I feel like I’ve accidentally stumbled into some dangerous territory, but I don’t know how. I figure the best course is to just stay honest, as honest as I can. “Well, I know you aren’t very experienced, because of the whole nun thing.”
Her frown only deepens. “So you only want to keep fooling around with me because I’m not very experienced. You feel…sorry for me?”
“No! God no.” I wince, remembering her earlier reactions to taking the Lord’s name in vain. “Goshno.” Now that just sounds stupid coming out of a grown man’s mouth, but I barrel on: “You’re a good person. A good girl. A guy doesn’t mess around with a good girl if he doesn’t mean it.”
She looks at me like I’m speaking gibberish—which, for the record, I’m not. I think it’s totally fine if men, women, aliens, cows, want to have no-strings-attached fun, but if you sleep with a virgin ex-nun, then you go into it knowing that it’s not a casual encounter. There are partners with whom you both know the score, and it’s just messing around, and then there are partners you fall in love with.
Helen is in the falling-in-love-with category.
It’s a compliment, but she really doesn’t seem to take it that way. She puts a hand to my chest, forcing me back, and sits up, drawing in her legs. “Do you actually want to pursue something with me, or do you just think you should because I’m a ‘good’ girl?” She actually puts air quotes around the word “good,” and I might find it adorable, if I weren’t so totally confused about what’s happening.
I honestly have no idea how to answer this. It feels like a trick question. Yes, I want to be with her, and yes, I think she’s a good person. It’s part of why I want to be with her. I’m not sure how one of these things is an insult, but it clearly is, and I’m walking through some kind of land mine that I don’t totally understand.
Which is why I maybe give the worst answer of all time to a woman who asks if you want to be with her: “Yeah,” I say, and shrug.
Take notes, Shakespeare. It was practically a whole goddam sonnet in one word.
The look she gives me is like a tiny kitten whose tail I’ve just stepped on. Before I can stop her, she’s off the couch, retreating from me. “Wait—” I try, but she holds up her hands, stopping me.
“It’s okay. Really. It’s totally fine. You don’t have to…I mean, you don’t owe me anything. I knew this wasn’t going to be a thing. Not long-term, anyway.”
I’m the one to draw up short this time, blinking at her. “You did?” The whole time that I was thinking about us as a possibility, I for some reason took it as a given that she would want to be in a relationship with me, too. Not that I think I’m some great prize, or anything—Vera made the opposite clear to me when she left me for myfather, thank you very much—but more so because of Helen’s lack of experience. Her innate goodness. I assumed she’d want to be in a relationship, and if for some reason she wanted it to be with me, then who was I to argue?
But the more I think about it, the more I realize how shortsighted I was. She doesn’t have any experience, or at least she didn’t before last night. Maybe I’m the kind of guy you just play around and have fun with, not the kind you want to have lazy Sunday mornings with. Again, there is the glaring example of my fiancée leaving me for my father but still sending me thirst traps.
Helen is the one to shrug this time, not quite looking at me. “We’re so different.” Her gaze finally meets mine, and she looks at me expectantly, like she’s waiting to see if I’ll take the bait.
I get it. She wants to make sure I understand we’re not compatible. She’s a good woman, the kind of woman you marry. And I’m…a bounty hunter.
I nod curtly to show I understand. “Got it.”
For a second, we both linger, neither of us seeming sure what to do. I clear my throat. “We should probably get on the road, try to make up for lost time…”
We still have about two and a half hours before we make it to New Orleans, after all. Nearly three hours, stuck together, in the car. That had been difficult enough when I was just attracted to her, but now I have real feelings for her. Now I know what she looks like when she’s sleeping and the sounds she makes when she’s turned on and the way her breasts feel in my hands.
Great. It’s gonna be one hell of a day.
Chapter 33
Helen
What’s worse than the third day in a row of hours upon hours of driving, you ask?
Hours upon hours of driving in a car, sitting next to a guy who gave you a pity orgasm and then felt like he was obligated to keep dating you because you’re such a loser.
I’m starting to understand now why Dr. Sandra always insisted that sex wasn’t going to answer all of my problems. I still haven’t had sex yet, but even getting close to it has opened up a whole new can of worms. All the easy banter from the past couple of days is gone, and Thad and I have retreated into our opposite corners of our personalities. The more uncomfortable I get, the more I try to talk, hoping through sheer force of cheerfulness I can overcome the awkwardness in the car. And it seems the more uncomfortable Thad gets, the quieter he gets, becoming practically monosyllabic.
Exhibit A: This short snippet of our conversation?—
Me, seeing a sign advertising boiled peanuts at a gas station: “Oh, yeah, I forgot that boiled peanuts were a Southern thing. But why boiled? Who decided, here’s this peanut, I think I oughta boil this sucker and see how it tastes. How does it taste, anyway? Have you ever had them before?”
Thad: “Yep.”
Me: “Do they boil them with any kind of flavoring? Does boiling them make them softer?”
Thad: “Can’t remember.”
Me: “So it’s not something Southerners eat regularly, then? I guess not, since they sell them at the gas station. I can’t really think of any gas station foods that I eat regularly. Nacho cheese, hot dogs, Slurpees. Maybe it falls into the same category of so-bad-it’s-kind-of-good? Or is it the rare gas station treat that really transcends its surroundings?”
