Fighting Solitude (On The Ropes #3)(59)

“Hang tight, and no peeking,” Quarry instructed when he cut the engine.

This time, he gathered all the bags of food and then pulled the blanket off my lap before he got out.

I blindly smoothed my hair down and ran my fingers around the outline of my lips to hopefully get rid of any lipstick that may have smeared at the drive-up.

I was so nervous I couldn’t even remember my mantra anymore. Something about an open mind and some other bullshit. However, it seemed like it was a lot more like open legs when I was with Quarry.

“What is wrong with me?” I asked myself over the loud music he’d left playing solely for my benefit.

I loved that he knew that about me.

I loved that I hadn’t felt awkward when opening my mouth for him to shove french fries in as we had driven.

I loved that, despite how uncomfortable I felt about being on this “date,” I was unbelievably comfortably with him.

Really, I just loved him.

And I hated myself because of it.

The cool air rushed through the truck as my door swung open.

“Okay. Come on.” He unbuckled my seat belt and then helped me to my feet. He held my hand as he guided me down the side of the truck. Then he stopped at the tailgate and used my shoulder to turn me away from it.

When he had me positioned just right, he stepped away. “Now you can take it off,” he announced excitedly.

I didn’t waste a second before pulling the blindfold from my eyes. Quarry was standing proudly in front of me with his hands shoved in his pockets. Looking every bit as tantalizing as he always was. I smiled shyly as he popped that dimple with a lopsided smile. I was so focused on his mouth that I barely registered the light of the bus station sign glowing behind him.

“I’ve never brought anyone in the world here before.” He rested his hands on my hips and swayed me forward.

I twisted my lips. “I’m not sure I’m excited to find out that the last place in the world you haven’t taken anyone else on a date is a bus station.”

“No. Smartass. You are the only person I’ve ever brought here.”

I arched an eyebrow in question. He shook his head with a smile and slid his hands under my arms, and then he lifted me to sit on the tailgate.

I expected cold metal, but I was met with a plush fleece blanket covering the bed of the truck.

It was cold, but he tugged his jacket off, draped it over the side, then settled beside me.

I bumped him with my shoulder. “Are you this romantic on all your dates? Or am I just that special?” I teased.

“Just you.”

“I’m assuming there’s a story here?” I motioned a hand to the bus station.

He went to work passing me food, leaving what was left of the fries at the bottom of the bag between us. “Yep.”

“You gonna tell me?” I asked before taking a bite of my hot dog.

He lifted a finger and then finished his dinner in three bites. After washing it down with a large soda, he winked and popped a mint in his mouth. “I should have taken you on our first date at sixteen.”

My smile fell, and I lost my appetite completely. Dumping my food in the bag, I became fascinated with the concrete parking lot.

He linked his hand with mine and settled them on his thigh. “This is the date I would have taken you on. I was a broke sixteen-year-old back then. But Till would have let me borrow his truck, and Eliza would have snuck me some money for dinner even if I hadn’t done my chores at home. I splurged on the roses, so you got chili dogs.” He smirked. “Even feeling you up at the drive-up would have happened, and I definitely would have brought you here. Because, if we were going out on a date back then, this place would have been the way I got you back.”

He stopped talking and turned to face me. Then he stole a boyish kiss that made me blush.

I nervously fidgeted with my dress as if I really were that fifteen-year-old girl in the back of his truck.

Quarry laughed then continued. “Two days after my sixteenth birthday, Till and I got into a huge fight because he wouldn’t let me get my driver’s license, seeing that I had a C in Spanish.”

“Y por eso deberías haberme mantenido alrededor,” I mumbled. (And this is why you should have kept me around.) “Showoff.” He bumped me with his shoulder. “Anyway, I took off. Wandered around aimlessly with no place to go. I was on foot, so it wasn’t like I could make it far, but I refused to go home. I ended up here.” He pointed to a bench just outside the door to the run-down terminal. “I sat there for hours, watching people as buses came in and out. It was crazy, but I started trying to imagine what those people’s lives were like. Were they better than mine? Worse? Did they also have to live under the tyranny of an older brother who actually cared about their grades?”

He shook his fist in the air in humorous defiance. Then his face turned serious again, and he squeezed my hand impossibly tight.

“Did they have parents who loved them instead of abandoning them? If not, did they have a woman like Eliza in their life who, at only twenty-one, became the surrogate mother she didn’t have to be? No? What about a brother like Flint who spent his childhood making sure they were fed and clothed? Were they happy? Did they have a little brown-eyed girl who’d stolen a piece of their soul at ten years old?” His voice was thick, and he paused to swallow. “And, if they did…did they fail them all too?”