My Paper Heart (7 page)

He sighed. "I'm not going to lie to you Libby." He looked down and fiddled with his keys. "Most of that stuff people were saying is true, maybe some of it a little over-exaggerated, but true."

My nimble fingers twirled the end of one of my braids and I bit down on my bottom lip. "Really?"

Great, I really was sitting next to Hugh Hefner.

"But." He looked back up at me and put his hand on my knee again.

 "I meant it when I say that I actually do want to get to know you. I didn't take you out tonight just to sleep with you."

 I looked up and met his gaze again.

"I feel really bad about your first impression of me, and I really like the fact that you aren't afraid to tell me what you think and seem to enjoy defying everything anyone else says. It's why I know, even if I tried, you probably would rather punch me than screw me."

I giggled. "It's true."

"Now let me order you your damn root beer float so I can make more of a fool of myself."

We ordered our food and instead of sitting in the truck, Blaine suggested we go to a small little grassy area a little ways away.

"You aren't taking me out to the swamp to have your way with me are you?"

Blaine cocked an eyebrow, glancing back at me, as we made our way through a few trees. "It's just a little grassy knoll. It's more comfortable to sit on than in my truck all night."

"Grassy knoll?  Are we going to be shooting the president too?" I laughed, thinking that my own cleverness was rather funny.

"No Libby, we won't be shooting the president." He rolled his eyes and went back walking up what looked like just a small grass mound. "We don't really have much for hills in Louisiana, so this is what we get, knolls."

"Fine, but you will not brainwash me into shooting any presidents." I plopped down on the ground with a brown bag in one hand and my root beer float in the other.

"You are something else you know that, Libby?" He sat down beside me, resting his elbows on his knees.

"I think the term you are looking for is natural blonde." I took a sip of my root beer float and then rustled my hand through his bleach blonde hair.

It wasn’t the mess of straw that it looked like and felt like a new coat sliding through my fingers. I could have kept my hand there all day, but I quickly moved them back to my lap.

"Hey my mom's a hairdresser, so she does this for me. You can blame her." He actually cracked a smile.

"Well my mom's a lawyer so you can blame her for my wit and political references." I took another long slurp.

"That explains it." Blaine unwrapped his burger and took a big bite.

"Explains what?" I stopped slurping to meet his eyes.

"I actually got nothing. I think I just like to get a rise out of you." He laughed and I shoved him a little.

 The shove honestly didn't do much. Trying to move him was like trying to push a house. Part of me just wanted to actually see his biceps and feel his muscles, but I think that would have been really creepy. For a second I actually wondered what it would be like to see him completely naked, but quickly shook that off. There would be no sexing for Blaine and Libby, not that night anyways.

"So what is with you and trying to get me all crazy anyways?" I quickly changed the subject and popped a curly fry in my mouth.

"What do you mean?" Blaine managed to get out between mouthfuls.

"I mean, you have this genuine concern for my well-being and you don't like it at all when I do anything, like, sexy and I don't understand why. I mean you don't know me, but you act like you need to protect me."

Blaine put his burger down on the bag and looked down, a somber expression on his face. "You don't know too much about your Aunt Dee's family do you?"

"No, not really. Last time Aunt Dee came up I was like in elementary school, and that was when my grandma died. So we really didn't talk about her otherwise." I actually felt kind of bad, my dad's entire heritage was in Louisiana and our family seemed to avoid it like the plague.

"Like I've always told you, your aunt is a great lady and I’m sure you know that now." I nodded as our eyes met. "I don't know what she told you about Brittany's mom."

"Not much…"  I shrugged. "I know she didn't seem like a very good person and only met up with Britt to get money."

"That’s not even the half of it." Blaine took a long drink out of the unmarked Styrofoam cup. "My sisters were just a few years younger than Joni and I was of course a lot younger, but I can still remember what she used to be like. I remember my sisters just admiring her. They would come home from school and talk about how Joni's hair looked that day, or ask my mom if she could do their makeup like Joni's."

