I Shouldn't Love Him
I Shouldn’t Love Him (Book 2) – Chapter 48

He studied me for a few seconds, then nodded toward my parents’ house.

“Was that your sister yesterday?”

Of course he wanted to know about Tiffany. I should have realized sooner that she was the reason he spoke to me, but that wasn’t the case . Even though I was pretty sure he was Tiffany’s age, he seemed more mature.

I nodded.

“Tiffany. She’ll probably go out with you.”

– Yeah ? How do you know?”

— She dates a lot of guys.”

His heavy black eyebrows fell.

— How do you know who she’s dating?”

— She told me.”

— What does she tell you?”

— About the people she likes and other things.”

— “You should stay out of your sister’s business.”

I lifted my chin. He spoke like my father, except when Dad said it, it was an order, not a suggestion. Dad said Tiffany’s things were disgusting, like I was going to dig them out of the trash.

“Look at that.” The cigarette fell from between his lips and he looked at my feet. “You dropped it again.”

I followed his eyes to where my bracelet had fallen in the dirt. I picked it up and tried to put it back again.

“Come over here,” he said. “Let me do.”

I breathed through my mouth.

“What?”

“The clasp,” he said.

My heart skipped a beat when he waved at me. I took a few hesitant steps and reached out, the chain dangling precariously. He moved the unlit cigarette from his mouth to behind his ear, then leaned forward and flipped my forearm. He could crush my wrist with one hand, I was sure of it. It took him several tries to get both ends through his enormous fingers. He squinted, muttering under his breath. His calloused palms brushed the thin skin of my wrist until goosebumps rose up my arm and my insides tightened. The tips slipped from between his fingers again and again.

His knee brushed against my ribs, and I flinched.

“Sorry,” he said.

I was sure that with a little more concentration I would have better luck with the bracelet than him, but I didn’t want to stop him. An unusual tingle made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. It’s not like I’ve never had a crush. Like my friends, I blushed when a senior greeted me in the hallway. I was giddy when someone like Corbin Swenson, the most popular boy in school, recognized our table in the cafeteria. But the boys at school were just that – boys. Tiffany loved tearing out pictures of celebrities and sticking them on her wall—Andrew Keegan, Luke Perry, Kurt Cobain—and this man was as wall-worthy as he was sweaty, dusty, and silent.

He grabbed me, his tan hand covering more than half of my white forearm.

—Keep still.”

Men of his age or size were never this close to me. I hadn’t moved, I was sure.

Finally, he managed to connect the two pieces.

— How is it ?”

I shook my wrist to make sure the bracelet was secure.

— Good, I think.”

— Do you often walk home from school?”

“What?”

He nodded toward my backpack.

“You’ve never walked?”

“Today was the first time.”

He tilted his head back, looking down at me.

“I probably shouldn’t walk home alone. Or at all, maybe.” It’s not far. I don’t have my license yet.”

He banged the heel of his boot against the brick, looking anywhere but at me.

“But are you old enough?”

I almost asked him how old he gave me so I could add “and you?” in the end, but what if he had guessed too young? I suddenly missed my t-shirt, white cotton and high neck, with a round, yellow face of happiness in the center. I bought it at a record store, so it wasn’t really childish, unless, I realized, a child was wearing it. On Tiffany it would have been cool, but I had a flat chest. Suddenly a year seemed like an eternity of waiting for boobs.

“I’m quite old…” I said. He seemed to expect me to continue. “I’m sixteen, but I have to spend a certain number of hours driving with my parents.”

Tiffany had a driver’s license and could take me, but she had two speeding tickets and a collision just last year. My father would never allow her to teach me. I moved my feet .

— We started, but I haven’t had time lately.”

— You didn’t have time? Or your parents?”

I wanted to answer but stopped. Dad usually worked until after seven. Mom must have been showing houses or attending a meeting. I had time now , but there were a hundred other things I had to do, like reading the list, studying for exams, or volunteering.

—We all have things to do.”

— What keeps a 16-year-old so busy?”

— Preparing for college,”

— Do you go to school?”

— In the evening.”

– Oh. Like a community college?”

—Yeah.” He dropped his posture and laced his hands between his knees. “Are you sure you don’t want to come up here? This backpack is as big as you.”

I looked around, as if someone might be watching me.

“I don’t think I can.”

He motioned for me to come closer. When I was at his feet, he took off my backpack and dropped it. He landed on the ground with a dull noise, disturbing the sand into a cloud.

