Wheels of Steel, Book 2 (12 page)

Robin flashed her an angry look. “I’m not going to hand him over. But I need to know if I’m just the…’normal’ girl that walked into his life and took up his attention away from her--and that the real connection isn’t between us but between them.” Belinda gave her a disapproving look. “So don’t tell him or Peter what we just talked about. Promise me.”

Belinda scowled. “Fine. I won’t tell him or Peter!”

Robin gave her a severe look. “You said you wouldn’t tell about the vomiting, and you did.”

“I didn’t promise I wouldn’t tell. I don’t break a promise…which is why I don’t make them. And besides, it turned out good that I did tell. Maybe you wouldn’t have gone to emergency if I hadn’t said anything and now you’re getting treated.” She got out of the car with her packages, digging for her cell phone.

Robin hoped she wasn’t leaving because she’d doubted her word. “Belinda, I’ll take you to Peter.”

She waved her away. “Peter doesn’t live far. Go; you two need to talk.”

Robin pulled away reluctantly. She returned to Jason’s parking lot and then took a deep, fortifying breath before heading to his apartment and unlocking the door. Jason was holding his cell phone to his ear and his head swung to look at her.

“I gotta go. Yeah, yeah. Bye.”

Robin wondered if that was Amberly on the phone, but the answer came immediately.

“Robin! You think that I’m in love with Amberly?!”

Robin’s eyes got wide. What the hell?! Belinda told. She’d only dropped the girl off less than five minutes ago! She freaking told that quick??

“Sweetheart, I am NOT in love with Amberly.” Robin walked into the kitchen to get away from his stare. She opened the refrigerator and grabbed a bottled water.

“Ugh.” Jason groaned. She looked at him quickly but he was just sitting in chair with a lost look on his face. “I…that pact. It was stupid. That kiss was so bad that I felt sorry for her and then the next thing I know I was making that pact. It was stupid-”

“The pact was stupid. But you kissed her. I mean…I thought
our
first kiss was your first kiss.” She tried unsuccessfully to hold back the accusation from her voice. He looked down in guilt. “You shared your first kiss with her. You have a pact to have sex and she sits on your lap having meaningful conversations with you…and you’re saying that none of that means you have special feelings for her?”

He looked at her. “I don’t have feelings for her other than just friendship.”

Robin looked at the evidence of their meal at the table. She sighed and began cleaning it up.

“Well…” He said uncertainly. “I wish she wouldn’t have mentioned it. She should have never said anything. Now you think things that aren’t even true.”

“You should have told me, Jason!” It was the first time that she’d shown her anger at him. “I mean, god; your first kiss!” She threw away the food and angrily wiped up the mess of rice that hadn’t made it onto Jason’s fork or into his mouth. And then there was Amberly’s mess. She wasn’t the neatest person in the world, evidently, or else they’d had a food fight!

She felt Jason moving behind her and then he bumped the back of her knees, lightly boxing her in against the table with nowhere to go but to sit in his lap. She fell into him, attempting to brace herself against the arms of the chair and not looking very lady like as she flopped down. His arms snaked around her.

“Jason! Let me up.”

“I will.” He said. “In a minute. Just…look at me.” It took a moment before she could. “You have every right to be mad at me. And you’re right about one thing. Do you want to know which one thing you’re right about?” She nodded reluctantly. “There is something special between Amberly and myself.”

He stared at her deeply. “It’s called friendship. Until you, she was my best friend. I love Amberly and Link and Patty; but I’m in love with you. Now you asked me last night why; and I’m going to tell you right now. I love you because you and I are the same. None of my friends is more like me than you are. Link and I are both in wheelchairs, Amberly and I both have CP, Patty and I have our anger. But you and I, Sweetheart, we have pain.” He swallowed and watched her eyes closely. “You and I have pain. I want to take yours away, and you want to take mine away. And I want to open up to you and let you see me, and I feel like you want that too. Like…you want to drop the exterior, that protective coating that you use to get through life. Yeah. I love my friends; very much. But I’m in love with you.”

Robin felt herself sinking; sinking deeper into Jason; being so connected to him that she and he were suddenly just one. It was such a scary thing to feel love saturate you. She leaned in and placed her lips on his. He kissed her with more than lips and tongue, but with his breath and his soul and his heart.

“I love you, Robin.” He pulled himself away. “People don’t say it. But I have to say it, and touch you. I just have to. Even though we’re so new…and-and…other’s might think it’s too soon.” He was shaking his head and trying not to stutter. “It’s not. Because I say what I feel. Sometimes I’m stupid and I don’t think first. But when I knew I loved you, I told you. If I was in love with Amberly; I would have told her. Don’t you know that yet?”

She nodded. “I know it now.” She hugged him, holding him and not wanting to let him go, not even to put her lips back onto his and to kiss him. She just wanted to hold him and to feel his arms around her, holding her so tight that it almost hurt. But how did he know that she needed him to hug her so hard that it hurt? How did he understand that it was what she wanted?

“Can I play the song? The one that tells how I feel about you?”

She sat back anxiously. She wanted to hear the song; to see, with his vast knowledge of music, exactly which song he would select to represent his feelings for her. He wheeled them into the living room and pulled up to his studio.

Robin suddenly heard the opening music to a song that she’d never heard before; not necessarily a great feat since she didn’t have nearly the vast musical knowledge that Jason possessed. It was very pretty; a choral of voices singing repeatedly, ‘Everybody’s free.’ It sounded like children and they kept saying it over and over, ‘Everybody’s free,’ until finally they added these three words; ‘…to feel good.’

