Save Me from Dangerous Men (Nikki Griffin #1)(92)

Eventually I’d meet them all. All types. Looking for themselves in others. Everyone wanting something. Fantasies. Usually pretty easy to see. To identify. To embody. I’d been all of them at some point. Back then, I didn’t realize fully that deception wasn’t really about lying. More about just showing people what they already wanted to see. Telling them what they already wanted to hear. And letting them form their own assumptions.



* * *



The next week when I walked into the store, Jordan Stone said hi to me at once. Asked me what I was reading. I showed him. Spawn #1. Then I went and sat cross-legged in my usual spot in the corner. Read quietly. When he came over to me an hour later, he was clearly nervous. “Hey,” he said.

I looked up at him. “Hey.”

“I’m Jordan.”

“I’m Ashlee,” I said after a second.

He shuffled a foot nervously and scratched his jaw. “Look—I was wondering. If … like, if you wanted to maybe get a burger or something. If you have time, I mean.”

“Like, together?”

He shifted his weight. “Yeah. If you want.”

I thought for a few seconds. “When?”

The question seemed to catch him off guard. He stammered a reply. “Um, I mean, like, tonight, if you’re around. Or some other time.”

I bit my lip and fiddled with a strand of unfamiliar black hair. “Uh, yeah. I could do that, I guess. But I gotta be home early. I have class tomorrow.”

Jordan Stone smiled. A genuinely happy smile. He nodded. “Yeah. Same.”

He was shy. We went on three dates before he tried to kiss me. I’d been bracing myself for it. We had hung out at the arcade, played Skee-Ball and video games, won long chains of red paper tickets that we’d used to buy little trinkets that China probably pumped out by the trillions. We walked to the parking lot together. Paused by the old Ford truck that I happened to know was registered to his father. I saw the tense mix of desire and fear in his face and he said, “Well, anyway, see you around.” I nodded, and as I did he leaned over and put his hand gently on my hip and his lips found mine.

It took everything I had. The blood pounding in my head with a sick dizzy feeling. But I let him do it. Let him kiss me. Even reciprocated, slightly. He stepped closer. I could feel his thin frame against me. His pulse against mine. He was hard. I felt it against me. Thinking about that possibility, I thought it would make me sick. Instead I just felt a strange dispassion. Noticing it without feeling it. Feeling it without feeling it.

After an infinite moment I pulled away. “I should go.”

“Okay,” he said.

“’Night.”

“’Night, Ashlee.”



* * *



I had to be careful. There was a balance. He had to like me. Had to want me. Had to trust me. But not to the point that he’d start telling people about this new, black-haired comic book girl in his life. Not to the point where he’d ask me to come over for Sunday supper so he could introduce me to his parents. Not to the point where he’d ask me to hang out with his friends. Not to the point where we ended up in a bedroom together.

So I chose the third week. Starting from when he’d kissed me in the parking lot. The third week of going to the arcade or the movies, once driving into San Francisco and getting pizza in North Beach, making out in his truck and letting him feel me up with increasing excitement. He liked me a lot, by then. I could tell. It was obvious.

Why wouldn’t he?

I was perfect for him.

“We should go somewhere,” I suggested one night. Sitting next to him in his truck. We had parked by a quiet overpass up in the hills. It was a clear, cold fall night. Below us I could just hear the traffic on the freeway. The windows had fogged up and for a while we had been making out without saying much.

“Where?” he asked.

“My family has a house a few hours from here. Between Tahoe and Reno. A ski place. They come up in the winter but it’s empty now. We could go hang out there,” I said meaningfully.

I could see his eyes. Thinking. Wanting. Desiring. “When?”

“Why not tomorrow? I have off from work and I don’t have class.” As far as he knew, I waitressed part time and was enrolled at Cal State East Bay down in Hayward.

The thought seemed to scare him. “I gotta work.”

“So ditch. Call in sick.”

He shifted his weight, looked away, uncomfortable. “Look, Ashlee—I’m not really supposed to go out of the state.”

It was the first time he’d mentioned that. I asked the logical question. “What are you talking about? Why not?”

He shook his head. Still looking away from me. Out the window. “I got in some trouble a long time ago. I’m supposed to stay local.”

“Oh,” I said. “Never mind, then. Just an idea. Anyway, I should get home.”

He started the engine. We pulled back onto the road. But the hook was there.

The next day, when I saw him, he was in a good mood. He smiled. Kissed me. “You know what? Let’s do it.”

“You’re sure? You won’t get in trouble?”

“Let’s go. It’ll be fun. If we leave now, I’ll just miss work tomorrow. Not a big deal.”

I held his hand in mine. “I guess if you’re missing work I can skip class. I’ll drive.”