Sitting beside him, I stretch out my hand, offering him the other coffee. Theo takes it and smiles, and I have to look away. That stupid smile of his is lethal.
“I knew you liked me, hopeless.”
I shoot him a glare out of the corner of my eye, but it’s half-hearted. Something about the weekend always makes things lighter, including me.
“Don’t get used to it,” I mumble around my coffee as I take a sip. The liquid warms my throat, making life better in an instant.
“So,” Theo says, pointing at me with his mug. “Where should westart?”
“I don’t know. This was your idea,” I say, staring at a dandelion in my front yard. A bee buzzes around it, and I watch it, following it around and around because it’s easier than looking at Theo. I don’t let people get to know me—ever. Not the real me, at least. So, I don’t know how to do this, and it makes me feel out of control. And I guess being snarky when things feel out of control is easier than letting people in.
If he takes offense to my tone, though, Theo doesn’t show it.
“Tell me something about you I don’t know.”
I nearly laugh. I could write a book about everything people don’t know because I only show them the parts of me that are easy for them to accept. I don’t say that, though. Instead, I say, “There’s nothing to tell. I’m an open book.”
Theo’s snort catches me off guard, and I turn to look at him. He’s placed his coffee on the step beside him, humor lighting up his eyes, but there’s something more. Something sincere.
“Come on, Lily,” he says, using my real name, but I think I’ve come to prefer the other because when he says my name like that, it feels—real. Something we are decidedly not. “This won’t work if you don’t give me something.”
Pursing my lips, I blow out a slow breath. He’s right. Again. But it’s not like I’m trying to be difficult. I just don’t know how to open up when I’ve spent my whole life hiding.
“Fine,” I concede. “Maybe I’m not fully an open book, but I’ll answer your questions—the ones youneedto know, at least.”
I offer him scraps, but he doesn’t seem to care.
“Fair enough. Let me think,” he says, rubbing at his jawline. My eyes follow the movement of his fingers before I catch myself and snap them back to his. He’s watching me with a smile. There’s no way he missed that I just ogled him. Heat pools in my cheeks, butTheo snaps his fingers together, saving me from humiliation. “I’ve got it. Where did you grow up?”
My mouth falls open a little. “That question took you that long to think of?”
Theo shrugs. “Had to think of one you’d answer. Now answer.”
Chewing on my lip, I place my cup beside me, suddenly uninterested in it.
“A town a couple of hours from here.” It’s vague, but it’s an answer. Barely.
“Do you still have family around there?”
I immediately regret playing this game with him. It’s one thing to talk about me. It’s entirely another thing to talk about my family.
“Yes.”
“Do you still visit them?”
“No.”
“More than one-word answers, hopeless,” he growls, rotating his neck and popping it.
A sardonic laugh escapes me. It’s jaded, or maybe it’s just that I’m jaded. “I don’t know what you want me to say, Theo. Do you want me to tell you my childhood sucked? It did. Do you want me to tell you it was lonely? It was,” I rant. “The end. There’s the summary of my life. There really is nothing else to say.”
By the time my rant is over, I’m breathing hard, and tears burn my eyes, but I refuse to let a single one fall. I stopped crying over my childhood a long time ago.
Pity fills Theo’s eyes, and I pull mine away. Looking at him is too much.
“Lily.” My name on his lips will be my downfall. I’m sure of it. I close my eyes at the plea in his voice.
A rustling sound comes from his direction, but I still don’t open my eyes, not even when I feel his leg brush against mine.
