The Dare Collection: August 2018. Avril Tremayne

and I’m driving this time.” She twirled the keys. “You can come with me or you can follow me.”

      My jeans and T-shirt were okay to go out but I would’ve followed regardless. She stepped outside and hurried to the garage.

      “Lily, let’s talk about this—”

      “Let’s not,” she snapped. “And if you even think about physically restraining me, I’ll rip your balls off.”

      I believed her. But I still shook my head as I followed her to the garage. “No can do, baby. I catch the smallest sign of danger and I’m getting very physical. Count on it.”

      I let her glare at me for a full five seconds before opening the Mini’s door for her. She slid behind the wheel. Going around I said a prayer and contorted myself into the passenger seat.

      She drove fast without breaking limits and considerately without being a pushover. Me, she completely ignored. We passed several respectable cafés before she stopped at an upmarket bistro. She surprised me by bypassing the parking lot and heading for the drive-through lane. It wasn’t your average drive-through. Shiny food trucks displayed glorious baked goods, bacon, cheeses and everything in between.

      Two guys and a woman manned the trucks. The woman smiled when she spotted Lily. “Hey, girl.” She handed over two big paper bags with the bistro’s logo on it.

      “Thanks,” Lily replied.

      I deposited the bags on the backseat and reached for my wallet, but she was already driving away.

      In between ensuring I wasn’t blocking the blood flow to my legs and trying not to drool over her legs, I decided to maintain silence. Ten minutes later she pulled up to an abandoned lot with a tall wall erected on the south edge. She drove to the center, stopped next to a bench and turned off the engine.

      I stepped out with our food and looked around. “What’s this place?” I asked.

      “It used to be a drive-in theater.” She reached into the bag and started setting out the food. Bacon. Bagels. Cream cheese. Coffee.

      I had zero appetite but I accepted the coffee. She laced hers with cream and sugar, took a sip and set it back down.

      “Who owns this place?”

      “For now, the original owner. Next month, maybe me.”

      I nodded at the food. “Why the drive-through? Why here?”

      She stared into her coffee. Then shrugged. “Your guys didn’t have a chance to check out the bistro first. And I knew I could be alone here.”

      I. Not we.

      I waited a beat. “You’re pissed.”

      Her mouth firmed. “Give the man a prize.”

      My jaw clenched. “Enough. You’ve made your point with your little tantrum.”

      Anger flashed across her face. I watched her rein it in. “Fine. Talk to me, then, Caleb. Convince me I didn’t just sleep with an asshole who couldn’t even be bothered with conversation after he fucked me.”

      “Jesus...”

      “Leave him out of it. This is between you and me.”

      Absurdly, I wanted to smile. But her beautiful face was a picture of hurt she was trying to hide. I dragged a hand down my stubbled face. “Full confession. What we did kinda...blew my mind.”

      Shock replaced hurt, and then her expression slowly softened. After a minute she nodded. “Me, too,” she whispered, blushing fiercely.

      “Okay. Now that we’ve got that squared away, how can I make you feel...less pissed?”

      She grabbed a sliced bagel, tore a piece, but didn’t eat it. “I want to know you, Caleb. Tell me something.”

      I took a deep breath. “You know I grew up on the rough streets of LA.”

      Her hand trembled as she stared wide-eyed at me. “Yes. Was it after you lost your mom?”

      Christ. I weighed the option of evasion against the return of her hurt, and grimaced inwardly. “It was before. And after. She was a manic-depressive. The moments of light in her darkness were very few but for the first nine years of my life she had medical insurance and a decent doctor to prescribe her the right medication.”

      “Caleb—”

      My fingers brushed her lips, silencing her. “I don’t like telling this story. Let me tell it once and be done. Okay?”

      A small nod.

      My chest tightened as memories flooded in. “She lost her job and the domino effect of no insurance, losing our house, ending up at a halfway house, then a shelter, sent her into a deeper hole. I was eleven before we were assigned a place in Trenton Gardens.”

      Lily winced but I couldn’t let her sympathy affect me.

      “But it was too late. She’d lost the will to...” I took a breath. “I was the only thing she fought for. Every time social services tried to take me away, she would fight to keep me. I’ve no idea how she did it, but she won. But then she would spiral back into darkness. I couldn’t help her. I called every helpline I could find, wrote a dozen letters every week to anyone I thought could help. The doctors we managed to see were hopeless. Twice, she tried to end her life. Every time they sent her home from the hospital with a damn leaflet. I even pawned her jewelry to pay for an appointment with a private doctor. The pills he prescribed helped. When she ran out I called my social worker and asked her to help me get her more. She just...laughed at me.” Anger and despair I hadn’t felt in a long time swelled inside me. I withdrew my hand from Lily’s, clenched it in my lap and took another breath. “Anyway, she succeeded on her third attempt.”

      “Oh, God...”

      Tears spilled down her cheeks. I opened my mouth to tell her not to cry for me. Then stopped. I wanted her soft sympathy. It was a salve to a wound that had never healed. Shedding tears for my mother was one of the many things I hadn’t been able to do for her. Maybe Lily’s tears would be enough to let her know how sorry I was for failing.

      Lily got up, walked round and slid into my lap. “I’m so sorry.” Her arms circled my neck. I hugged her close, breathed in her goodness. And just like in the bathroom, I never wanted this moment to end.

      I never wanted to let her go.

      Which was crazy. We’d only known each other for a week. And...dammit, I didn’t do feelings!

      I looked around and grimaced. “Can we continue this at home?” I said, raising my eyebrow.

      For some reason my cocked eyebrow made her smile. “Too wide-open-spaces for you?”

      “Something like that,” I said, looking down at the table. “Breakfast is ruined, though.”

      She shrugged. “I wasn’t that hungry anyway.”

      I scowled. “A woeful waste of good bacon.”

      Her smile widened as she stood up. “We have bacon at home,” she suggested.

      Unable to keep my hands off her, I grabbed her and trailed my hands up her thighs. “Is there an offer in there?”

      Her fingers tunneled through my hair, gently massaging my scalp. “If you want. But I don’t break out my culinary skills for just anyone.”

      I caught a trace of pain through the flippant words. “Why not?”

      Green eyes darted away, then came back. “Stepdaddy issues. In return for him...tolerating me, I had to cook for him. It made me hate cooking.”

      I caressed her damp cheek. “He doesn’t deserve your love. Or your pain.”

      Her eyes misted. “It’s not easy to brush it off.”

      True.