by Zoey Derrick
Hesitantly, she slides inside.
I bite my tongue from saying something cheeky like, ‘you look good in my car’ as I close the door and walk around to the driver’s side and slide behind the wheel.
“This car is gorgeous,” she says with wonder and excitement as she takes in the interior. Her excitement is contagious and it makes me feel like a giddy school boy again.
“Can you drive?” I ask her.
“I can, I have my license. I just don’t.”
“Mind if I ask why?” My curiosity to know more about the adult version of Ireland is going to get me into some serious trouble if I keep this up. The question is simple and innocent, but I know if she starts talking, I’ll keep asking her questions.
She shrugs her shoulders. “Cheaper, I guess. I live half a block from the light rail. I can get anywhere I need to go within a few minutes, and cars are expensive to own.”
I press the ignition to start the car and watch her wide-eyed expression as the car starts with very little noise. It’s hard to tell the car is running but I slowly back out of the parking spot and head toward the highway.
“You do realize I live in the other direction, right?” she says with a smirk.
“I do, but this car is fully charged and ready to put some miles on the tires,” I tell her and turn onto the highway, going north instead of south which is the really long way around.
She giggles as I punch the pedal and the car goes flying up the ramp. “Wow,” she says in amazement. “I had no idea electric cars could go this fast.”
I just smile and drive while glancing at her wide-eyed expression every few seconds. It gives me a thrill to know something as simple as a car can cheer her up.
“Do you want to talk about what happened with your roommate?” I ask, curious to know what on earth she could have done to make her roommate leave her at the mall.
“Which time?”
I give her a raised eyebrow before returning my gaze to the road. “Today,” I tell her and I see her grin.
“Not really, actually, I’m not even sure what I did.” She sighs and settles into the seat. She looks out the front windshield at the road as she continues talking. “Becca isn’t exactly the most forthcoming person. She has no problem making you crazy begging for information, but when you want it from her, forget it.”
“I know a few people like that.” I look very poignantly at her.
Her head turns toward me and then back to the front. “She said some things that were very hurtful to me, and no, Mr. Pushy-Pants, I’m not going to tell you what it was. Last night I really opened up to her for the first time since I’ve met her.”
“About?”
“You,” she whispers and my head snaps to her and back to the road.
“Why me?”
“Well, why not you? First, the day I figured out who you were I completely ignored her. Didn’t talk to her or even want to tell her anything at all. Second would be the night at the bar. I’m pretty sure she’s still pissed at me – though I think it has more to do with whatever happened between the two of you.” She pauses but I don’t comment on what I did in the bar or what happened after she left. I get the impression Ireland doesn’t know the details of what happened between her roommate and me. Though what Becca did is no excuse, I didn’t exactly give her any other impression because I was determined to spark something inside Ireland and I certainly did that. I was ignorant to the idea of her already knowing who I was. .
“Will it help if I apologize?” I ask.
“I have no idea why you would be apologizing.”
“Because I did it on purpose.”
“You…” she huffs, folding her arms over her chest as she pouts. It’s quite possibly the cutest thing I’ve ever seen.
I smile. “I did it on purpose, but the thought never occurred to me that you had already figured me out. When did you figure it out exactly?”
She unfurls her arms and starts fidgeting with her hands. “The day after the interview. I’d gotten called for my drug test and it got me thinking about the last time I smoked pot.” She pauses, turning to look out the passenger side window. “It was the summer before you left.” Her voice is soft, small, and pained. It’s hard to believe after all these years, what I did to her still hurts her. Then again, it still hurts me. It’s made worse by the fact it continues to bother her. “That’s when I put two and two together. All the things clicked into place and I sort of checked out for the rest of the day.”
“I knew it was you the moment you introduced yourself to Wellington,” I tell her softly. “I didn’t want to believe it could be you.”
She looks at me, her eyes are full of emotion and I can’t look at her anymore. She doesn’t say anything so I keep talking, “I knew there was something familiar in your eyes, your hair, but I couldn’t believe it was really you. The last name threw me for a loop. It took me until the next day to remember your middle name. Why do you use your middle name?”
The question I hoped she wouldn’t ask me comes to light. “Because it sounds better than Richards,” I say, omitting the details of why, when I lived in Joplin, my last name was Richards and not my real last name, which is Cole. I don’t have a middle name.
“I have to agree with that.” She gives me a small smile before turning to look out the window as we drive past Bell Avenue and the Arrowhead area.
“So, if you knew it was me, why’d you try and sabotage my interview? Tell Wellington he couldn’t hire me?”
I sigh. “I never wanted to tell you why,” I tell her honestly. “But if you go to work for Wellington, there is a strict no-fraternization policy between Wellington and their clients. You’d lose your job because Wellington can’t survive without me as their top client.”
“That’s awfully presumptive of you,” she tells me and I can’t help but smile.
“You’re in my car, are you not?”
“I’d be on a bus if you hadn’t stalked me to the outlet mall. How’d you know I was at that one?”
I laugh. “Because it’s the closest one to your house.”
“And to yours,” she tells me. So she did look over my card and not just my phone number.
