While I am enjoying how much you guys like this book and all the amazing theories you all are throwing out there, I would like to just say a little thing real quick.
While I enjoy most of your guys comments, there is one thing that seems to get on my nerves. I love when you guys speculate which guy it is going to be or fan over a certain couple, but there comes a point when it get's a little too cocky for my taste. When I get comments saying things like, "why should I stop when I obviously know who the prince is?" Or "You are making it SO OBVIOUS that it's Ross." or things like that, it takes the joy away from me
I'm not trying to be rude, I swear! Leave as many comments you want about your theories and your love and your ideas. Just please don't be so cocky about it. There is a difference between confidence and cockiness. Let's have fun guys, okay? Cause this is just a fun story full of characters that I love to write.
Hopefully that makes sense!
Much love, Nickymb ♥♥
Song on the right is the song I listened too while writing this chapter(:
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Here is all the things I’ve learned about the mysterious and invasive Ross Flynn in the short time of knowing him.
He really did hate the Beatles as much as he claimed when I first met him. When one of their songs came on the radio he grimaced and quickly turned the channel to some outdated rock song.
When I asked why he hated them so much, he just ran his fingers through his air and said simply, “It reminds me of someone.”
I also found out he’s not the kind of guy who can sit still for too long. He’s constantly a ball of energy that needs to be released.
He’s either thrumming his fingers against the steering wheel or messing with his hair. If his time is not divided between those two tasks, he will continuously look out his rearview mirror or mutter under his breath.
He also hasn’t looked at me since we started on this adventure.
The last thing I have learned about the mysterious and honest Ross Flynn, is that he likes to speak in riddles.
The only time I get a straight answer is if I demand it or he wants to provide me with one. And, even then, it’s like he’s holding back.
I don’t know if this is because this is who he is or because he doesn’t want to say too much.
Which means Ross Flynn is a complicated guy who can’t express his feelings as easily as, well, I do. If there is one thing I am good at it’s letting people know how I feel.
I might not admit every emotion, but I get the point across the best way I can.
Ross is obviously a different story.
It shouldn’t bother me because at the party he gave me as much as the truth and of himself as he could. But under all that thick armor and soft spoken words, who is the real Ross Flynn?
Is he the guy I am currently trying my hardest not to fall for or does he have this whole other life I know nothing about?
Singing, I press my cheek against the warm window and watch the scenery go by. The only way these questions will stop is if he himself provided me with the answers.
But since that didn’t seem to be happening anytime soon, I instead bring my attention to the road.
We were on Highway 19 heading only god knows where. In this direction there were only three things- an ice cream shop, a park, and a questionable Mexican restaurant.
So when he pulls off onto a small road, I know exactly where he is taking me.
“A park?” I question, sitting up in my seat. “This is the surprise you wanted to show me?”
He still continues to stare forward but he answers my question all the same. “Anything is better than that classroom we study in every day.”
“As you can tell,” I state while throwing my hands toward my outfit. “I’m not really dressed appropriately for a park.”
His eyes cut to me and I’m so shocked by his sudden attention that I end up smacking my hand against his glove box. Which, let’s just say, it’s the lightest of touches.
“You okay?” He asks, letting his gaze travel to my hand. I shake it out and nod against the sudden pain. “Yeah, I’m fine.”
He nods and slides his gaze back to the road. “As to the whole outfit thing,” He let’s out a small sigh. “We aren’t going hiking Grace. I’m just providing a different scenery.”
“I thought you wanted to show me something?” The right side of his mouth tips up into a sly smile.
“I lied. The only thing I’m showing you is how to integrate.”
“Inter-what?”
He groans as if he is in pain. “It’s going to be a long day.” I grin and tuck my feet under my legs. If there is one thing I learned about myself since knowing Ross, it’s I liked torturing him.
Letting out a small breath, I look up at him.
“But I was so looking forward to the surprise.”
Ross looks away from the road long enough to see me pout a little and bat my eyelashes. He raises an eyebrow at my attempts to get him to cave.
“Are you really trying to use that on me? Your charms don’t affect me Grace.” I lean back and my smile just gets wider.
“Why is that a challenge I hear Ross?” When he doesn’t say anything, I decide to teach the boy a very important lesson.
Never underestimate Grace Carter.
Before he can even think about arguing against me, I unbuckle my seat belt and slide closer toward him. He glances at me from out of the corner of his eyes but his attention is still on the road.
Knowing this is about to go to a level that him and I can’t come back from, I send a little prayer that this won’t change anything.
“I,” I make a show of slowly bringing my finger to his leg. He jumps a little when I touch him lightly on the knee. Clearly surprised by the contact, he averts his gaze from the road and toward the finger resting softly on his leg.
