He opens the back door on the cab to let me get in first, shutting it behind him once he slides in next to me.
The cab pulls out of the lot.
“Oh, I should probably set a few ground rules before we do this.”
“Oh?” I turn at the waist and look at him curiously. “What kind of ground rules?”
He smiles.
“Well, number one: my car, my stereo; I’m sure I don’t need to elaborate on that.”
I roll my eyes. “So, basically you’re telling me I’m stuck with you in a car on a road trip and can only listen to classic rock?”
“Ah, it’ll grow on ya’.”
“It never grew on me when I was growing up and had to endure my parents listening to it.”
“Number two,” he says holding up two fingers and dismissing my argument altogether. “You have to do whatever I say.”
My head snaps back and my brows draw together harshly. “Huh? What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”
His smile gets bigger, crafty even.
“You said you trusted me, so trust me on this.”
“Well, you’re going to have to give me more than that. Really, no joke.”
He leans back against the seat and folds his hands between his long, splayed legs.
“I promise you I won’t ask you to do anything harmful, degrading, dangerous or unacceptable.”
“So basically, you won’t be asking me to suck your dick for five hundred dollars, or anything like that?”
Andrew throws his head back and laughs out loud. The cab driver shifts in the front seat. I notice his eyes veer away from the rearview mirror when I look up.
“No, definitely nothing like that—I swear.” He’s still sort of laughing.
“OK, but what would you ask me to do then?”
I’m totally leery of this whole idea. I still trust him, I admit, but I’m also a little terrified now in a worried-I’ll-wake-up-with-a-Sharpie-moustache sort of way.
He pats my thigh with his hand. “If it makes you feel better, you can tell me to screw off if you want to refuse anything, but I hope you won’t because I really want to show you how to live.”
Wow, that totally catches me off-guard. He’s serious; nothing humorous about those words and once again I find myself fascinated by him.
“How to live?”
“You ask too many damn questions.” He pats my thigh one more time and moves his hand back into his lap.
“Well, if you were on this side of the car, you’d be asking a lot of questions, too.”
“Maybe.”
My lips part halfway. “You are a very strange person, Andrew Parrish, but alright, I trust you.”
His smile becomes more warming as he lays his head against the seat looking over at me.
“Any more ground rules?” I ask.
He looks up in thought and chews on the inside of his mouth for a moment.
“Nope.” His head falls back to the side. “That’s about it.”
It’s my turn.
“Well I have a few ground rules of my own.”
He lifts his head with curiosity, but leaves his hands flat over his stomach with his strong fingers interlocked.
“Alright, shoot,” he says, grinning, prepared for anything I can throw at him, surely.
“Number one: under no circumstances will you be getting in my panties. Just because I’m friendly to you and am agreeing to—well, the craziest thing I’ve ever done—I’m giving you advance warning that I’m not going to be your next lay, or fall in love with you (he’s grinning from ear to ear right now and it’s very distracting) or anything like that. Is that understood?” I’m trying to be very serious about this. I really am. And I do mean what I said. But that stupid grin of his is sort of forcing me to smile and I hate him for it.
He crinkles his lips in thought. “Completely understood,” he agrees, though I feel there is a hidden meaning behind his words.
I nod. “Good.” I feel better that I made myself clear.
“What else?” he asks.
For a second I forgot about the other ground rule.
“Yeah so number two is: no Bad Company.”
He looks mildly mortified.
“What the hell kind of rule is that?”
“It’s just my rule,” I say, smirking. “You have a problem with it? You have all the other classic rock you can listen to and I’m not allowed to listen to anything I want, so I see nothing wrong with my tiny stipulation.” I hold my thumb and index finger a half inch apart to show how tiny.
“Well I don’t like that rule,” he grumbles. “Bad Company is a great band—why such a hater?”
He looks wounded. I find it cute.
I purse my lips. “Honestly?” I’m probably going to regret this.
“Well yeah, honestly,” he says, crossing his arms. “Out with it.”
“They sing too much about love. It’s cheesy.”
Andrew laughs out loud again and I’m starting to think the cab driver is really getting an earful with us in his car.
“Sounds like someone is bit-ter,” Andrew says and a deep grin warms his lips.
Yep, I regret it.
I look away from him because I can’t let him see anything in my face to confirm that he’s right on target with his assessment of me. At least where my cheating ex, Christian, is concerned. With him, it’s bitterness. With Ian, it’s cruel, unadulterated pain.
“Well, we’ll fix that, too,” he says nonchalantly.
I walk closer to the closet to see him sifting through clothes hanging much how I hang mine.
“You’re OCD, too, I see.”
He looks at me questioningly.
I point to the clothes hung by color and on matching black plastic hangers.
“Oh, no, definitely not,” he clarifies. “Dad’s housekeeper comes in here and does this shit. I could care less that my clothes are hung up at all, much less by color—that’s too…wait—.” He pulls away from the shirts and looks at me in a sidelong glance. “You do this to your clothes?” He points his finger horizontally at the shirts and moves it back and forth.