After seeing Britt and Aunt Dee, I really couldn't imagine this beauty queen image that he was talking about. But I knew my father was an attractive guy, and I’m sure Aunt Dee and Britt had potential.

"Every year on the Fourth of July we have a big parade and fair. When I was about four Joni was the fair queen. Everyone watched her as she rode in the back of the mayor's convertible, at that moment I honestly thought she was the most beautiful girl anyone had ever seen."

 He looked ahead with an almost distant and reminiscent look in his eyes. "I still remember she had long red hair and the whitest smile I think there ever was, but…"  He looked down for what seemed like an entire minute then back up at me. "I think that was the last time she ever smiled."

"What do you mean?" I hadn't realized until that moment that I was so enthralled with what he was saying, that I was so close to him that our sides were touching, and that he had leaned his body into me. But at that point I actually found comfort in it. This wasn't the Blaine that I saw that night at the party, or Blaine the playboy, this was Blaine the new closest thing I had to a confidante in Louisiana.

He put his hand on my knee. "That night there was a big party, my sisters were too young to go and I thank God every day that they didn't go." He began rubbing my knee. "Well, at that party it seemed like a lot of guys thought Joni was the prettiest girl they had ever seen too." His voice got quite, almost angry. "They found her the next morning in a ditch, passed out, a few miles from town. The man that found her thought she just had gotten drunk and stumbled there, but then he saw what really had happened. "

Blaine's grip tightened on my knee. "She was so beaten up and bloody, and she was completely lucid; not drunk or even drugged. That man that found her rushed her to the hospital. Two months later they found out she was pregnant, and she had no idea who the father was."

He looked back at me. "I didn't want that to happen to you. All I could think about was how good you looked at that party. Then when I saw every other guy looking at you there, I didn't want what happened to Joni to happen to you. I couldn't bear to see Dee suffer again."

 He put his arm around me. "And I would never let anything like that happen to you." He leaned in, never taking his gaze off of me until his lips met mine.

Chapter 10

After just one date, Blaine and I had become the talk of the town. I guess it had something to do with the fact that we became inseparable.

After only a week we had seen each other just about every moment of every day that we could. He would show up at work, on my lunch break, to bring me curly fries and a root beer float from Sam's. At night he would stay at Aunt Dee's from dinner time until he couldn't take Britt glaring at us any longer and it would be way past time Aunt Dee slipped off to bed.

We would hold hands walking down the street and my phone was overloaded with pictures of the two of us. Needless to say, it was obvious that I was falling for a Louisiana boy.

"Are you going out with Blaine again tonight?" Aunt Dee asked between mouthfuls of chicken fried steak.

"I don't think they could breathe too long without each other," Britt quipped, swirling the green beans around on her plate.

I shot a glare over at Britt and then smiled back at Aunt Dee. "He's supposed to come by after dinner. I didn't want to come between a southern boy and his momma's cooking. Though he swears yours is better." I picked up a piece of steak with my fork. "But don't tell his mom that!" I laughed.

Britt rolled her eyes and Aunt Dee shared my laugh.

"Don't you have some rich boyfriend back in Illinois or something?" Britt literally spat, making a piece of gravy fly out of her mouth and across the table.

"Brittany." Aunt Dee scowled.

"No. It's fine." I turned my whole body toward Britt. Now she was just making me angry. I dealt with the glares all week and her making comments like 'Do you even know where LSU is,' when Blaine would turn on Sports Center. But now it was just getting old.

"What is your problem Britt?"

 I knew the answer to that one, so before she could even open her mouth, I put up a finger as to say
give me a minute
.

 "Look. I know you have some sort of little crush on Blaine and I'm sorry that I went on that first date with him. I honestly didn't think it would turn into anything and I honestly didn't think I'd have this strong of feelings for him."

  She looked down at her plate silently. She couldn't even look me in the eye.

 "I am sorry for hurting you. I truly am. You’re my family and like one of my best and only friends here." I picked up the fork and put it to my lips, but paused before putting the piece of meat into my mouth. "But at the same time I do really like Blaine, and I don't want to lose you at the expense of having him as my boyfriend."