“Grace?” He croaks. “What are you doing?”
I don’t answer him as I lean forward and painstrickenly move my finger higher. “Think,” I mummer, continuing my sentence. I feel the fabric over his dark jeans as my finger moves up his thigh.
“That,” I spread my hand out and lay it at the edge of his abdomen. I peek up at him and even though he has his eyes straight ahead, his hands tighten against the steering wheel.
Smiling to myself, I move my palm up his stomach, feeling his leanness, and when I make it to his chest, I whisper seductively, “You’re,”
I watch as he swallows and I lean forward and bring my face to his neck. My hand works it’s way higher and I press my mouth hotly against his ear.
His breath leaves him in short, little spurts but otherwise he doesn’t show any emotion to what I am currently doing.
“Lying.” I finish as my lips move against his ear.
I linger next to him for a few hot seconds until I know I have gotten my point across. I sigh happily as I lean back into my own seat and put back on my seatbelt.
I wait a few seconds before I dare to look over at Ross.
His hands are still tighten against the wheel and he is focusing so intently on the road I don’t expect him to speak until he does.
“Grace?” He says hesitantly. I tilt my head to the side, feigning innocence.
“Yes Ross?”
“Don’t ever do that again.”
~*~*~*~
“Is this some kind of punishment for the car thing?”
I sling my pencil onto the picnic table dramatically and watch as it bounces and rolls off the table. Ross doesn’t even answer me as he bends down and picks it up.
I cross my arms defiantly over my chest as he calmly lays my pencil on the table before going back to reading from his text book.
“The integral of the function of x from a to b is the sum of the rectangles to the curve at each interval of change in x as the number of rectangles goes to infinity...”
I tune out his voice as I continued to glare and seeth from my spot on the bench.
Ever since what happened in the car, Ross has made it a point to only talk about Calculus.
Anytime I tried to draw his attention to other things, he would just lean back on the bench and wait patiently until I shut up and let him continue.
Maybe on some level this is rightful punishment. I shouldn't have pushed my limits in the car, but it’s not like I did something so inappropriate that it was worth listening to an hour worth of stupid Integrals and rectangles.
I just wanted him to react to me.
To show some sign that I affected him as much as he was affecting me.
Since he never gave away a single hint on how he felt toward me, I guess teasing him was the only way I knew on how to get a reaction.
Look how far that got me.
Sighing, I listen to him talk about problems again and decided enough is enough. If he’s going to ignore me and not talk about what happened in the car, then I am just going to squeeze it out of him.
“Ross.” I say, smacking my hand against the textbook so that it interrupts him. “I don’t care about whatever it is you are talking about. If you are mad at me, then yell. If you are annoyed, then tell me. I can’t take whatever this is that you are trying to do.”
I lift my hand off the book, hoping he will acknowledge me. He finally glances up from the book and when his eyes meet mine, I hold my breath.
“What do you want me to say? That I liked what happened in the car?”
When I don’t say anything, he slowly closes the book and shakes his head. “Because I did.” Surprise pipes through me and when I start to smile, he quickly changes gears.
“But that doesn’t mean it’s going anywhere.”
I push a piece of my hair behind my ear. “Because of that blonde girl? The one who broke your heart?”
He locks his jaw and looks away. Suddenly guilty about bringing her up, I’m about to apologize when he talks.
“Her names Ashley and yes she broke my heart.”
I swallow the sudden lump in the throat. I want to reach forward and grab his hand reassuringly, but I don’t think it’s the time or the place to do it.
“How?”
He starts at the sound of my voice. It’s like he’s remembering I am still here. He sighs and runs a hand roughly through his messy hair.
“It was my cousin's birthday and I and his brother was going to surprise him. I don’t even remember what we had planned but long story short, when I showed up and let myself into his house he wasn’t the only one I found laying on the couch.”
I wince at what he is so easily implying. Ashley brooke his heart by sleeping with another man. Not just any guy, but his cousin.
Ross laughs to himself but it has a bitter quality to it. Obviously he beat himself up over this stupid, unfair situation.
“The funny thing is that I should have saw it coming. She was distant lately and she wouldn’t answer my calls unless she thought it was important. I was such an idiot.”
He mutters angrily to himself. This time I can’t stop myself from reaching over and grabbing his hand.
He looks down at it, surprised, and I give him a small smile.
“So you know whose fault this is? Hers. It is never the one who got cheated on faults. If she thought for one single moment that she liked someone else, she should have came to you. It’s her loss anyways because you know what I see?”
Our gazes lock and I gather up my courage to continue.
