I’m left standing stunned in my living room, trying to make sense of his words through the haze of frustration in my head. He cares about me? Since fucking when?
Furious, I sprint to the door and swing it open, emerging into the hall and yelling at the back of his spiky head. “Where the hell are you going?”
“What do you care?” he shouts back without bothering to slow down.
“JOEL!”
His shoulders tense before he whirls around and shouts back, “To get shit to fix your stupid door! Is that a problem?”
When he walks away from me again, I chase after him. A million questions are warring for priority on my tongue, but the one I shout at him is, “Why?! Why do you care all of a sudden, Joel? You never cared about me before!”
In a second, his body spins and pushes me against the wall. His eyes blaze the color of butane flame, and my chin tilts high to hold their heated gaze. His bandaged hands lift from my shoulders to cradle my cheeks, and then he says in a voice so serious it gives me chills, “Because I saw what he did to you and I almost fucking killed him, Dee.”
The fire in his eyes steals the oxygen from my lungs as he searches my face for a fleeting moment. I want to kiss him. I want to rise on my toes and kiss him for doing everything I just yelled at him for, but before I can, his lips smash against mine.
My fingers claw over the thin fabric covering Joel’s hard shoulders, which flex under my touch when he wraps his uninjured arm behind my back and lifts me off my feet. Using that single arm, he carries me back to my apartment, and I cling to him the entire way. We tumble onto the couch, our need for each other desperate and consuming, a blur of kissing and touching that overwhelms me until I’m launching myself off his lap.
Out of breath, I toss a hand up when he begins rising to his feet to reclaim me. I want to tell him I’m not ready. I’m not ready to give him or anyone else what Cody wanted from me. And I’m especially not ready to give it to Joel when something has obviously changed between us, and whatever that is feels terrifying.
He sits back down, waiting for me to explain. When I don’t, he simply reaches out to take my fingers in his, gently coaxing me forward until I crawl sideways onto his lap. I tuck my cheek against his chest, and he holds me tight against his heartbeat.
“I’ve always cared about you, Dee.”
“Stop saying that,” I demand, but my heart isn’t in it.
“Why?”
Because you don’t mean it. Because I need someone to mean it. Because I hate that I need that. “Just stop.”
“No.”
“Please.”
“No.”
Frustrated, I pull away from him and slide to the opposite end of the couch. “You can’t really care about someone you don’t even know, Joel.”
He glares at me and says, “I’m willing to bet you know my favorite color, food, and band.”
Green, mozzarella sticks, and the Dropkick Murphys. I bristle and say, “So what? That would only prove I know you, not the other way around.”
“Purple, ice cream, and Paramore,” he says, and my anger bubbles to the surface when he gives all the right answers.
Crossing my arms over my chest, I nod my chin at him defiantly and say, “Big deal. You act like any of that shit means anything.”
Joel shifts to face off with me. “What it means is that we’ve spent enough time with each other to know those things, Dee. How are you going to sit there and seriously act like we don’t know each other? We spent Valentine’s Day together, for God’s sake.”
“All we did was have sex!” I protest.
“What about after that?”
I throw my hands in the air because he’s clearly insane. “Had more sex!”
Undeterred, Joel growls and says, “BETWEEN ALL THE SEX, DEANDRA!”
I glare at him while I think back, and then I remember, “We ordered pizza.”
“And?”
“And watched Lifetime movies.” That night, between all the sex, we’d sat shoulder to shoulder on the couch, with a box of pizza half on Joel’s lap and half on mine, criticizing the movie characters. We gave them horrible relationship advice that made us both laugh until Joel had a stitch in his side and I had tears in my eyes.
When the corners of my mouth slowly tip up at the memory, Joel returns my smile, his eyes brightening like he’s remembering too. “How many girls do you think I’ve sat around watching Lifetime movies with?”
When I don’t answer, he tugs my legs over his lap and says, “Look. It’s not like you ever really wanted me to be your boyfriend, so stop acting like you’re pissed off I didn’t want a girlfriend.” I open my mouth to say something I haven’t quite figured out yet, but he cuts me off. “You just wanted me to chase after you like every other guy who ever lays eyes on you, and then you would have dropped me just like the rest of them.” I would argue if I could, but I can’t, so I don’t. When I try to pull my legs away, he tightens his hold on them. “I’m not going to do that. I’m never going to do that.”