Bad Impressions (Revive Me #1) (25 page)

I turned to see my mom climbing in.

“Fuck, Mom,” I complained as she slammed the door shut and hastily fixed her ankle-length skirt as she shifted her weight to face me.

“Brad,” she admonished. Yeah, she wasn’t a fan of my party mouth. What mother would be?

I grunted an apology and took another drag. I blew the smoke out the window, but she still waved her hand towards me, making a show of wafting it away.

“This is
my
truck, Mom.”

“Fine,” she huffed.

“So?”

She raised her eyebrows at me.

Really?
“Why did you barge on in here?”

“You’re in a bad mood,” she commented, looking me over with a mixture of concern and hurt, because of my dismissive attitude.

“I’m sorry. Yeah, I’m a little stressed, I guess.”

“About Sophie Clinton.”

It wasn’t a question. It was a statement.

How did she know we were having issues? I hadn’t told her anything. She didn’t expect me to either. She knew I didn’t discuss my feelings, or my relationships, if I could avoid it.

“Yeah,” I admitted hesitantly. “And busting my ass trying to get all my shit together.”

“You got the scholarship,” she pointed out. “Wasn’t she excited?”

“I haven’t told her yet.”

“Oh, Brad!” she groaned, shaking her head with disappointment.

“I’m gonna tell her everything today. Relax.”

“You’ve waited so long. Why?”

I tossed my cigarette out the window, too irritated to even continue smoking, and blew out a breath. “Things have been one nightmare after the other lately. Ollie finding out. Getting fired from the pub. Soph’s ex stirring up trouble. The time hasn’t been right. But now it’s running out. I’m here to pick her up and
show
her everything.”

She smiled with relief. “Okay. Well, good. Good.”

I saw that familiar look in her eyes that told me she was holding something back. She had more to tell me. It was like pulling teeth with her sometimes.

“Mom, for the love of God, just say it.”

Her eyes met mine and the look there was intense, willing me to listen to every word that was about to come out of her mouth. It was the look she always gave me when she was about to impart some mother-to-son wisdom.
Christ, what the hell is it?

“You’re holding on too tight, Brad.”

“I’m…what?”

“To Sophie.”

Oh.
“She…told you that?”

“I overheard a conversation earlier. With her and Tiffany.”

Shit
. I knew Soph had been having some reservations, but I’d thought she’d mostly just been pulling that stubborn-ass crap of hers to make her point by busting my balls and being painfully distant.

But with her expressing it to Tiff, it was clearly a hell of a lot more than I’d realized.

“I’ll fix it.”

“You will?”

“Yeah. I know what she’s really worried about.”

Mom looked hard at me then. “Is it something she
should
be worried about, Brad? Because, you can’t lie to her and appease her, just to keep her.”

“Jesus Christ. Do you really think I’d do something like that? No, she’s just reading into some things too much in light of her experience with her ex. But it’s just like you said: I’m holding on too tightly.”

“You need to communicate better, Brad. You need to try harder here. She’s younger than you and very naïve with men. She needs reassurance and for you to take the lead, to guide her.”

I grinned. I wrapped my arm around her shoulder and kissed the top of her head. “Thanks for having my back.”

“I want you to be happy and this girl is the push that you needed.”

“Yeah, I know,” I agreed, releasing her. I reached for the door of my truck. “Now, are you gonna let my girl end her shift soon?”

I climbed out of the truck and joined her on the passenger side. I helped her down and she told me, “She already finished ten minutes ago. She’s in there talking with her brother.”

I tried to quell my anxiety. Ollie showing up at the bookstore to talk to Soph? That couldn’t be good. And with recent events still fresh in my mind, it concerned me. Was he giving her shit about us again? He’d seemed to finally accept our relationship, but maybe he’d had a change of heart.

Fuck this
. I started towards the bookstore.

“No bulldozing. That will just make the whole
holding-on-too-tight
thing that much worse,” Mom called after me.

I drew in a deep breath. “I’m calm. Calm, Mom.”

She muttered something as she followed me inside.

We didn’t get very far before we heard the fireworks between Soph and Ollie coming from somewhere on the mezzanine level. I couldn’t see them, so they had to be arguing it out in the stacks somewhere. But I could sure as hell hear them. The two of them were extremely loud when they argued.

“You are unbelievably judgmental, Ollie!”

“Sounds like you’re being the judgmental one right now, Soph!”

“You made her feel like trash. My best friend. Just because she enjoys life.”

“You mean ‘whores around’?”

“She just goes after what she wants.”

“Yeah. Every guy she comes into contact with. I’m not gonna be another one of her conquests.”

“Oh my God! You sound like a woman!”

“You know what I mean.”

“This is different.”

“How?”

“She’s been into you since high school.”

“What?”

“Yeah, I figured you didn’t know. You’re always too wrapped up in your own crap to notice anything. You didn’t even notice me and Brad hooking up that night a year back, right under your nose.”

“Don’t even go there. If I’d known—”

“Oh, get over it.”

“I am over it. Doesn’t mean I wanna hear about my best friend fucking my sister. Keep that shit far away from my ears.”

“Ditto about you and Tiff.”

“You brought it up. You called me here just for that reason!”

“Just…talk to her.”

“Soph, it’s done.”

“Ollie, don’t just dismiss her, because you’re scared.”

“Scared?”

“To feel.”

