“From nearby,” I lie and speed up when I spot his truck parked crookedly at the back of the club in front of a cluster of trees beneath one of the lampposts. “Were you drunk when you got here?” I ask.
He steps up to the side of me, releasing my belt loop and grabbing hold of my arm. “No.”
“You parked like you were drunk.” I stiffen, not liking the way he’s clinging on to me for support. It’s causing a mixture of emotions from panic to desire and those damn heated stomach sensations to surface again.
“Well, I wasn’t.” He stares at his truck like he barely recognizes it. “I was just distracted.”
I’m not sure if he’s telling the truth or not, but I lead him the rest of the way to the truck. The doors are unlocked and I help him into the passenger side, letting him put his hands onto my shoulder to boost himself in. God, he owes me big time. Just thinking about him owing me a favor thrills me way, way too much. I need to get my head out of Luke land and get back to the place where it’s only me and me alone.
Once he gets settled in the seat, I close the door and round the front of the truck, deciding where I’m going to go when I get him back to his dorm. Walk back to my dorm and then what? I don’t have hardly any of my stuff and I’m pretty much homeless, at least in a couple of days I will be.
When I open the driver’s door, Luke is already lying down in the seat. I nudge him over and then hop in, slamming the door. “Where are your keys?”
His eyes are shut, his arms flopped over his chest, looking like he’s asleep. “I think… I think in my… pocket.”
I rest my hands on the steering wheel. “Can you please get them out?” I ask as nicely as I can because he’s wasted and doesn’t really know what he’s saying, but my patience is wearing thin.
He moves his hand slowly for his pocket and pats himself down. “Hmmm… that’s weird… They’re not there.”
This night is quickly becoming the night of ill-fated events, but I’m not going to put it down as my worst. “Then where are they?”
He shrugs, kicking his feet up on the door. “I have no idea.”
Sighing, I pat down his pockets myself, causing him to laugh and squirm. The only thing I can find is what looks like an insulin monitor thing with a strip sticking out of it and also a pen-shaped object.
“Oh good, you found it…” he mutters, taking it from my hands. But his fingers falter and he drops it on his stomach. “Damn it, I’m all… I’m all…” He sighs the longest sigh in world’s history. “Violet… can you… can you check my blood sugar for me?”
I pick up the monitor and pen object and flip on the interior light, examining them. “How do I do that exactly?”
He extends his arm over his head toward me and points his finger. “Just put the pen up to my finger and push the button.”
I’m a little uneasy about helping him, but put it up to his finger, and push the button like he asked. It pricks his finger and blood pools out of it.
“Now put the strip up onto the blood,” he says, yawning.
I do what he asks and move the strip on the monitor up to his finger. He dabs his blood on it and his eyes shut, like he barely knows what he’s doing. Then he pulls his hand away and flops it down on his stomach as the machine beeps. “What’s it say?” he asks.
I glance down at the beeping screen. “Sixty-eight.”
“Shit,” he mutters, forcing his eyes open. “Can you get my pills out of the glove box?”
I reach over him, flip the handle of the glove box, and dig around the papers and past the flashlight until I find a bottle of vitamin pills. “These ones that say ‘glucose’ on them.”
He bobs his head up and down with a lot of effort. “Those would… be the… ones.”
I unscrew the cap. “How many do you need?”
“Three…”
I’m kind of worried. Luke’s drunk and I have no idea about diabetics and what happens is they don’t get the right meds. What if I do something wrong?
“Are you sure it’s three?” I ask.
He bobs his head up and down. “Yeah… three and I’ll be… good…”
I swallow hard and pour three into my hand, then put the cap back on, and put the bottle away, shutting the glove box. I nudge him gently with my arm. “Luke, here. Take them.”
His eyelids flutter open, bloodshot, with zero comprehension. He gradually lifts his hand up and scoops the pills out of my hand, opening his mouth and dropping them in. His neck muscles work as he forces them down his throat. “Thanks.”
“You’re welcome,” I mutter, confused by the momentary exchange of gratitude. Such a foreign concept to me.
I stare down at him as his eyes drift back shut and then I lean over to turn the light back off, deciding to just lie back and shut my eyes, sleep until morning and then ask him where the hell he put the keys. But as I lean back, I feel a shift on Luke’s part and suddenly I’m being grabbed and he’s pulling me down between the back of the seat and him.
“Holy shit,” I gasp, startled because it seemed like he was barely awake a few moments ago.
I start to get up when he flips us over, putting his body on top of me. I freeze as he stares down at me, the lights from outside barely illuminate the cab.
“God, you’re so beautiful,” he mutters, tracing a line up my cheekbone. “It drives me so crazy how beautiful you are.”
It takes me a second to remember that I’ve never actually been pinned underneath a guy before. I’m always either standing or taking the top. I’ve never lay in bed beside one. Never touched a guy before just because I want to. Never kissed while feeling any sort of emotion behind it. It takes me another second or two to realize that this moment is going against all of my previous experiences. Because I’m pinned below him, being touched, and feeling something I desperately want to run away from. I don’t do normal feelings. There’s no point. Letting someone in and giving yourself to someone else has no purpose but heartache. I should shove him off and bail before he does.
But as he breathes heavily, leaning down, his lips inching nearer, I remain stationary. Frozen by fear and want. The contact of his lips only heightens the fear and desire, the two feelings mixing so persuasively that I start to weakly tremble as the walls I worked so hard to put up begin to crack. I try to keep my mouth closed as he works to kiss me, not wanting to give in, not wanting to give any part of me to him, knowing that eventually he won’t want me anymore. But as my body warms below him, I can’t help it and my lips readily part. Seconds later, his tongue slides into my mouth and he groans against my lips. It sends vibrations through my body and I shiver.