“So tell me, is there a reason you didn’t want to get your clothes?” I decide we need to change the subject a little bit, it’s too heavy and I don’t want to continue down the path this conversation is going, not yet. I’d much rather be able to look into her eyes and tell her everything versus being distracted by the road.
Her eyes meet mine briefly before I have to look back at the road. “Yes, but I don’t want to talk about that either,” she tells me.
“That seems to be a common trend with you.” I smirk. “Any particular reason why?” Stop pushing her, dumbass, let her tell you on her own.
“Why I don’t want to tell you?” I look at her and nod. “Because I don’t know what good it would do to tell you.”
“It would let me know what’s going on in that pretty little head of yours,” I tell her as I look to her quickly then back to the road. I need her to know she can talk to me.
She snorts a laugh. “Because if I tell you, you’re going to feel like you need to fix it.”
“If it’s within my power to do so, I will,” I admit. “But I can understand why you wouldn’t want to. If I promise I won’t try and fix it, will you tell me?”
She laughs again. “No, because I know better than to trust you to stick to your word.” She slaps her hand over her mouth and her cheeks turn pink.
She’s right, of course. I haven’t exactly been the picture of honesty and promise keeping. “I’m not that boy anymore,” I proclaim.
Her hand comes away from her mouth. “I know, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that.” She takes a deep breath. “With mom dying and having to run back to Missouri so fast, the funeral and moving into the new apartment, my savings is depleted pretty bad,” She admits with a good bit of reluctance and I can understand why. “I didn’t expect an
y of that stuff to happen and I truly wasn’t prepared for it and now I have to wait to start at Wellington and get paid. I just, I thought I could afford to go shopping, but I really can’t. What if something happens with my job and I lose it, I have nothing to fall back on. Rent’s due, Becca is being a bitch and…” she stops ranting with a sigh, “I’m sorry, you don’t need to hear all this.”
“On the contrary, I think I do.” I smile at her. “This is the most you’ve said to me since I saw you last week and I truly appreciate your candor.”
“You promise you’re not going to try and fix it?”
“No,” I tell her. “I told you if it is something within my means to fix, I will do it. This is within my power to fix. Will you let me fix it?”
I’m giving her a choice- she can either let me fix it with her help, or she can let me fix it without it. There are plenty of things I can do without her permission to fix her problem, so the choice is hers.
“It’s not up to you to fix my life.” Her snarky tone has returned and with it, my tigress.
“I’m not trying to fix your life, Ireland. I’m simply trying to help you out of a tough situation.”
“By, what? Throwing money at me? Which you obviously have more than enough of. What makes you think I want your money?” Instead of fighting with her while driving, I pull off at the next exit and take a right, finding the parking lot of a gas station and I pull into it. Putting the car in park, I turn to her.
“No, I am not trying to throw money at you, but I can make sure you can go back and get those clothes you say you need. The Ireland I know isn’t fond of clothes shopping.” She scrunches up her nose. “I can see that hasn’t changed.” She rolls her eyes at me and I smile. “Had Becca not run out on you, you would have bought all those clothes, am I right?”
She nods and shares. “I thought I had it all figured out, until I hung up from the cab company when I realized what it was going to cost to get me home. I realized that I couldn’t do both and keep on eating for the next three weeks. Then I realized if I couldn’t afford to pay for clothes and a taxi, that I couldn’t afford to live for the next three weeks until I get paid.” The tigress has settled down some. I lean in and caress her cheek.
“Thank you,” I tell her, rather than irritate her again.
“For what?” she asks with narrowed eyes.
“For being honest and open with me.”
She turns her head, pressing her lips to my palm and she smiles. “So does that mean you’ll drop it?”
I smile and pull my hand away, throwing the car into reverse and I back out. “Nope.”
Chapter 20
IRELAND
“Say Something” - A Great Big World
I want to be furious with him about the whole clothes thing, but I can’t find it in me. Something in the back of my mind tells me he plans on rectifying the situation whether I want him to or not. Dyson Cole is a man who goes after what he wants; he’s also a man unwilling to give up so easily. He showed up at an outlet mall to see me because he knew I needed rescuing before I knew I needed to be saved. The insufferable jerk.
“What if Becca hadn’t stranded me at the mall? What would you have done when you got there?”
He laughs, “I have no idea. I thought maybe I’d take you out for lunch.”
“We have a lunch date tomorrow,” I remind him.
“Why don’t we push it up to today?” he asks me.
I give him a skeptical look. “Why?”
“Your plans have obviously changed and as much as I want to drag this out a little longer, I can’t wait until tomorrow,” he says as he turns onto Interstate 17 headed south. This is one way to get to my apartment but it’s also the same road to get to Fajitas. My stomach growls. “And you’re starving.” He smirks at me.
“I need to get Becca’s phone back to the apartment before she reports it missing or stolen.” Yup, because that excuse totally works. Uh huh, brilliant I am.
He shrugs. “She left you in the middle of the mall, and left her phone. She can suffer a little longer without it.”
I shake my head, and roll my eyes. “You’re impossible,” I tell him and he laughs.
