Embrace (Evolve Series #2) (17 page)

Chapter 20

Chosen One

~Evan~

T
here are different types of single. For
example, some people are “Should Be Single,” because, well, no one in their
right mind would seriously date them. Not until they get their act together,
anyway. Perfect examples of this category are Kaitlyn Michaels and Matt Davis.
In fact, those two should probably just give up all hope now and go have evil
babies together.

Sawyer is what I would call “Strut Your Single.” He
owns that shit and is happy about it. He would rather get in and get out, then
spend the saved time with his friends. He’s upfront about it and never gives
the female false hope…he scratches the itch, then goes about things more
important to him.

And then there’s me. I fall into the “Quit Feeling
Sorry for Yourself and Do Something about It Single.” Yeah, no catchy title for
mine, I’m as pathetic as the category.

Because I’m lying in my bed, lonely and staring at
the ceiling, analyzing the categories of singledom, I know it’s time to try
again.

Date #3.5

Conspirator- Me, myself, and I

Girl- Amy

Stats- brunette, can be found at bar

Problems- None so far

Yes, I went back to the bar and found Amy, the girl
Sawyer threw in my lap the first night I hung with him. As horrific as dating
has proven to be so far, I gotta branch out. I need more friends, preferably
ones that do things besides hang out with Dane and Laney. I also need female
companionship, other than the one I’ve sworn myself away from for reasons I
refuse to justify in my head, again. I wish it was season so I could make
friends with some guys on the team other than Zach. But with only open schedule
weights and conditioning right now, it’s just a “hey” or “what’s up” passing my
teammates in and out of the tunnel for now.

Which brings me back to my current outing with Amy.
She’s a pleaser. Everything I say, she agrees to, or she’s done it, or she knows
somebody who’s done it. And who’s she kidding? I am
not
that damn funny,
yet she cracks up at my every other sentence.

She chooses the drive-in when I ask her where she’d
like to go after dinner.
Grease
is playing. Fucking
Grease
. That
movie is older than me, and that’s what they’re showing? I can’t help it and I
think of Whitley—she’d be giddy about a freaking musical at a drive-in. What is
it about girls I know and movies with songs? You know how many songs there are
in Disney movies? And we won’t even revisit the Moulin whatever nightmare. And
yet, here I sit, watching some beauty drop-out with pink hair and angels in
curlers floating around.

I’ve taken nice guy and turned him into pussbag. My
dick hates me—he told me so—and I’m all but ready for tampons and a training
bra. Fuck this; I reach over and lay my hand on Amy’s bare thigh, pulling for
her to come a little closer. “You’re awful far away,” I say in a low voice.

She moves beside me, her thigh now pressed to mine,
laying her head on my shoulder. Her brown hair falls against my cheek and
smells like…smoke. Okay, moving on. Her arm snakes its way around my waist, one
finger sliding under my shirt to tease along the waistband of my jeans. My grip
tightens on her thigh, the crotch of my jeans growing uncomfortably tight.
“What do you want?” she moves her mouth to my ear and pants.

“How about a kiss?”

“Mhmm…” She moves astride my lap like a ninja,
bracing my hips on either side with her knees and
dives
into my mouth.

She tastes like smoke, too, and cinnamon. I hate
both, but I go with it, returning each swipe of her tongue tease for tease. I
grab her hips now, attempting to slow her gyrations just a bit; my windows
aren’t tinted. She locks her hand onto one of mine, moving it under her shirt,
directing my hand to squeeze one of her breasts—fake. I can feel her nipple
harden against my palm and she moans into my mouth, sending a fire through me,
but only physically.

I should not be thinking about the other cars around
us. I most definitely should not be thinking that “You’re The One That I Want”
is the most annoying song ever. And under no circumstances should I pull back
and move her off my lap. Which is exactly what I do.

“We better go,” I say, starting the truck, “don’t
want an audience.”

“You’re not shy, are you?” She’s slid back over, her
wandering hand making it very hard for me to drive. “You shouldn’t be.” She
squeezes my dick. “Feels like something to be real proud of to me.”

I refrain from saying “thank you,” barely, but
rather go with, “Ya think so, huh?”

“Uh huh.” She tucks her head into me, licking up my
throat and biting my earlobe. “I sure do. I wanna see if I’m right.”

The snap of the button and rasp of my zipper coming
down sound through the cab as if in stereo. My chest heaves up and down rapidly
with my deep breaths, and I’m throbbing, so turned on I can only just keep the
truck on the road. Maybe Sawyer’s got the right idea. Maybe
this
is what
I’m supposed to be doing.

I have no doubt Amy knows exactly what
she’s
doing and could make me feel real good, but no matter what, I am who I am.

I veer off the road into the first empty lot I see,
throwing the truck in park. “Amy,” I grab her hand and pull it away, drawing it
to my mouth and kissing her knuckles softly, “how about a second date?”

“W-what?”

Moving her hand back to her own leg, I rest it there
and let go, then close up my pants. “Let’s go out again, get to know each
other. Sound good?” I ask her with a comforting smile.

Her eyes flash to mine and her smile brightens the
dark cab. “That’d be great.”

“Okay then, next Friday night?”

“Perfect.”

W
e’ve graduated to group messages, and boy
oh boy, they’ve included me. And Whitley. I start humming the music from
The
Brady Bunch
before I can stop myself. I should be using
The X Files
theme, though, ‘cause it’s just too hunky-dory to be real, right?