She gave him a curious look but his expression was almost solemn. She listened as a youthful voice took over. Later she learned it was Quindon Tarver’s Everybody’s Free. It was just one minute long but it said exactly what he felt she needed to know about how he felt for her.

“It’s okay, you know; to open up to me, to feel good, to be you. I’ve been waiting for you, Robin, to let me in, to not be afraid. I’m here.” She choked back tears and looked away. “I’m not going anywhere. That’s what I want to tell you. I’m going to be right here for you, no matter what.”

She didn’t know why she was suddenly sobbing. It wasn’t even a sappy love song; like Open Arms by Journey or some other such song; it didn’t even refer to love at all. And yet the song had made her feel that it was okay to let herself open up to him and to trust him.

He gently swiped away her tears. She smiled at him. It seemed he did that a lot for her. Wouldn’t he be surprised to know that she was not a cryer? She hadn’t even cried at her own father’s funeral.

“One day, are you going to tell me what has hurt you so badly?”

“I’ll…try.” Because she, herself, didn’t even know all of the things that had turned her into the Robin that needed to be invisible. “If you tell me about your parent’s.” She didn’t want to know the horrors that he suffered at the hands of his abusive Aids. But she wanted to understand his parent’s. If she was to be in his life then she would need to be armed with this knowledge…And it was also time for her to tell her mother about him.

“I’ll tell you, but not tonight. Tonight there has been too much sadness.” He reached past her and began tapping out something on the keyboard. “Now, you ready to hear a sappy love song? Because I have one of those picked out for you, too.”

She laughed. “Oh yes. I want to hear this.”

“Alright. Don’t laugh. But this is my sappy love song to you.”

Love by Musiq Soulchild began to play and she smiled instantly, recognizing this very beautiful song. When the song ended Jason was blushing furiously. “I will lose big time ‘man-points’ for that one. But then he smiled at her. “But it’s all true. This is how I feel about you.”

She knew she had a broad smile on her face. She sighed in contentment. “I loved it. Thank you Jason.” Sharing songs like this made her feel special.

“Tell me you love me,” he said.

“I love you.”

His eyes narrowed. “Why? Why do you love me? I was mean to you, and I’m crude. I curse too much, I’m sloppy. It’s not the prettiest sight watching me eat-”

“You know…now that you put it in that light; I actually don’t know.” She joked. “Okay,” she said after he finished scowling at her. “I love you because you’re strong. You take up for yourself. You don’t let people give you shit. And you say whatever you want to say and people just have to deal with it, because if they don’t you just won’t give a damn anyway. And under all of that, it’s very easy to see a guy that is caring and loving. The fact that you are talented, good looking and you have a super long tongue is also a plus.”

“My tongue?” He asked surprised.

“Your tongue is very very talented, my dear.” Her face was hot having talked dirty, not to mention that she had begun to tingle at the memory of his tongue on certain body parts.

“Oh shit…” He said suddenly.

“What’s wrong?”

“I have to tell you something else.” He cheeks were reddening. “Before we got together I had…sexual contact with a girl at a party.”

“You did? You weren’t a virgin?”

“No, I am—I was!” He gulped in embarrassment. “I…I just…you know, um, went down on a girl.”

Robin’s brow shot up and she stared at him in shock. “You put your mouth on some random woman’s coochie?”

“Um…I guess.”

“Damn, Jason. Is that what guy’s do? They just meet girls at parties and…do that?”

“I…don’t know. It was the first time that I ever did it.”

“Well…did you like it?”

“Um…I thought I did.”

“What does that mean?” She asked in a clipped voice. Damn, he could have lied and said he hated it!

“I thought it was something I liked until I had the real thing. Like...having feelings for you made doing that more meaningful than it had been with her. It’s like drinking a glass of skim milk when you can have whole milk instead.”

She frowned. “I’m the whole milk, right?”

“Yes! You’re the whole milk. The other girl was the skim milk.”

“Hmph. Some people prefer skim milk.”

“Not me. I like the thick creamy goodness that you can only get from the real thing.” He squeezed her eliciting a reluctant smile from her.

“Now, I told you. It’s your turn to tell me.”

“I’ve never done anything.”

“With anyone else, true. But you’ve done stuff with yourself, haven’t you?” It was less of a question then a request for confirmation.

“Oh! You’re a perv!” She tried to jump up but his hands tightened around her.

“You’re blushing.” He laughed. “You’re embarrassed. You’re so shy Robin. You don’t have to be shy with me. Say something dirty. I want you to be able to say anything in the world to me! Say…masturbate. I dare you.”

“Masturbate.” And then she blushed furiously.

“Good, Sweetheart. Now say…pussy.”

“No!” She gave him a surprised look. “What are you…FOUR??”

“Spell it, then. Just spell it if you can’t say it.”

“No, spelling it is just like saying it; spelling it sounds like saying it. Why do you want me to talk dirty? Do you get off on that?”

She should have known that asking him that question wouldn’t embarrass him. He just nodded. “Yes, hearing you talk dirty would get me hot. Definitely!” She tried not to blush and to listen to what he was saying; past her own embarrassment and reluctance.

“What do you want me to say to you?”

“I want you to say…lick my pussy, Jason. I want you to say; fuck me harder, Jason-”

She squirmed. “That last, you won’t ever hear.”

“Okay, probably not. But can you just say dick instead of penis? I mean, it’s a little more sexier.”