— jesus. What’s in there? Stones?”

I unzipped it to put The Grapes of Wrath away and showed him inside.

—More books.”

—Numbers. You need to lighten your load, like me.

From his back pocket, he took out a paperback book small enough to fit in one of his large hands.

I read the title: “The Metamorphosis.”

— What is it about?

The cover had what looked like a huge cockroach on it. He studied her, his brows furrowed.

—To be honest, I’m not sure yet. It’s weird. I’ll let you know.”

I wrinkled my nose. No one I knew had ever called a book weird. My English teacher and classmates always used words like abstract, poignant, or metaphorical. It was so unheard of that I started laughing.

Without any warning, not even a grunt or a word to prepare myself,

Well, it was, but that wasn’t the point. He was strong, all dirt and grime, long and thin, his face and arms tanned by the sun. He could lift me. He could throw me away if he wanted. He could probably put me on his shoulder and walk thousands of miles without getting out of breath.

My urge to slide closer to him was as strong as my urge to jump, run inside and hide in the house where men like him only existed in my glossy magazines.

Hard brick wasn’t exactly welcome. Suddenly, I was completely disoriented and nervous about sitting next to a man. I didn’t consider my father a man, and the boys I went to school with certainly weren’t. The sun was beating down on us, and it smelled of heat and sweat. It wasn’t bad.

“What’s your name?” he asked.

“And you?”

He wiped his palms on his jeans.

“And you?”

He wiped his palms on his jeans.

“Manning.”

— Lake.”

The cigarette was in his hands again. He rolled it, turned it over, tapped it against his knee. Anything but smoke it.

— Are you trying to quit?” I asked.

— Stop what?”

— Smoking.” My feet were hanging over the wall. “You look like you really want to smoke it.

He tossed it behind his ear.

“Lake,” he said as if trying out the word. “And your middle name?”

I would never have revealed that.

— I hate him.”

He turned his whole body towards me.

— Tell me.”

– It’s ugly.

“How can a name be ugly?”

“Believe me, it can,” I said simply.

Mom liked to remind me it was a last name when I talked like that, but I didn’t care. Family or not, Dolly seemed like a baby name, and it was no better than the stuffy-sounding Dolores from which it came.

He gave a half-smile, one corner of his mouth turning up. It was the first time I saw his straight white teeth. My heart skipped a beat. Underneath the dirt, the sweat, the calluses, he was beautiful. I already knew it, peripherally, like I knew the direction of the beach or the work of art hanging in my father’s office. But now it was right in front of me, I couldn’t miss it.

His forehead was furrowed with lines.

“Careful, or it’ll come off a third time,” he said.

It took me a second to realize that I had wrapped my bracelet around my wrist.

“This time, I might not give back,” he said.

“Would you take her to the porn store?” It came out quickly, casually, before I could think about it. But it was probably the most brazen thing I’d ever said. “The what

? , he asked, spreading his entire upper body.

“The…” I widened my eyes at his incredulous look. You said you would take him to a porn store.

“Pawn” , he uttered slowly. “Pawn.”

I shook my head. I was still confused. “I don’t know what it is.

He sighed and looked at the sky.

“It’s a place where you can take valuables for quick money. Whatever.

” “Oh.” My embarrassment was palpable,

like an anvil on my chest. The silence only made things worse.

“You can go if you want.”

Did I want it? Since I had come here, my impulses had oscillated between smiling, shaking, and many other things. Everything seemed different. Even the house they were building seemed more advanced than yesterday. No one seemed to think it was weird that I was sitting here with him.

— Do you want me to do it?”

He kept his eyes fixed on him.

— You remind me of my little sister.

— I thought you said you didn’t have one.

— When?

I thought about the conversation from earlier. I had suggested that he might have given the bracelet to someone like a girlfriend or a sister. Maybe I hadn’t said “sister.” I shook “

It’s okay.

With the tires screeching against the pavement, I looked over my shoulder. Tiffany’s BMW was speeding towards us. I wasn’t supposed to be here. I didn’t think not that Tiffany would tell Dad, but I didn’t want her to see me and come check on me. I wasn’t ready to go home either.

Tiffany parked on the sidewalk. I took a breath and held her back, sitting as still as possible, hoping to blend in. After all, Tiffany was always looking at me.

I should have known she wasn’t in the habit of overlooking attractive men .