I grind my teeth together, the muscle in my jaw aching from the weight of it. Of course I don’t have to do it, but for some odd reason, I want to.
And I can’t tell her that.
Iwon’t.
Instead, I ask what’s been on my mind since I saw her struggling with the bags. “You feeding an army?” I lift my arm, gesturing to all the bags. “At eight o’clock on a Friday night?”
Fuck, I shouldn’t have asked her that.
Am I curious about why the hell she needs this much food? Yeah.
But the real question that I want to know the answer to is what she’s doing tonight after she leaves here. Is she going to hang out with her friends? Go to a bar, meet someone like she did that night?
A pang of jealousy tears somewhere deep in my gut, and I want to fucking rage like an idiot, like someone who should not be thinking shit like this about a girl I can’t have.
For fuck’s sake.
Maisie laughs softly, shaking her head. “No. Uh, actually, they’re for… someone else.”
I look over as she tips her head up to stare at me. “Why are you buying other people groceries?”
“There’s a small used bookstore near the quarter… Second Line Stories. It’s been around since before I was born. The owner, Mrs. Sharon, and I are very close. I’ve been going to that store since I was a little girl with my parents. Her husband, Mr. Gentry, recently passed away, and she’s been running the bookstore by herself.” Maisie pauses and slides her tongue along her bottom lip, a shadow of sadness moving over her face. “But she’s getting older, almost in her eighties, and her children are all grown and live out of state. She refuses to shut the store down. She says it’s too important not only to her but to the community. I just want to help her and do whatever I can. So, every other Friday, I go to the grocery store and pick her up a few groceries, things that I know she’ll like, and then I bring them to her when I visit on Saturday mornings.”
I’m trying to reconcile the girl standing in front of me with the one I have constructed in my head.
The all-smiles, ditzy college girl who loves to party and hook up with people in bars. The one that I… Fuck, I don’t even know if they’re the same person anymore.
I’m beginning to wonder if they ever were, and it confuses the shit out of me.
I don’t understand her.
And I don’t fucking understand why I can’t just walk away.
Why I can’t stop letting her control my thoughts.
Why I can’t stopwantingher.
Why I feel this… pull to her when she’s the very last thing that I need to get caught up in.
“Mm,” I hum, unsure of what even to say to the revelation.
Thankfully, Maisie comes to a stop in front of the most ridiculous car I’ve ever seen in my life.
And I am completely unsurprised.
“This is me,” she says, hitting the Unlock button on her keys, her trunk next. It pops open, and all I can do is shake my head. “What?” Her brow furrows as she glances from me to the car, then back to me. “Why are you making that face?”
Apparently, I need to work on controlling my expressions better because I had no idea she could even see it on my face.
“Why am I not surprised that you drive a brightyellowfucking Beetle?”
Pink creeps up her neck, staining her cheeks, but despite that, she lifts her chin and arches a brow. “I’m going to take that as a compliment.”
I shrug. “Take it however you want.”
“I like yellow. It’s my favorite color. It’s…happy.” Her hand moves to her hip as she cocks it. “Wildly insane concept for you, I know.”
My lip twitches.
