by Faye, Amy
"I don't know. Are you sure? I just figured that you meant—"
"Look. Emma. Don't worry about it. I said it's fine, and I meant it's fine."
She likes the way that he sounds sure. He sounds like it's no problem. She likes the sound of it, but she doesn't like the idea of it, because nobody is ever really that sure. He's pretending to be sure, maybe. Or maybe he thinks he's sure.
In the end, though, it's not her money that she's spending. It's his. If there were strings attached, he didn't seem like the kind of guy who would just leave that little tidbit out of the explanation, but…
Even still. There was a big gap between saying 'it's fine' and getting a check where someone spent ten dollars of your hard-earned money on themselves.
She sinks into the seat and feels the wind blowing her hair all around her head. It's a nice feeling. Like she's flying. But she just can't shake the thought.
Eventually, he's going to realize that he's made a big damn mistake. And then, she's going to be out, who knows how many dollars. She should have turned him down. She should ask him to turn around right now.
The temptation, though… it gnaws at her. It holds her mouth shut. Where ever she's going, it's going to be better than anything she's had before. It's going to be an adventure.
And it's not going to be a little adventure, like getting to sit in a convertible, with the top down and everything.
That was an adventure for babies. The car isn't that great, she reminded herself. It looks like it's older than her. That's a little adventure.
The old Emma, who never took any adventures at all, might have thought that a ride to McDonald's in a convertible older than her with shiny red paint was a big adventure. But a trip to someplace nice, the kind of place that the Westons go when they want to go somewhere… that's a real adventure.
It's the kind of adventure that she's suddenly realizing that girls aren't supposed to go wearing university tee-shirts and jeans.
They're supposed to wear dresses at nice places. They're supposed to wear tight-fitting dresses at nice places they went to with Craig Weston.
The thought that she doesn't have anything like that does indeed occur to her. Emma's face burns. She should tell him to turn around. Should, being the operative word. But the possibility of a real adventure, of a real drive, of a real…
Her brain stops short of the other 'd' word that comes to mind. It's not a date. She's not out on a date. She's not here to meet boys. She's a serious student. There will be time for guys later. There will be time for dating later, and time for dating men who really respect her as a woman. Not as some kind of piece of ass.
That doesn't stop the surge of emotion that comes over her at the very notion of going out, being seen across a table in some fancy place, across from Craig Weston. Was there any place in the state he could go and not have people recognize him?
Emma tries to sink into her seat even further. It's not going to happen; there's no more room to give. So she shuts her eyes and enjoys the feeling of her hair, blowing in the breeze.
There's going to be plenty of room to freak out, later. Plenty of room. Why on earth is she going to let herself freak out about it now? Right now, she's in a pretty car. She feels like she's flying down the street.
She's next to a pretty boy, and he hasn't been mean to her one damn time since she started tutoring him. Maybe she shouldn't let herself get her hopes up. Not everything has to be an adventure, after all.
She went through most of her life without any big adventures. What's another of her evenings worth if it turns out to be nothing?
But if it turns out to be something… a small voice in her head asks what the problem is with maybe just allowing herself to have an adventure after all, just this once.
After all, with the way that she's been bringing in money from selling her notes… maybe she can afford an adventure, just this once.
Chapter Sixteen
Craig kept his eyes on the road. It was easier that way. The temptation was too much, otherwise. The way that Emma wore all her thoughts right there on her face was too cute. It was too tempting to just sit there and watch her go through every damn permutation of apprehension, fear, and hope that he could think of.
Like she was looking for a whole new flavor or something.
As long as he kept his eyes on the horizon, only checking the mirrors enough to make sure some crazy son of a bitch wasn't about to plow into them, he could keep himself straight.
The hairs on the back of his arms pricked up. Too damn tempting indeed. He should know better. Should have been able to manage real easy. But he's not managing all that well, and he shouldn't have expected to.
The sign blows by that his turnoff is coming up. Check the mirror, ignore the girl in the corner of your eye. Pretend she's not there. Now isn't the time to get distracted. Signal. Ease the car over. Eyes back on the road.
It's strange to think about, that none of the other girls ever get into the car. Why would they? Where would he take them? He meets them on campus, they stay on campus. No problem.
Would there be a problem like this if he was driving with someone else? Was it just the dry spell catching him funny? Craig takes a deep breath. Whatever it is, doesn't matter. He'll get through it, no problem. Just as long as he keeps his eyes on the road.
Emma didn't ask where they were going. It's strange to think that maybe she's not questioning it. She seems like the kind of girl who questions just about everything, but now she's just letting him drive.
He allows himself a quick look over at her. She's doing alright. Closer to the doubt end of the spectrum right now, but it will swing back. She's already gone both ways more than a couple of times.
The route in his head isn't exactly fuzzy, per se, but that doesn't mean that he knows the easiest, quickest path to the place. He plays it out in his mind. A right up ahead.
Then a mile or two. He'll know it when he sees it. A left. It should be on the right. Okay.