Laney to group: Crew hang at The K 2night at 8. C
everyone there!

My phone’s blowing up instantly with everyone’s
questions and replies. How the hell do you get yourself
out
of a group
text?

Sawyer to group: Evan, you wanna ride with me?

Me to group: Not in. Have a date.

Sawyer,
still
to the whole group: With
who? Anyone I know?

Zach to group: I’d say those odds r pretty good,
unless he went 4 towns over.

Sawyer to group: Fuck you, it’d take at least 6
towns and u know it.

Laney to group: TMI Sawyer, yuck.

Bennett to group: RT Laney

Sawyer to group: WTF do TMI and RT mean? And WHO
is your date with Evan?

Evan to group: Too Much Information and Retweet
(even though we’re not tweeting) and none of your business. How do I get myself
out of this message? My phone sounds like Morse code going off.

Whitley to group: Why are you grumpy?

Sawyer to group: RT Whitley.

Insane…all of them. I turn off my phone and head out
to pick up Amy. She looks great in tight, dark jeans, a black shirt that molds
to her body and high, red heels. Her long, brown hair is down and curly. Amy’s
very hot, and I’m sure she still would be without such heavy make-up. Her
eyelashes are so black and sticky looking that they kinda look like spiders
coming at me. Other than that, though, not bad at all.

Tonight we eat at a pizza place Amy suggested and
split a Meatlovers, except she picks off all the meat. “Why’d you agree to a
Meatlovers?” I ask with a laugh. “We could’ve gotten something else, or half
and half.”

“It’s fine,” she concedes happily.

It’s really not fine. You don’t have to offer to put
out on the first date and you don’t have to pretend to like something you don’t
on the second. Whitley picks at her food all the time, which most guys think is
annoying, but at least she owns it. She doesn’t order to please me and then
pick, she usually just dissects what she chose herself. But I digress…

“Amy,” I take her hand in mine and rub my thumb in
circles on her palm, “just be yourself, okay? That’s who I want to know.”

“Really?” Her voice is hopeful; she wants to believe
I mean it. Wow, so I’m not the only one who thinks dating is a big, fat, scary
ass mess where no one really knows what they’re doing.

“Of course.” I wink at her. “So, what would you
really
like to do after this?”

“Well…” she toys with her lip nervously, “there’s
something I’m really into, if you want to try it.”

In the spirit of encouraging her to be herself, like
I’d just preached to her, I agree, even though every instinct in my body bet
the whole enchilada that I shouldn’t have.

A
my’s apartment is…interesting. I’m very
happy to report that I’m not allergic to cats since I count five from where I’m
standing, and I’m praying to God the glowing eyes underneath her TV stand
belong to the sixth. And I’m also suddenly fond of the smell of smoke, seeing
as how its stench is a welcome mask to the odor of cat piss.

“Make yourself comfortable,” she coos, which must be
a joke, “I’ll go get my stuff.”

There’s no way in hell I’m gonna be comfortable
until I’m home, but I try to navigate my way to the couch, in the dark. Amy is
blatantly fond of red light bulbs instead of, you know, normal ones, and I
can’t see shit. Silly me, running out without my infrared night vision goggles
and all.

“You ready?” She sits down beside me, a black bag in
her lap.

“For?” My voice shakes, understandably.

“Well…” She starts pulling stuff out of the bag,
arranging it on the coffee table in front of us. “This is what I’m really in to.
So first,” she turns to face me, “give me your palm.”

I let her pick up my hand and she hunches over it,
tracing the lines with one finger. How she can see anything is beyond me. I
mean literally, not just the hocus pocus.

“Hmmm, very interesting. Okay, I need more. Here,”
she hands me a deck of oversized cards, “shuffle these three times then cut
them twice with your left hand.”

For shits and giggles, I shuffle and cut the cards
as she instructed, then watch as she starts flipping them over and laying them
on the coffee table in a big square.

“Oohhh,” she groans, covering her mouth with one
hand.

“What?”

She looks at me, worry lines creeping out from her
spider eyes, then turns back to point at the cards. The middle one depicts some
grim reaper looking dude, the one in the corner…I
think
it’s a man head
with a horse body. None of them look good; I must be doomed.

“Evan, what’s your sign?”

“Right about now, I’m thinking Proceed with
Caution.”

I’m not kidding.

“No,” she scoffs, “your astrological sign. Like
Pisces, Aries.”

“Oh, the Virgo one I think.”

“Uh huh, just as I thought. Evan,” she huffs, her
shoulders dropping, “we can’t see each other again, I’m sorry.”

Well, of course we can’t. Perfectly logical. And
honestly, at the rate I’ve been going, I should have seen the creepy man-horse and
the kiss of death coming, really.

I pretty much tune out after that. She may have said
something about my house, which I don’t have a house, or her moon, or barren
harvesting…not even sure, but I’ll recover.

“Sounds about right. I’ll see ya.” I stand and risk
my way to the door, making sure not to “feel” my way, which would require
touching things.

“Evan, wait!”

I turn back, ready for her to turn on the damn
lights, change the litter boxes, and tell me she’s kidding, but instead she
sprinkles a circle of some white dust around me and wishes me luck with “my
chosen one.”

Chosen by who?