“Sometimes, but you’re in my car, at my mercy, and I’m going to get some lunch. You can either sit in the car and wait for me, or you can come in and protest by not eating, either way I have your undivided attention. Or you can pull on your big girl panties and enjoy lunch with me today?”
“Are those my only options?”
He chuckles, “Yup, because the closest bus stop to Fajitas is about half a mile away.” He has a smirk on his face that screams, ‘gotcha’.
Fucker.
I cross my arms over my chest, pretending to sulk at him and huff a little. He sees right through my façade and laughs a little harder. I don’t know what on earth prompts me to do it, exactly, but I put my hand in his. He instantly sobers, his eyes wandering from the road to our joint hands. His eyes slide back up to the road and he brings the back of my hand to his lips and he kisses it. That little zing flies between us and the air in the car grows thick with something I can’t put a name to. Appreciation, apprehension, desire, I don’t know, but it’s so dense it would take a machete to chop through it.
I lean back in my seat, turning toward him, with our hands intertwined between us and watch him drive. It’s obvious he feels it too because he doesn’t say anything until we’re pulling into the parking lot. “Ever been here before?” he asks me.
I nod. “It’s one of my favorite places to eat when I need some space. It reminds me of home,” I tell him.
“Mine too.”
He climbs out of the car. “Stay there,” he warns as he closes his door.
Before I can think too much about why he wants me to stay in the car, he’s at my door opening it for me. As I climb out, I look at him in his half suit and think about my jeans, t-shirt and Converse shoes. I suddenly wish I’d been wearing something more elegant than I am. “You know this kind of chivalry is better served to a woman in a dress,” I tease him.
“No, it’s best when the woman is as beautiful as you are.” His voice is so smooth and without any type of hesitation. Oddly enough, I get the impression he’s never been this way toward anyone else. My cheeks heat from his comment. The back of his knuckles stroke gently down my cheek. “I like making you blush,” he teases and I blush an even brighter shade of red.
He chuckles and takes my hand, before ushering me inside. It’s early afternoon but post lunch rush, so there are only a few people in the restaurant. We’re seated immediately. He orders a beer, and I cannot resist a margarita from this place so I order one. I roll my eyes when the woman cards me and not him, he laughs.
After she returns with our drinks, he puts his elbows on the table and steeples his fingers under his chin. It’s a highly effective power move. “I believe you have some questions for me?” he asks me. My mind goes blank and I stare at him like he’s grown six heads. His power is palpable and his posture sends a thrill through me. Think what he’s capable of with that kind of power.
Finally, after gazing longer than should be legal into his blue-violet eyes, I breathe out, “Tigress?” As if I just asked a lengthy question.
He smirks before replying, “Why do you think I named my company, Tigress?”
I chuckle, finding the fog in my brain clearing as he pulls his arms down and relaxes. “Honestly? I have no clue.”
He smiles wider, “I’m looking at it.”
It takes a minute for his statement to register in my mind. ‘I’m looking at it’. “Me?” I point to my chest with my thumb. “You named your company after me?” I can’t even begin to stifle the shock I feel as the words leave my mouth.
His smile settles, but doesn’t leave his lips. “It was all I could think of when I started the company. I couldn’t get you out of my mind even then.” He winks at me. “Feisty, yet strong, sensitive yet powerful, quick and reliable and most importantly- fierce. That
’s what I was going for when I wanted to brand my company. You’re all of those things and that’s what I was thinking of when I was naming my company. You were my feisty, fierce tiger.” His eyes actually sparkle at that. Or it’s really good lighting at the right moment.
I let his words sink in while he takes a sip of his beer and I contemplate my next question, or rather, build up the courage to ask it. “When?” That’s all I manage.
“Just over four years ago.”
He looks into my eyes as he says this and my mouth falls open in shock. I don’t know what to say to him, but he doesn’t make me say anything, he simply continues with something I never thought I’d hear him say. “I said what I said that night, in the barn, because I needed you to hate me. I hoped it would be easier- my leaving, if you hated me for what I said. It ate me up inside every single day.” He pulls another long drink from his beer. My mouth closes but I feel like I need it open so that I can breathe better. “It turns out that the idea of you hating me was harder on me than I’d realized it would be before I did it.”
“Why?” I manage.
He gives me a sad smile. “Because I realized I was being forced to walk away from the love of my life.”
Chapter 21
Dyson
“Little Did You Know” - Alex and Sierra
“Why are you telling me this?” Tears fill her eyes as she questions me. “Why now? Why not back then?”
I have the answer for that, but I don’t know if she wants to hear it. If she’s ready to hear it. That’s when the waiter arrives, distracting us with food as she lays out the spread of sizzling meat, toppings and containers of tortilla shells. While the server does this, I observe Ireland closely, looking for any indication of her willingness or even her readiness to hear what I have to say. She polishes off her margarita and orders another one from the server. Her eyes are avoiding me and I realize if this is to go anywhere from here, I have to be honest with her. If I hold back on this part of who I am or why I am this way, she’ll never learn to trust me.
