“Tough, because what if your idea turns out to be the Best Thing Ever and I would have missed it because I never thought of it.” He tears off a hunk of pizza with his teeth. “Like anchovies.”
I look at him a long second as he chews and a hot tingle runs under my skin. “So we’d do stuff from the list together?”
He nods as he swallows. “That would be the general plan. Call it moral support, call it peer pressure, all I know is we’re more likely to check stuff off the list if we’re both doing it.”
My heart starts to pound as the possibilities scroll in my head. “How are we going to do this?”
“A collaboration. We’ll each throw ideas out until we have a list, then we can rank them together.”
“How do you know I won’t put something like ‘lose my virginity’ on the list?” Heat radiates from my face, but I force myself to hold his gaze.
There’s a second that he just stares at me, but then his eyes grow softer. “I’d expect you would.”
For several beats of my racing heart, we sit here staring at each other, before he clears his throat. “I want to try one new food a week. And I’m open to suggestions,” he says, with a nod at the pizza box. “Your turn.”
“I have to come up with another one right here on the spot?” I say.
He cocks his head in a question, but then the light dawns in his eyes. “Ah…virginity. Right…” He pulls out his phone and starts typing it like it’s no big thing, then shifts and hooks an elbow over the back of the bench as he thinks. “Swim with dolphins.”
I nod. “That’s a good one. Put that on top.”
He raises his eyebrows as he shoots me a glance out from under those long, thick lashes. “Above virginity?”
All the muscles south of my waist contract. “I guess I’ll leave that up to you, since I’ve never done either.”
He types it in and tips his head toward me. “Now it’s your turn.”
“I want to get a tattoo.”
His eyebrows shoot up. “Really?”
I shrug it off, a little embarrassed that I said it now. “I’ve always wanted one.”
“Of what?”
I take another bite of pizza and chew.
Marcus takes my cue and devours the rest of his slice before reaching for another. “Let me guess. You want a naked woman across your chest. Or maybe the grim reaper down your side.” He takes a bite. “Or we could go super cliché and get a tramp stamp.” He lifts his shirt, exposing the small of his back. “What do you think? Prime real estate?”
God, yes. “I don’t know what I’d get, so I guess I’m open to suggestions too.”
“We’ll have to come up with something good.” He grins. “No flowers or hearts or anything girly. I’ve got a reputation to maintain, after all.”
“You? You’re getting one too.”
“It’s our bucket list, remember?”
“But you don’t have to get the same one as me.”
His gaze deepens. “Yes I do.”
There’s a second I can’t breathe as he holds me locked in those cinnamon eyes.
He blinks, as if suddenly waking from a daze, then shifts away from me and scratches his head.“I guess we don’t have to decide right now. I think you need to be eighteen, unless your Dad would okay it.”
When he says it, I realize why the shift in demeanor. The age thing. When we’re talking it’s easy to forget. But he obviously hasn’t.
“He went to an AA meeting tonight.”
I freeze for a second when I realize I said that out loud. I hadn’t meant to tell Marcus. I’m not sure why, but it feels safer if no one else knows. Like, when it all explodes in my face, at least no one had their hopes up.
“Listen,” Marcus says, pointing his pizza bone at me. “I know this is none of my business, but I could keep an eye on Bruce…if that would help.”
“He’s not your responsibility.”
His gaze grows intense. “He’s not yours, either.”
“He is.”
He shakes his head. “No, he’s not. You are responsible for yourself…for the things you can control. He’s not one of them.”
I sink deeper into the bench and lower my gaze. “You’re wrong.”
Because I am responsible for him being this way. And now I know that more than ever. He said Mom was his world. And I killed her.
“Explain how I’m wrong. Because the way I see it, he’s the adult.”
Irritation bleeds into his words and feeds the ball of frustrated anguish in my chest, making it so large I can’t breathe.
I spin on him. “Why does your father drink?”
He shrugs. “To escape from reality, I guess. I’ve honestly never asked.”
“What reality? What do you think he’s trying to escape from?” I push, my words becoming sharper.
“His work is demanding, but I think it’s more that he’s not comfortable relating to people. Even his own family. So he just checks out. Booze helps him do that.”