Chaos Theory (Nerds of Paradise #2)(53)

He snapped a doubtful look her way.

“Besides.” She shrugged. “We’ll have plenty of other chances to go the slow and sensual route, and if you need help figuring out how to make my pip squeak, I am definitely willing to give you a few pointers.” She leaned toward him, wiggling her eyebrows, and tease-flirting as hard as she could.

Will looked as though she’d delivered a sermon in church. “You’re right.” He nodded. “There will be plenty of time for me to make it up to you.” He stood, carrying the fish off the rock and over to the fire.

Melody remained seated where she was for a moment, thinking over his words, one eyebrow quirked. Everything he said sounded good, but something about it hit her wrong. She stood and followed him back to the campfire, standing with her arms crossed as she watched him lay the fish out, skin down, over the hot coals.

“Am I missing something?” she asked at last.

He spent several long seconds adjusting the fish against the coals with a stick before answering, “No.”

Melody shifted her weight to her other leg. “Yeah, I’m definitely missing something. What’s wrong?”

“Nothing is wrong,” he said with a frustrated laugh. “We had sex. That means we’re together now. And I take that seriously.”

It took Melody several seconds of standing there, blinking rapidly, before the impact of his words hit her. “Wait a minute. Are you saying that because we had sex, you now have some sort of medieval obligation toward me?”

He glanced up at her, his mouth set in a peevish line. “Don’t make it sound like something Victorian.”

“I’m not the one making it sound Victorian, Clementine,” she clipped. “The fact that we had really exciting, albeit brief, sex doesn’t heap some sort of draconian responsibility on your shoulders.”

“Doesn’t it?” he muttered, poking the fish with his stick.

“No,” she argued, flopping to sit across the fire from him. “It means we are two adults who had a consensual experience that we are free to choose whether or not to repeat. And I, for one,” she added quickly, “am eager to repeat it as soon and as frequently as possible.” Although from the angry tone of her voice, that might be hard to believe.

He stared back at her with equal fire. “I’m sorry if sex doesn’t mean something special to you, but it does to me.”

“Of course it means something special,” she nearly shouted back. “But it doesn’t mean that I am suddenly your responsibility.”

“Yes, it does.”

She gaped at him, the coil of anger unraveling inside of her far hotter than she would have imagined. “Is that all I am to you? A responsibility to be fulfilled?”

“No.” His expression pinched, and waved a hand as if batting away a pesky fly. “You’re so much more than that. But life and love are not silly games to be played for low stakes. They’re a duty, a responsibility.”

“Oh, so I’m your duty then?” She gaped at him. This conversation wasn’t going at all how she imagined it would or should go.

“Yes, but why would you think that’s a bad thing?” He looked at her as if he didn’t have a clue why she was being so dense.

“I don’t know,” she shot back. “Making sure you walk your dog when she needs it is a responsibility. Paying your taxes on time is a duty.”

“That’s not what I meant, and you know it.”

“Do I? Do I really know that you think of me as more than just another project to be managed?”

Will huffed a wry laugh. “Believe me, I couldn’t manage you if I tried.”

For some reason, that was it. The final straw. Melody stood, planting her fists on her hips and staring down at him. “I’m sorry that I don’t fit into any of your tidy little boxes of the way the world is supposed to be, Will. But I’m even more sorry that you’ve shut yourself off to beautiful experiences because they don’t fit into some sort of rigid code you’ve developed.”

“That’s not—”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” she barged right over him. “It’s not you who established the code of dickery, it was your father.”

“Leave my dad out of this.” Will shot to his feet, moving to stand toe-to-toe with her.

Melody laughed and shook her head. “I can’t. I’ve been trying to find a soft, subtle way to bring it up this whole time, maybe help you to work through some of your issues, but it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that your dad severely screwed you up.”

“Well, I am a rocket scientist,” he shouted, leaning toward her with so much anger behind his words that she had to take a step back. “And I don’t need you to tell me I’m fucked up because of my dad.”

He immediately jerked away. Melody blinked hard, watching him pace in a small circle, shoving a hand through his hair. When he twisted his way back to her, he went on.

“I know my dad screwed me up. I live with that every day. But just because he was a demanding, controlling prick doesn’t mean I’m going to become some slacker, devil-may-care, love-em-and-leave-em jackass to spite him. I care about you, Melody, so of course I feel responsible.”

“But don’t you see that that word, responsibility, drives a wedge between us and makes me less of a person?”