“Don’t even—”

“You always have been, Ollie. Just…try. Okay? I want you to be happy.”

“I’ll…I’ll give it some thought.”

“Good. That’s all I wanted.”

A second later Ollie came storming out of the
Classics
stacks. Soph followed a ways behind and called after him, “Thanks!”

He muttered some curses under his breath as he hurried down the steps to the ground level. He caught sight of me and Mom and blanched, obviously realizing that we’d just overheard the fight.

“Kate,” he said politely. “Brad,” he added with a chin lift. And then he brushed past us and pushed through the exit.

Soph made her way down the steps, her eyes straying to me. She seemed detached. “Brad,” she greeted with a barely-there smile.
Clearly, she’s still really pissed at me.

“You ready to go?” I asked in an effort to cut through the weird tension between us.

She nodded and approached.

“Well, you two lovebirds have fun,” Mom said, before bouncing off to her office.

That made Soph chuckle. “She’s so sweet,” she commented as she reached me.

“She knows it too,” I said, reaching for her hand.

She took it hesitantly and I led her out of the bookstore.

“Are you and Ollie okay?” I asked as we walked towards my truck.

“Yeah. Fine.”

“Wanna talk about it?”

“Nope.”

She hauled open the passenger door and climbed inside quickly, before I even had the chance to step forward and help her.

She slammed it closed and started buckling her seatbelt, not bothering to even look at me once, before she sat back and closed her eyes.

Shit
.

I had my work cut out for me.

She was busting my balls big time.

Fucking lovely.

Chapter 32

~Brad~

“
This
is the destination of your big surprise?” Soph asked as I parked the truck on the quiet little street.

It was the first time she’d spoken during the last thirty minutes of our journey from Marsden to the City of Ellswood. The only thing that’d alleviated the suffocating tense silence between us had been the hard rock music I’d been blasting from the radio.

I switched off the engine, unbuckled my seatbelt and shifted to face her. “We’re here.”

“Well, what’s the surprise? I don’t get it,” she asked, turning around in her seat as she glanced around curiously through the passenger window, the rear window and the windshield.

I grabbed her hand.

It startled her and she stopped shifting around and finally looked at me.

She tried to get her hand back, but I held fast.

“Stop pulling away.”

“I can’t,” she said, averting her eyes and blowing out a breath of frustration, because she couldn’t escape my hold to turn her whole body away.

“Stop it, Soph.” I released her hand and cupped her face in my hands. She gasped in surprise, but I ignored her reaction. What I was about to say was too important and I was focused on ensuring that I said it properly and didn’t fuck it up.

She was forced to look into my eyes and give me her full attention.

“I’m never gonna change my mind about what I said at the hospital. I will
always
protect you in any way that I have to, including coming to blows with someone if a situation like that comes along again.”

She shook her head, trying to break from my hold again.

“No. Listen,” I snapped, harshly.

I drew in a breath to quell my agitation at how unreasonable she was being. But I needed her to hear me out, so I had to speak calmly and not lose my shit with her.

When we fought, it was always heated and I didn’t want to get caught up in that, because it wouldn’t solve anything.

I knew why she was acting the way she was; why she was giving me the cold shoulder. And I knew I could fix it, if she’d just fucking listen.

“It doesn’t come from a bad place. It’s not about any alpha-male bullshit, like you accused me of. It’s not possessiveness and I swear to you that it sure as hell isn’t about control. I don’t want to control you, Soph. I’m not Jake, but I can see why you drew that conclusion. I know I’ve been holding on really tightly to you and it’s come across as me trying to control you. That’s not what I want. One of the things I’ve always loved about you is how free you are. When you first came back to Marsden and I saw that you’d lost that, because of that asshole ex of yours, it made me sick. It hurt me to see you like that. With your wings clipped.”

Her expression softened and she relaxed in my hold. I was getting through to her.

“I’ve never cared about anyone the way I care about you. I’ve never
loved
anyone, Soph. And with all the shit that came up against us, it made me a little crazy. I thought I would lose you so many times, especially after Ollie found out. And then with Jake’s threats. And I can’t lose you. I fucking need you in my life. And I promise you that I’ll do better by you. I want you to live your life however the hell you want, but I want to be beside you for that. That’s all. I’m sorry, Soph. I’m sorry you felt like I was being too controlling with you. It was never my intention and you have my word that it never will be.”

“Brad—” she said, tears filling her eyes.

“I’m not used to this—being in a relationship. I’m gonna make mistakes. I just need you to communicate with me before things get to this point again. We can work on whatever we need to, but I just need to know what that is, you know?”

She nodded. “I’m sorry, too. I’ve been blowing you off…pulling away. I was just—”

“Scared?”

“Yeah,” she murmured quietly, casting her eyes down.

I lifted her chin, tilting her face back up to me. “Are we gonna be okay here?”

She smiled. “We’re good.”

“You’re sure?”

“You meant what you said. After all these years, I can tell what you mean and what you don’t. So, yeah. We’re good.”

Thank Christ.
I kissed her forehead and she purred in response. She made a move to kiss me, but I pulled away.

“Hey,” she protested.

I pushed open my door and told her, “Surprise first. If you get me started, I won’t be able to leave it as just a kiss. This last week that you’ve been dodging me, my dick has been so fucking hard for you, darlin’. Self-control isn’t my strong suit right now.”