Fuck him. Fuck him and everyone else at this damn party.
She lifted her arm to throw again, and I knew she’d miss before the ball even left her hands.
"Who taught you how to throw?" I moved to the side of her, and she looked up at me with an annoyed glare.
"My mom." She attempted to line her arm up again. "My dad wasn’t really in the picture, remember?"
"Lower your elbow," I instructed her and nodded when she did what I said. "Don’t just fling your arm forward. Use your shoulder." I showed her what I was talking about with my own arm, and she watched. I could see a small amount of tension melt from her shoulders as she focused on what I
was saying.
She practiced the movement a few times. "There you go." I took a step back and watched as she lined herself up again.
She looked over at me one last time before she threw, her lashes hitting her cheeks, and I could have sworn she wanted to say something. But she didn’t. She threw the ball as I had shown her, and it landed with a small thump in the first of the four cups.
She jumped up, shocked by her own ability, and when she smiled over at me, I felt like my chest was going to explode.
She tucked her hair behind her ear and looked away from me quickly as if she had a lapse in judgment, and I took my seat back by her side.
Will and his friend ended up winning, but she played much better after my small throwing lesson.
"You playing the winner?" She turned toward me and hiked her thumb over her shoulder toward Will. She had to drink far too many cups of beer since she lost the game, and I could tell that she was feeling a little buzzed.
"No." I shook my head and leaned back in the chair. "I only wanted to play with you."
She took a step toward me and her knee bumped into mine. I wasn’t sure if it was by mistake or on purpose, but I wanted to reach out and pull her closer to me.
"I could play another game. Beat you with my new moves." She smirked down at me, and I knew she was trying to get under my skin.
"You don’t think I’m better than Will?" I arched an eyebrow, but that playful smile fell from her lips.
"No." She shook her head. "From what I can tell, you are so much worse."
She was right. I was nothing like him. He would be good for her. A guy like him would be the right choice, but I didn’t care.
"But here you are talking to me instead of him."
She stared down at me, and I knew that she was seconds from walking away from me. She was seconds away from telling me to go straight to hell.
"I’m sorry." I leaned forward and reached out for her hand. It was lax in mine, but I held on to her fingers. "Being an asshole is kind of a reflex."
"I can see that." She didn’t pull her fingers away from mine, though. She let her soft skin settle in my rough fingers.
"Can we go somewhere and talk?" My fingers tightened around hers, and
I could see the flash of uncertainty in her eyes. She wanted to, but she didn’t.
She wanted to be around me, but she also wanted to run so fast in the opposite direction.
"I don’t think it’s a good idea." She looked to her side before her gaze slid back to me.
I held up my hand that wasn’t holding hers in defense. "Just to talk. I promise."
She chewed on her bottom lip, and it took everything inside of me not to tug it free from her teeth.
"You get three minutes." She held up three fingers and wiggled them in front of my face. It was three minutes I was willing to take.
She let her fingers fall for mine and walked away from me. I stood and quickly followed her, no idea where she was going, but she pushed to the back door before I had a chance to question her.
There were a few people mingling out in the backyard, but it was much quieter here than inside the house. Suddenly, I felt nervous with her.
I felt like a fucking pussy.
I had been able to do all those things with her, to her, without an ounce of fear of repercussions, but as I stared down at her with her sad eyes and her hair whipping slightly into her face, I knew that I couldn’t fuck this up.
I wouldn’t get another chance with her. I didn’t deserve the moment she was giving me.
And even though I knew this wasn't a conversation we should be having while she was buzzing off alcohol, I was fearful she wouldn't give me the opportunity again.
She crossed her arms in front of her and looked down at her shoes. "I really don’t understand what you would have to talk about."
My heart raced as she looked back up at me.
"You haven’t let me explain."
She shook her head, and I knew that she didn’t care about what I had to say. She didn’t want to hear any other sorry excuses that left my mouth, and I couldn’t blame her.
"What’s your favorite memory?" I asked the first thing I could think of before she turned away and left me standing there like a fool.
"What?" She pushed her hair out of her face.
"What’s your favorite memory?" I repeated myself and looked around.
There was no one close enough to hear anything we were saying. I could
have asked her anything and it wouldn’t have mattered.
"It doesn’t include you." She huffed, and I laughed.
"I wasn’t expecting it to."
She rolled her eyes and walked over to the large tree that stood in the center of the yard. She kicked at the bark near the bottom before turning back to me. "My least favorite memory includes you, though."
"Ouch." I rubbed my hand over my chest. "You mean there isn’t like a broken bone story or a really bad stomach bug that outranks me?"
"Nope." She leaned back against the tree and stared at me. "You’re the worst."
I opened my mouth, but she quickly interrupted me. "I take that back. I won’t give you that much credit. Watching my mom die was the worst."
She said it so nonchalantly, and I had no idea what I was supposed to say to that. I could deal with her hate and her sass, but I didn’t know how to do this.
"I’m sorry." I tucked my hands into my pockets and her gaze followed their movement. "I bet your favorite memory is with her too."
A small, sad smile formed on her lips. "It is. It’s weird, though, because it isn’t some grand memory either."
"What’s it about?" I needed to keep her talking. When she was talking about her mom, she wasn’t hating me, and I felt like I could breathe.
"When I was about ten, she had set up this elaborate haunted house for me and my friends. Our whole house was decked out in strips of black trash bags and hanging ghosts that were probably twenty years old." She fidgeted but there was still a smile on her face. "I was so embarrassed at first, but my friends loved it. My mom had set up this entire murder mystery for us to solve, and we were scared out of our minds by the end of the night."
She looked up at me through her lashes.
"That’s stupid, right? That shouldn’t be my favorite memory."
"It’s not stupid." I took a small step closer to her, and she tensed. "It sounds like a great memory."
"It’s not even the actual memory of the night that makes me love it so much. It was just the way she cared. Ya know? I was being a brat because I was worried about what my friends would think, and she had cared enough to put so much effort into making that one night special."
She looked up at the long branches of the tree, and I followed her gaze to try and see what she was seeing.
"She was always like that, and I never appreciated her enough."