You can't live by yourself."
"Yes I can."
"No, you can't," he snapped back.
Heaven help me. "I can live by myself."
There was no hesitation in his voice when he ground out, "The hell you are."
"Dex." I glared at him. "You already know it was just me and my brother for a while, and then I lived with a roommate for a year. I'm not a little kid, and I'm not an idiot. I can livealone."
He opened his mouth and my poor eyes went straight to those pink lips. Then he shut it so quickly that if I wouldn't have been looking, I would have missed him opening it, period. Thatgazeswept over my face, boring straight into my eyes in what I couldn't miss as being an act of domination.
And obviously when he refused to break our eye contact, I had to accept that this wasn't a battle I was going to win. Regardless, he didn't have a say with what I did and it wasn't like I was going to be moving anywhere in the near future.
I reached out and poked him with my index finger in the shoulder. "Chill out. I don't have enough money yet anyway. And if I go back to school, it'll take me even longer."
The smug jerk smiled slowly.
I shouldhave known by then that his slow smile wasn't a positive sign.
~ * ~ *
Two days later, in the middle of my lunch break, I found out why Dex had been such a sly jerk in his spare bedroom.
The thick packet slid across the counter slowly, pushed by two tattooed fingers I recognized from the length alone.
Austin Community College: Fall Credit Catalog
“There’s info in there about certificates and degrees and shit you can get from 'em,” Dex’s gruff voice explained. “Classes start next month. I’ll help you pay for‘em if you want, you know.You could go early beforewe open.”
I didn't know whether to look at the catalog that sat right next to the bean salad I'd brought from Dex's house, or look at the man himself.
Dex's face won.
But I couldn't find my vocabulary anywhere, and it must have made him feel awkward because he kept going.
"I know you said youthink youaren't good at anythin' but I'm sure you can figure somethin' out, babe. You're smart."
My mouth opened and closed at least twice before my throat decided to work. "You went and got this for me?"
He shrugged uneasily. Uneasily! Dex! "I got aprospectfrom the Club to go get it."
He couldhave asked Santa Claus to go get it and it wouldn't have mattered. What mattered, becausein life there are so few things that really do, was that he'd listened to me. That he hadn't just heard the words "I'm not good at anything," but that he'd heard everything else I'd said afterward.
“Why you frownin’?”
“I’m not frowning.” Pouting, maybe.
“Looks like you’re frownin’.”
“I swear I’m not.” My eyes were stinging. “I’m happy right now.”
He narrowed those impossible blue eyes. “You got somethin’ in your eye?”
I sniffed. “Allergies.” Like I was going to tell him he was going to make me cry.
Out of all of the things Dex could have given me, that was the last thing I couldhave ever expected: a course catalog for the local community college and an offer to help me with my classes. Not that I would ask him to help me pay forthem—I wouldn't. But it was the thought. The friggin' thought that was worth ten times its weight in gold.
