But now?
Now she’s quiet.Her silence now feels like a punishment.
And me...I’m sitting here, hard again, watching her bite her bottom lip, and I’m wondering if I’m the only one still falling.
I’m so fucking gone for her.
Wrecked.
Ruined.
Totally fucked.
We pull up outside Wes’s burger joint.The place looks like it gave up on life ten years ago.The neon sign’s flickering as if it’s got nerve damage, and one of the letters is burnt out, so it reads “BUR ER.”
The windows are still so slick with grease you could fry an egg on them, but I’ve eaten more burgers here than anywhere else on the planet.Looks like shit, smells like heaven.Grease, beef, toasted buns.Best in town, no contest.It doesn’t matter if the seats are cracked and the lights buzz like they’re ready to blow, it’s got history.
Noah and I used to own a booth in the back.We’d spread out, talk shit, throw fries at each other while Jace sweat it out behind the grill.
Those days are gone now that Noah isn’t pretending he’s not in love with Aubrey anymore.He picks her up from work most nights, always waiting in his car with that goofy expression on his face, as if he still can’t believe she’s his.Sometimes he even gives Jace a ride home.Guess that’s what love does.Makes you soft, turns your rivals into carpool karaoke buddies.
I hold the door open, and the smell hits me right in the face.
She brushes past me, and, fuck me, even with her hair a little messy and her lip still kissed raw, she steals the air from my lungs.I let her go first because I need a second to get my shit together.My knee throbs like a bitch from the game, my shoulder’s wrecked, my ribs are fucking killing me, but nothing hurts as much as whatever the hell is happening in my chest when I watch her.
Wes’s burger joint has no charm unless you grew up here.Booths are torn at the seams, with duct tape holding more than just the upholstery together.
We head to the counter, and I nod at the guy behind it, some burnout who probably hasn’t changed shifts since high school.He barely looks up, and I don’t blame him.
Posters line the walls from every era of music—some curling at the edges, some half-ripped, some faded by the sun.But no matter where you look, Broken Oasis stares back.Xander, the guy your girl dreams about while you’re inside her.Ace’s fuck-you sneer and inked-up throat.
They began here.Right here in this crappy forgotten town, eating these burgers and probably sitting in the same booth.
“Pick a booth,” I tell her, trying to sound casual and failing, my pulse still crazy from the sex and everything tangled up afterward.
She chooses one by the window, red vinyl split and worn, the seat giving a soft sigh beneath her.
I drop in across from her, the table scarred, my hands restless against the wood.I’m trying to act normal while I’m sitting across from the one girl who has fucked my balance to hell.
“I can’t believe you brought me here,” she mutters, eyeing the cracked menu on the table.
“What, not impressed by five-dollar fries and a chair that’s one ass cheek away from collapsing?”I grin.
She snorts.“Is that the line you use on all your dates?”
“This is my first date,” I say, dead serious.
Her eyes widen briefly before she shifts her expression.“Bullshit.”
“Swear on my cock,” I grin.“You’ve fucked me, you know how sacred that shit is.”
She shakes her head, but a smile plays on her lips.“You’re impossible.”
“Unbreakable,” I say with a wink.
That gets me a full laugh.
“Unbreakable?That’s what you’re going with?”