He eases out the clutch and pulls away from the stoplight. Right turn. The car grumbles along beneath him, as if it's jealous of him paying any attention to anything else.
She's overdue for an oil change, but with everything ramping up the last couple weeks, he put it off. Maybe it's time to stop putting it off.
The route plays out the way he expected it to. No surprises. Which is good, because right now there's nothing that he wouldn't give not to look like a God damn idiot in front of Emma. Not after he said that he had someplace in mind, and acted like he knew it.
All he really knows is, they're supposed to have the best burgers in the state, and he went there once with his parents when they all came up to see the campus. Nice place, he figured. Perfectly alright.
The car eases to a stop. Craig pulls the hand brake, puts the roof back up, and pulls the keys. No problem. Right on time, right where he wanted to be. No problem at all.
Except for the girl next to him, who had been a constant distraction from the minute that he let her slide that gorgeous, tight-looking ass onto his leather seats.
Craig gestures for her to go on ahead. She looks like she's about to jump on a roller coaster, and she's afraid of heights. Like she's about to lose her lunch any second, and she knows it's coming.
Nothing that he can do about it, though. She'll get over it. She starts moving. No problem, see? He doesn't say anything. Just follows along behind. Easy.
He lets her get a few steps ahead. Not so he can watch her walk, of course. Just so that he can make sure nothing's going to be trouble.
That doesn't mean he doesn't watch her ass while she's walking, though, anyways. After all, no reason to waste the opportunity, right?
The place isn't crowded when they get inside. Pretty light crowd, but it's a Thursday afternoon, and it's not quite late enough for most people to have supper.
Craig smiles at the guy behind the host's stand.
"Name?"
"Craig," he offers. The guy writes it down.
>
"Just the two of you this evening?"
"Just two, yeah."
The guy writes that down, too, and then wanders off. No silverware, so Craig doesn't follow. Neither does Emma. She looks like she's scared absolutely stiff. Completely terrified.
Craig suppresses a smile. He shouldn't tease her, and he sure as hell shouldn't be nearly as amused by her terror as he is. It doesn't change how he's feeling, though.
"You alright, Emma?"
She jumps at the sound of his voice.
"What?"
"I was just asking if you're alright."
"Huh? Yeah. I'm fine."
She doesn't look fine. She looks as self-conscious as anyone he's ever seen. But he's not going to be able to change that. All he can do is just smile at the thought that she's freaking out, and hope she gets over it.
She will, eventually. In her own time. Until then, he's just going to have to let her do her own thing.
"You look nervous."
She blinks. "I'm fine."
"I know. But if you were nervous, then, you know, everything's gonna be fine, alright?"
"I know that," she says. Her expression changes. Now she's annoyed that he brought it up. He can't help smiling this time. It's so nice to be able to see every thought that goes through her head, right there. Right on her face, like she's announcing it for the whole world.
Now she's even more annoyed. Annoyed that he's smiling at her. He can almost guess the specifics of it, even. What does he think is so funny?
Nothing is funny, though. Just a pretty girl, whose face is fun to watch. Can't a guy enjoy that?
The host comes back. A girl follows behind him. She looks like she's been here longer than him. She picks up some silverware, a couple of menus, and starts heading off into the back.
As she walks, she talks. She's not flirting, but Craig's been around women long enough to know that she noticed him. She noticed how he looks. And she noticed that he's with another woman, so she's doing her best to not notice anything else, before she pisses someone off enough to hurt the tip.
"Have you two been here before?"
"I have. Once. She hasn't, yet."
The woman turns to Emma. "Welcome," she says. The woman launches into what seems like a prepared speech on every special on the menu. It's a short walk, but it's a short speech.
Craig lets her talk. He's just going to enjoy himself watching the way that Emma's face seems to light up with every single special the woman lists. Like every single one is a brand new surprise.
It's nothing unusual for a place like this, but then again… it doesn't take a genius to see that Emma's not used to places like this. Which only makes it all that much more satisfying as Craig slips into a booth opposite her.
The first words out of her mouth are quiet, and her voice sounds pinches and unsure.
"What do I get?"
"What do you want?"
Her face bunches up. That wasn't the answer she wanted. She wanted permission, and she doesn't seem to be understanding yet. Well, she'll figure out what he meant sooner or later. But first, she's going to have to realize that he's already given it to her.
Chapter Seventeen
The place was nothing like she'd expected.
It was hard to reconcile her image of Craig Weston, of the Weston family as a whole, with the place around her. It was even harder because the fact that they didn't have everything covered in gold leaf still made the place nicer than anywhere she'd ever been.
Nicer than any place she'd ever walked past, hell.
But then she'd settled in, and the waitress had brought menus, and… that was where the problems started in, because the menus had prices, and the prices were high. As in, 'too high.'
No way was she going to ask someone to pay for her food here. She'd get a water and a salad, but the salads by themselves were too high. At least as expensive as a meal at the Cafeteria.
