“Agreed. But the problem is you and I are known for our bad ideas.”
“I am not,” she said.
“Says the woman who does borderline illegal gambling at the local bar?”
“Well …”
“The woman who is currently running for mayor?”
“It’s just …”
“The woman who is pretending to date me to create conversation?”
“Okay. Bad ideas are kind of our thing. Because you’re involved in all this too, so you can’t put it off on me.”
“I wasn’t going to. I absolutely acknowledge my part in the bad decisions.”
He was going to ask why not just have sex. She could feel the question hovering in the air between them. Because if she was who she said she was, then why wouldn’t they?
But the trouble was, she wasn’t. The trouble was, this made herfeel like she was exposing parts of herself that she wanted to keep hidden forever. The trouble was, she was operating above her pay grade now, and everything that was coming out of her mouth was nonsense. It wasn’t her. Not really.
She was grateful when they pulled up to the fork in the road that would take them to the trailers.
“Turn here.”
“Okay,” he said, turning away from the sign that indicated that they were near the Wild West Show.
She was committed to just getting through this. Besides, it was Flynn. She was overthinking this. She wasn’t exposing herself, because he didn’t care about the intricacies of her life. He wanted to sleep with her, at most. She ignored the physical attraction that swept through her, ignored the memory of the kiss they had just shared.
She had kissed Flynn Wilder.
For show. That was all it was. That made a difference. It wasn’t as if they had spontaneously given in. Hell, she had resisted him in the bathroom at the bar. Then she had pretended that it was nothing, and he was upset about it. What did that mean?
It was just male ego. That was it. She didn’t need to go romanticizing his response.
She didn’t do romance for very specific reasons.
The road narrowed and started to wind toward the little lane where all the family trailers were parked. Hers was pink, set back in the trees. It was cute, really. If you squinted.
“This is where y’all live?” he asked.
“Yes. I’m over here,” she said, gesturing toward her place. As if it didn’t matter. As if it didn’t feel intimate for him to see it. She had been to his house. But his house was nice, in the way that something could be nice when you had some money. The kind of nice that a million other people would like. When you lived the way she did, it was the kind of fixed up that people understood when they’d had to do things on a budget. It was the kind of nice that people would call quirky. And there were maybe a couple hundred other people who would like it. Particularly the alligator.
“Well,” she said, dumping herself out of the truck when he stopped. “It’s been great. See you tomorrow.”
“Dinner. I’ll pick you up here. Don’t have your brother drop you off at the end of the road.”
“And what if I disobey you?”
“Keep playing risky games if you want.”
What would happen if she invited him in? Right now. What would happen between the two of them? That very thought made her feel as if she was falling off a cliff. Endlessly, endlessly. There was nothing stopping her. That was the insane part. The only thing stopping her, all this time, was her own fear. She had the courage to put herself in front of the town like this, run for mayor, but the idea of inviting Flynn Wilder into her trailer to maybe have sex terrified her.
Her family wouldn’t care. Wouldn’t judge her. She wouldn’t lose anything.
Just her virginity. Finally.
“Bye,” she said. She slammed the door resolutely, and she didn’t look back at him. If she did, she might just keep falling.
