Reluctantly, I let go of her hair.
“And what did the Dylan Brenner do for her twenty-first?”
“The Dylan Brenner?”
I shrug. “I figure people are going to call you that someday. After you’ve changed the world a few times. I’m just getting a head start.”
She says, “I don’t know that it’s really possible to change the world.”
“Then why go through all the trouble?”
She pulls her feet up into the recliner and balances her arms atop her knees. She did that in the jail cell, too, and I swear to God it’s like she wants to torture me. I try not to stare at the gentle curve of her thighs, not while she’s got this far-off, contemplative look on her face. She gazes just above my head as she speaks, like she’s somewhere else entirely. Or like maybe she’s explaining it to herself more than me. “Because once upon a time, someone went through the trouble for me. And I want to be that kind of person. The kind of person who fights for what I believe in even if I’m already beat. I don’t think I can change the world, but I can change one person’s world at a time. And that’s something.”
Her shirt still hangs off her shoulder, revealing the gentle slope up to her neck. She tilts her head to the side and shrugs, brushing off what she’s just said. My gaze gets stuck there, on the sun-kissed skin of her neck and shoulder. She looks so soft. Her whole personality seems too sweet, too good to be real.
Or maybe that’s my history. I only know how to expect the worst of people because it’s all I’ve ever seen.
“I think you’re something.”
Her lips pull into a small smile.
“Something ridiculous?”
“Something special. Where I come from people are more concerned with changing their own worlds than someone else’s.”
“And that’s bad?”
“It is when nothing ever changes. Each new scheme or plan always winds up just how you started. And all you’ve got is some messed-up cycle that does nothing but drain you a little more each time around. I think it would be easier to change the whole damn world than to change some people.”
She lays her head on top of her knees, and those big blue eyes lock on me, studying and sizing me up like I’m her next save-the-world project.
Oh hell no. Enough about me.
“You didn’t answer my question. What did you do for your twenty-first?”
She does another one of those deep-breath things where her whole body moves, and she looks out at the party, her eyes flitting between groups of people talking, drinking, and smoking. “Honestly? I went to dinner with my boyfriend.” Her eyes flick to mine. “My ex now. We had dinner and then went back to his place. That was about it.”
“No big party? No night out on the town with friends?”
She shrugs. “We weren’t really party kind of people.”
“You weren’t? Or he wasn’t?”
“You know,” she laughs. “I don’t actually know.” Her laugh is this pure, perfect thing. Everything about her is light. She makes it seem so easy, like I could just toss off all the bullshit and live in a bright shiny world just because she’s in front of me and that’s the world she lives in.
I want to forget myself in her, and maybe help her do the same with me.
“Well, you’re in luck, Pickle. Because you happen to be with an expert partier.”
I stand and slip one arm beneath her knees and band the other around her middle before lifting her up. She squeaks and wraps her arms around my neck.
“Excuse me,” I call out on my way to the kitchen. “Novice partier in the house!”
“Silas,” she groans. I dig my fingers into her side, and she jerks, squirming and squealing in my arms. “Oh my God, stop!”
“No groaning then. At least not that kind.”
She stills and the pink blush on her cheeks brings out her eyes even more, and who would have thought getting arrested would put me in a better mood?
I keep shouting until my way into the kitchen is clear, and then I sit her right onto the counter. People are staring, and I can see her noticing them all. Intent on distracting her again, I lean against her knees and am surprised when her legs move to let me rest between them.
Not so nervous anymore, are you?
I end up being the distracted one, too caught up in how I like the feel of her knees pressing into my sides. It makes me want to really be between her legs, to be pressed right up against her. Up on the counter, she’s the perfect height so that my head is just a few inches above hers. And if I tugged her to the edge, she’d be at the perfect height there, too. I plant my hands on the countertop beside her and lean in until all I can see are those wide, nervous, excited eyes.
“What’s your poison, Pickle?”
She frowns. “What will it take to get you to stop calling me that?”
“Stop answering my questions with other questions. Tell me how you want to belatedly celebrate your birthday.”
“I really don’t think I should.”
“Why not?”
“I just . . . alcohol leads to bad decisions. And I’ve already made enough of those today.”
“So we’ll get high instead.”
Her mouth opens on a surprised inhale, and goddamn her lips are perfect. Curved and full, and I’m thinking of all the other ways I could make her lips part like that.
“I can’t do that,” she says.