Chapter 11
The night air hits my face like pins and needles. I struggle to put the coat on, until I realize that it belongs to Falon and there’s no way it’s going to fit me.
As if on cue, Martin covers my shoulders with his jacket. His hand once again rests on my lower back, but I brush it off. I don’t want comfort right now. I want to be pissed and mad and sad and full of the kind of angst that’s common among emo teenagers and punks.
Those are the sort of feelings I’m used to having when I come home. I know how to deal with those feelings. They may not feel good, but they’re familiar, and right now the only thing I want—other than Dorothy’s red slippers to take me home—is for something to go as expected. And taking comfort from a man my mother probably paid to stay over for Thanksgiving isn’t on that list.
“Do you want me to call a rideshare or something for you? My treat,” I huff, keeping a solid two steps ahead of Martin. “I can have them pick you up on the street corner. You won’t even have to show your face back in that house. I’ll tell my parents you joined the witness protection program. I’m sure they’ll understand, because apparently they can understand any human who isn’t me.”
“So I did that bad of a job?”
“Huh?” I slow my pace and look over my shoulder. “What are you talking about?”
“My performance as your boyfriend.” Martin hurries his pace. “Personally, I didn’t think it was that bad. In the scope of everything that transpired over drinks, it was actually a pretty minor role.”
The corners of my lips tug with a smile that I one hundred percent am not consenting to. I force a frown and hang a left at the corner of Clementine Street.
“I don’t know if you caught it, but I covered pretty nicely when Carter asked if we’d met. Then I slipped in that dear, which I definitely think Smith noticed.”
“You lost it when you mentioned my books.”
“I picked up on some tension around that subject, which was unexpected.”
“Nobody in my family reads my books,” I say. “We don’t talk about it.”
“Why? Did you pull a Christina Crawford and Mommie Dearest them?”
“Worse.” I chuckle. “I write romance novels.”
“I see.” He cocks his head and smiles. “Can I read them?”
“Look”—I turn around and face him—“I appreciate what you’re trying to do here. Really. It’s kind and admirable, but you don’t have to. This is the part of the evening where I wallow in my misery. It’s the part where I realize that no matter what I do with my life, I’m always going to disappoint my parents. That’s what this part of the evening is for. It’s kind of like masturbation.”
“Best done solo?”
“Exactly.” I nod toward Orange Avenue. “Now, I’m going to head down that street, and you’re not going to follow me.”
“It’s also illegal to do in public. Masturbation, that is.” Martin closes the gap between us so that he’s standing next to me. “So due to matters of public safety, I’m going to have to go with you.”
I tilt my head back and let out a laugh so loud and unrestrained that it almost scares me. It throws me a little off-balance, and I lose my footing in the heels I stole out of Phoebe’s closet. Just as I’m about to teeter off the curb, Martin wraps his arm around me and pulls me into him. He’s warm and smells like Tom Ford’s tobacco cologne. It’s quite possibly my favorite scent in the world. I wear it all the time when I’m writing a particularly spicy scene because it always puts me in the right mood. The mood feels much more pleasant in Martin’s arms than it does on paper.
Maybe he senses that he’s holding me a beat too long. He starts to release his grip and mumbles some sort of apology, but I can’t hear any of it over the pounding in my chest. I wrap my arms around his neck and pull him back, until both of his arms lock tightly around me. I nuzzle my face into his neck and breathe him in.
“For what it’s worth,” he whispers, hot breath against my ear, “I don’t think you’ve disappointed anyone tonight. I think you’re just human.”
“Don’t believe it for a second. You take off this dress and you’ll find a zipper on this flesh suit.”
“So you’re an alien?”
“Absolutely.”
“Can I ask you something?” He pulls away and places his thumb beneath my chin, tilting my head back. I nod. “Do you still have feelings for your ex?”