Her jaw clenched and unclenched itself, just so it could give the clenching another try. The menu was one thing that she sure as hell didn't want to look at, which left looking around the room.
And then it left looking at Craig, who was watching her with unmistakable amusement. They both stayed silent as he watched her, until he looked ready to burst.
"Alright, Emma, what is it that's got you so uptight?"
The welled-up panic inside her threatened to rise up over her carefully-maintained walls and come spilling out onto the floor.
"Craig, we gotta go."
He sat back against the back of the booth seat.
"Why's that?"
Emma kept her voice low. Nobody was supposed to hear any of this. God. It was so humiliating.
"You didn't tell me that it was going to be so expensive!"
Craig flipped a menu open. His eyes went down the page.
"It's not that bad. Pretty reasonable for what you're getting, if I remember the portions right."
Emma's head felt like it was about to pop, and it felt like Craig Weston was squeezing it in the hopes that she'd freak out over every little thing.
"Craig, God damn it, no. This is too much. I can't—"
He leaned forward on his thick forearms, put his head down close to hers. "Come on. It's my treat."
What the hell kind of treat was he talking about? A twenty dollar treat is a little too much, and given how little they know each other—
"No, we have to go."
"Emma, come on. Relax. I've got plenty of cash. It's not a big deal."
Her teeth itch in her head, and all she wants is to get the hell out of here. To get away from eight dollar salads.
"Craig, come on. Please."
He smiles at her, a smile that would make other girls melt. It makes her melt a little, too, in spite of herself. "Emma, give it a rest. You're going to be fine. I can ask for a menu without prices, if it would make you feel better. They might have one, you never know."
That wasn't a relaxing thing to say. As if the place would stop being expensive if she didn't know that it was expensive.
"You can't buy me anything from here. What would my father say? Jeepers, Craig. No!"
Her fingers tap unconsciously on the table. Firmly enough that the tips are starting to hurt, which is when Emma starts to notice it. She lays the hand out flat on the table, hoping that will stop it. It does, for now.
"Look, if it makes you that uncomfortable…"
"Please!"
Craig pulls himself back upright and seems to consider it for a moment. Then he rises from the table and holds his hand out to her, to help her up. Emma doesn't take it. She doesn't need it. She can get out of a booth on her own, eight dollar salads or not.
Emma follows behind, her face as red as her hair. Craig stops the waitress as they head out.
"I'm sorry to have taken up your time. I forgot my phone at home. Have a great day."
He said it quickly enough that he barely had to break stride to brush off their quick exit, and more than that, he didn't once mention that the reason they'd left was that she was nervous about the prices.
Emma isn't sure how to feel about it, except that she had to admit that she liked the way that he took the attention off of her.
She follows him out the door and back to the car. He doesn't say anything until they're both nestled into the bucket seats. He turns to her, his arm reached across the seats, dangerously close to her.
Emma's extremely conscious of how near it is to wrapping around her shoulder. She's more conscious, though, of how close she is to not minding it.
"You okay?" He's wearing a reassuring smile, and in spite of herself, Emma is reassured by it.
"I'm sorry."
"Don't be sorry. I can go out any time, and you're always welcome to join me if you change your mind."
She knows better than to believe that. She's always known, though, that he was at least good at putting up the appearance of courtesy. It was just the sincerity that he has a hard time with.
"Do you kn
ow what you want to eat?"
"I dunno, just… someplace not too expensive."
She doesn't want to admit how panicked she got over those prices. Definitely not to Craig Weston, who probably peed money out. Emma knows better than to believe that he didn't pick up on it, though.
He starts the car up and eases it into gear. It purrs to life and starts moving. Within five minutes, they're back on the interstate, headed back towards campus. He pulls into an In-n-Out Burger.
"You had a burger here before?"
She hadn't. She didn't say so, but he seemed to get the gist pretty much immediately. It was becoming harder and harder to believe that Craig Weston wasn't a mind reader.
"You're gonna love it. Delicious. Wonderful. Don't look at the prices—they're all perfectly reasonable, but trust me when I say, you could've gotten whatever you wanted at the last place. Here, you could get two of whatever you want, if you like." He pauses a minute. "Not that you'll need it, of course. But anything's worth trying once, right?"
The thought makes Emma's face burn in embarrassment. More than that, though, she likes the thought of it. The sheer decadence.
It would be completely inappropriate, and she wasn't going to do it. But what if she could? What if she did? What would it be like, to have so much food that you had to throw some of it away?
The idea pulls her jaw tight again. She'd better not think too hard about it. It would be better just to get enough food, rather than too much. Better not to think about having too much at all, if she can help it.
Craig goes inside, Emma follows behind. It's not… completely different from any other fast food place. Not that Emma has had a lot experience with any of them, but it looks more or less like the older Burger King by the church back home.
Craig waits for her to look ready. It doesn't take very long. The menu's not massive. She turns to him and speaks real quiet.
"Could I get a cheeseburger and fries?"
Craig leans down to look her in the face.