“A great guy. A great guy who helps a random girl by bringing her her homework and risking been seen by all the people he hates. I see a guy who is able to look past all the stereotypes surrounding one girl and see someone else underneath. I happen to know you are amazing and that you just so happen to like education and books and cigarettes and coffee and you might still like a girl who isn’t worth the love you gave her.”
I squeeze his hand.
“That is what I know Ross and no one can tell me differently.”
He continues to look at me and when I slowly remove my hand from his, he brings it up and pushes a piece of hair off my face.
“Who are you Grace Carter?” He draws his hand back and when his fingers brush against my cheek it leaves a trail of warmth. No one has ever asked me who I am. They usually just assumed.
“Who are you Ross Flynn?” I answer back and he smiles sadly to himself.
“I ask myself that question everyday.” I lean back and pick up my pencil.
“Well, when you figure it out will you tell me?”
“I wouldn’t dream of doing anything differently.”
“Good.”
I nod my head toward the huge textbook open on my table. Right now I needed to get off the subject of professing the real us. Because as much I want to know about him, I wanted to keep my thoughts and wants locked up tight.
“Are you ready for math or is talking about asshole ex’s too much a downer?” Ross pushes his textbook away and leans his arms against the table.
“I have a question to ask you.”
I sit my pencil down, suddenly anxious. “What?” He leans forward on his elbows and smiles up at me.
“Any past asshole ex’s you would like to talk or rant about?” Suddenly embarrassed by the question, I bring my gaze to my text book.
“Uh, uhm, no.”
“What? Too hard to talk about?”
“No,” I answer. “Just none to talk about.”
When he doesn’t say anything I peek up and see that he’s staring intently at me. It’s like I am some complicated formula that he is unable to solve.
“You know,” I start. “I feel like you know more about me then I know about you.”
I bring my hands up and make a weird circle motion with them. “If there was a pie chart on Ross Flynn I would only know about ten percent of the whole thing.”
He laughs and leans back. Wind loosens a few pieces of his hair and the strands flutter against his forehead attractively. I so wanted to reach forward and push them back up.
“Did you just use math to explain me?”
“Well,” I say, grinning. “You are kind of a weird math genius.” He raises both eyebrows as he pushes the loose pieces of hair back up. Boo.
“How would you feel if I explained you by how many shoes you have ?”
“That would make no sense.”
He shrugs. “I never claimed to be a man of fashion.” I laugh and make a show of looking under the table at his combat boots.
“I know. I mean, you always wear those shoes. And what is with all the black?” He grabs a hold of his dark shirt collar and pulls it down.
“Is something wrong with black now?”
“Unless you want to be called count dracula, no.”
He lets go of his shirt and eyes me. A few awkward moments pass with him just staring and when I finally can’t take it anymore, I talk.
“What?”
The right side of his mouth tips up a little. “It’s almost time to go. If you want to make your dress fitting we should leave now.”
Confused on why that’s something to smile over, I nod, stand up, and start to collect my books.
I don’t get far.
My books drops from my hands when I feel a hand land on my shoulder and turn me around swiftly. Gasping, my back presses against the picnic table and when I look up I find Ross smiling devilishly down at me.
Never have I seen this expression on him and it’s doing weird things to my heart.
“What are you doing?’ I squeak out between deep breaths. He doesn’t say anything as he takes a step closer and snags a few strands of my dark hair. He let’s them slide between his fingers before he looks up at me with a gleam in his dark eyes.
“I’m,” He drawls out as he leans closer and lays his right hand against the picnic table. His arm brushes wildly against my side and my heart feels like it is going to explode from how fast it is going.
He flushes his body against mine and I look up and try to keep my thoughts from running to crazy fantasies.
“Getting,” He whispers as I feel him press his face against my neck. I shiver as he runs his lips delicately up my neck.
He’s barely touching me but I feel it in every bone in my body. He brings his other hand to the table and he cages me in with his body.
His mouth works its way closer to my ear, moving at a snail's pass. My breath leaves me in small little puffs and I can tell from the way his lips curve into a smile against my neck that he knows the effect he is having on me is obvious.
He finally makes it to my ear and he lays a small, firmer kiss behind my ear before he mutters as soft as a feather, “Payback.”
When he says the last word to his sentence, he pushes off the table and maneuvers around me as if nothing just happened.
I’m still leaning against the table, trying to catch my breath, when he calls my name. Turning around, I see that he has both our books in his arms.
“Don’t think this changes anything,” He comments while pulling his keys on top of the books.
“I still expect you to finish the work I gave you for tonight.”
And with that he turns on his heel and makes his way back to his car.
I might not know who exactly Ross Flynn is, but he is differently a boy who knows how to make memorable exits.