Needing Her (From Ashes #1.5)(74)

He was sweet, attentive, and completely down-to-earth. But I was glad he was still giving me my space. Even being alone in the dorm room with me for three movies, he never once tried to pull me into his arms and had yet to try to kiss me. Which Candice was taking as a bad sign. I rolled my eyes at that assumption. Now that Blake was finally getting his dates, he was letting me take this at the speed I wanted, and I couldn’t have been more thankful.

But then Friday night was just . . . odd.

Blake picked me up in his silver Lexus convertible and took me to the Oasis, a restaurant sitting on the lake with the most amazing view as the sun set, which it began to do just after we’d arrived. I honestly don’t think I’d ever seen anything more beautiful, and just as I began to tell Blake that, our waiter arrived to take our drink order. Without a word, Blake handed him both menus and placed our order for our food and drinks. I hadn’t even looked at the menu yet. The food was just as he said it would be, to die for. But from the way he continued to treat me I was expecting him to cut my meat and feed me himself by the time our food got there.

Conversation was at a standstill until we were back in his car.

“Want to go for drinks again?” he asked suddenly, halfway back to campus.

Obviously he had missed how awkward the last hour had been. “Two margaritas are more than enough for me. I’m good.”

His laugh boomed throughout the small car as his hand fell onto my upper thigh and gave a little squeeze. “Okay, no drinks. Anything else you want to do?”

“Um . . .”

“Do you like horses?”

“Horses?” That wasn’t something I’d been expecting. “Of course I like horses.”

“So how about we go for a carriage ride down Sixth Street before I take you home? Sound good?”

“I don’t know.”

“Rachel, did I do something? I feel like we’ve gone back a few steps.”

“No, I’m sorry . . . I’m just tired. I’ve felt off all day. Is it okay if you take me back?”

“Of course there’s always tomorrow!”

I stifled a groan and smashed myself as close to the side of the car as possible. The entire way back he kept his hand on my thigh and continued to rub his thumb back and forth. In an effort to not smack it away, I crossed my arms under my chest and resorted to burning imaginary holes in his hand with my eyes. After we got to campus he walked me all the way to my room before trapping me against the door frame and leaning in. I turned my head away at the last minute but that didn’t seem to faze him. Grabbing my hips and pressing his body closer to mine, he started kissing a line down my neck, and I swear he smelled my hair before groaning. I tried not to gag.

“Blake, please? Can we not do this?”

He pulled back and his blue eyes flared. “Fine.” The way he looked at me from under his eyelashes caused a chill to run down my spine. And not a good one. “I’ll see you later.” Without another word he pushed off me, turned, and stalked down the hallway.

“RACH, WAKE UP and tell. Me. Everything!”

Cracking my eyes open the next morning, I looked at a too-perky Candice and groaned. “Where were you when I got back last night?”

“With Jeff.” She dismissed his name with a wave of her hand. “Now, tell me about your date!”

“Wow, Jeff too, huh? Nice, Candi.”

“Don’t stall!”

Pulling myself up so I was resting on my elbows, I didn’t even feel like sugarcoating the prior night. “It was awful.”

Her eyes went wide. “What do you mean? What’d you do?”

Bitch. “Why is it that I had to do something?”

“Um, let’s see.” She started counting on her fingers. “One, you didn’t want to go out with him in the first place. Two, unlike Wednesday and Thursday, Blake didn’t text me after to tell me about your time together. Three, you didn’t want to go out with him in the first place.”

“You already said that.”

“Exactly, that’s a big enough one that it counts for two! So what happened?”

I sighed and flopped onto my bed. “It was just weird. It’s like we had nothing to talk about. Which was crazy because we talked the entire time we were together on Wednesday and Thursday. And he didn’t even let me see a menu; he ordered for me. Like I was a three-year-old or something.”

“Is that all?”

“Well, yeah. Oh! And when we were on our way back he just started acting like the night had been completely normal and not awkward in any way. Then when we got back, he pushed me up against the door and started kissing my neck. I kind of asked him to stop and he got weird. Like creepy, scary weird . . . and then he just up and left. I don’t know, the whole night was just a bust.”

Candice didn’t say anything; she just sat there staring at me.

“What?”

“Are you insane? You told him to stop kissing you?!”

Really? That was all she got from what I told her? “Yeah, we had a bad date; why would I want him to kiss me? Maybe if it had gone something like the first two nights I wouldn’t have—”

“No, no. Rachel. Oh my God. We need to fix this. I can’t believe you still managed to mess up the date after everything I went over with you yesterday!”