Bad for You (Sea Breeze #7)(26)

“She was really nice. I’m having lunch with her this week,” Blythe said, smiling, but I could see the nervous look in her eyes. “I mean . . . I hope that’s okay. I don’t mean anything by it. Just she asked me to go to lunch. She seems really nice and all, and I haven’t made any friends, exactly.”

That stung. I deserved it, but it still stung.

Her eyes flew open more, and she shook her head with a horrified expression on her face. Damn, she was adorable. “I mean. You, of course. I mean, I think we’re, I mean, you’re, I mean, uh. I know you’re a . . . friend . . . kind of . . .” She stopped trying to make sense of her ramblings. Then she pressed her lips together and dropped her eyes toward the table.

I had f**ked with her head, running off like I had. Most girls would have shown up at my door demanding attention. Blythe had just accepted my absence and gone on with her life. She didn’t demand anything of anyone. Girls who looked like her usually used their beauty as weapons. She didn’t make any sense. She acted like she deserved to be treated poorly.

“About that,” I said, knowing I needed to apologize. She didn’t lift her eyes to meet mine. “I’m sorry I ran out on you that night and that I haven’t been by to see you since. I had some shit going on in my head, and I was worried. . . . I just didn’t know. . . . Fuck.” I needed to just say it. Get it out there. “I didn’t want you to get the wrong idea about what we were doing. About why I was showing up with dinner and coming around so much. You’re not the . . .” I wasn’t going to say she wasn’t the kind of girl I f**ked because it sounded wrong. “I like being around you. You make me smile and I like that. I missed you these past two weeks and I would still like to be your friend. If you would consider me as a friend, that is,” I finished.

She lifted her eyes to meet mine, and the relieved look in them told me all I needed to know. She didn’t want more than a friendship with me anyway. I wasn’t going to hurt her. She knew she was too good for me. Even if she seemed completely in the dark about her beauty, she knew I wasn’t the kind of guy she deserved.

“I’d like that. I have fun with you too. And I missed you. I don’t expect anything other than friendship.”

The plate of pancakes I ordered was set down in front of me, and the same exact order was set down in front of Blythe. There was no way she could eat all that, but I figured what she didn’t finish I would.

“This looks really good,” she said, grinning, and then a giggle escaped her lips. “I can’t believe they have whipped cream on them. And peanut butter.”

I winked at her before picking up my fork and knife. “Sweetheart, if pancakes don’t have whipped cream and peanut butter on them, then they aren’t worth eating.”

She licked her lips, causing me to almost drop the damn forkful of gooey goodness into my lap. The fantasies I’d had about her tongue. Shit! I had to get a grip.

“I’ve never actually had pancakes,” she admitted.

This time I did drop my fork.

Chapter Nine

BLYTHE

Pastor Williams hadn’t called me in the month that I had been gone. It wasn’t that I expected him to, really, because we had never talked much, but then again he had been my guardian for my entire life. Did he not care if things were working out for me? Or was he just glad that I was gone? More than likely, it was the latter.

I only had one photo from my childhood, and it was one a teacher had taken of me with my classmates in the fourth grade. She gave each student a copy in a heart-shaped frame for Valentine’s Day. I was never given a phone with a camera, and things like Facebook were off-limits to me. If Mrs. Williams had ever seen me doing anything like that, I would have paid for it.

Looking around my apartment, I realized there was a coldness to it. I had nothing to show for my life. Nothing to remember it by. I wanted memories that I could cherish. There was no reason to be sad because of my past. What I needed to do was focus on my life now. I had friends now. I also had a phone with a camera, and a laptop.

When I walked in the door, I wanted there to be photos of people in my life that made me smile. I wanted to see moments I would always remember. If I didn’t want to be different, then I needed to learn how to live like a normal person. I had thought coming here, that hiding out in my apartment and writing, was all I wanted to do.

I knew now I had been wrong. I hadn’t known about the things in life: like how good a kiss felt or how nice it felt to be held by someone. I had never had someone tell me about themselves and listen to me talk in return. Having had a taste of both, I wasn’t willing to go back to being that girl who closed herself off from the world and everyone who might hurt her.

* * *

I was also pretty sure that Mrs. Williams had been wrong about me. People liked me here. No one cringed or whispered about me when they saw me coming. Oftentimes people would turn to look at me and smile. They didn’t see the ugly evil that Mrs. Williams had always claimed was inside me. I was almost convinced she had been lying. She hated me because of my mother, but I wasn’t a bad person. Good people liked me. No one treated me like I was a walking sin.

* * *

Just maybe I was worthy of love.

Krit had taken me to breakfast yesterday, and we had then gone for a longer ride on his motorcycle along the beach road. When we had gotten back, he had come inside and we had talked about my classes. He had read me the lyrics of a song he was writing and asked me what I thought. It was late afternoon before he left to get a nap before his performance that night.