She sat silent and then slowly inched her chin up until our eyes met.

"Is he your boyfriend?"

"What?"

"You heard me." Her accent got deeper. "Is he your boyfriend?"

"Well..." I put my fork down.

"Well is he or isn't he?  It's not that hard of a question." Britt pounded the table with her chubby little fist.

"Brittany, behave!" Aunt Dee remarked. The woman barely raised her voice and when she did it still didn't have much of an effect.

"No." I put my hand up toward Aunt Dee. "It's fine, I've got this." I turned my attention back toward Britt. "No, he's not my boyfriend. I mean he like hasn't asked anything official."

 It wasn't like Beau did either. One day I kind of just requested him as 'in a relationship' on Facebook and he confirmed it. Unfortunately that didn't stop him from sleeping with half of the girls on campus.

"Well then how do you know he's not going off with other girls after he leaves here?" She stood up from the table. I tried to respond but she stopped me, almost screaming. "How do you know he's not just like your so-called boyfriend back home? Maybe he's just with you because you're pretty and blonde, but that's it. When he wants a real relationship he doesn't want it with some airhead, he wants substance!"

"Brittany!" Aunt Dee stood up from the table. "Now that's enough!"

"That's fine." Brittany leaned in toward me. "I'm finished anyways." She then looked up toward Aunt Dee. "I’m going to Sarah's."

 Before Aunt Dee could get a word in edgewise Brittany stormed out the front door and slammed it behind her.

Maybe she was right. Maybe Blaine was just like Beau, and maybe I was just an airheaded blonde.

∞

"Come on Libby, tell me what's wrong."

We sat outside the Tasty Freeze. Blaine had one hand on my knee, as he straddled the picnic bench, and the other one with a spoon full of ice cream. I couldn't even look at him. I just looked down at the banana split we were sharing.

"Nothing's wrong." I lied, mashing the banana with my spoon.

"Libby, I know we haven't been hanging out that long, but I know when something is wrong." He set down the spoon and ran his fingers through my hair. "If you keep sulking I may just have to go take your Aunt Dee out instead." He was trying to make a joke, but in my state I took it a little too personal.

"Or you could take one of your other many lady friends out." I continued absently swirling my spoon in the soupy ice cream.

"Libby, you know there is no one else. Hell, how would I even have time for anyone else?  When we aren't together I'm working or sleeping. Sometimes I even fall asleep on your Aunt Dee's couch so we still are together while I'm sleeping."

He was right, but I couldn't shake off what Britt said. "You aren't wanting a girl that you can have a conversation with?  A girl that actually knows what they are talking about on Sports Center?"

Blaine let out a single laugh. "Libby." He scooted closer toward me. "I actually like when you ask me why baseball players can make millions of dollars, but can't spend twelve dollars on a haircut."

 I had to smile at that one.

 "I like that when you get nervous you bite your bottom lip and twirl your hair. I like that you don't always know the right things to say, and really Libby, I just like you."

Our eyes met as I turned toward him. "Then why don't you want me to be your girlfriend?"

"What?" He kind of leaned back on the bench.

"Why haven't you asked me to be your girlfriend?" I tilted my head to the side as I waited for an answer.

"Is that what this is all about?  You want to be my girlfriend?"

I nodded gently.

"What's wrong with what we've got now?  Everyone knows in this town we're together."

That sounded like something Beau would say:
why change things,
this is just how college relationships go
.

"I don't want to share you. I don't want to have to worry about you."

"Libby, you don't have to worry about me, and I don't want to be with any other girl than you. Everyone in this town knows it. Even the guys on the crew give me crap because I spend so much time with you." He stroked my cheek with the back of his hand.

"Then why not give it a title?  Are you ashamed of having me as a girlfriend?" I slithered away from his hand.

"Ashamed of you?" Blaine blinked hard. "Libby you are the prettiest girl this town has ever seen. I think every time we walk outside for lunch every guy in town whispers:
damn, how did a good old boy like Blaine land her
." He smiled and tried to meet my eyes.