TAKE ME WITH YOU (Take Me #2)

2. Aribel

2

Aribel

I slammed my hands down roughly on the steering wheel of my BMW. What the hell was wrong with me?

I couldn’t believe I’d run out of Grant’s bedroom like a crazy person. I wanted to sleep him. I wanted to be with him. But I was acting like a total i***t and if he hadn’t already noticed, then he certainly would after that spectacular performance.

Unlike most people my age, I actually knew who I was, and I’d never pretended to be anyone but myself in a relationship. Not everyone liked that I wasn’t afraid to speak my mind and I didn’t need someone else for my own personal validation.

Then Grant McDermott walked into my life.

He loved everything about me that intimidated other guys. He pushed back when I tried to pull away. He fought for me and sacrificed for me and…loved me.

And lately all I could think about were the million reasons that logically we would never work. Like the fact that ContraBand was selling an insane number of copies of their new single, Life Raft. A song Grant had written for me last semester. They weren’t hitting the Billboard charts, but I saw fame on the horizon even if Grant acted as if he didn’t. As much as that excited me, it also terrified me. I couldn’t think about losing him.

Not to mention the scary fact that his dad was about to get out of prison, where he had resided for the last thirteen years after murdering Grant’s mom in front of him.

Or the fact that we’d never really talked about what had happened over Christmas break when we’d been apart. We’d both swept it all under the rug assuming it was fine now since we’d slept together, but there was still so much we needed to address so that we could move forward and trust each other. Our month apart had been a reality check that things weren’t always going to be perfect between us, and it had been easier after we got back together to ignore that than to face it head on.

Plus, I still hadn’t even told him about Henry, the guy who worked for my father that my parents had tried setting me up with. He had kissed me while I was drunk one night in Boston. It had only happened because I’d thought that Grant had slept with some groupie slut over New Years. But still…he didn’t know about it, and this would never work out if we couldn’t be honest.

I shuddered. The last person I wanted to think about was Henry.

Parking at the apartment that I shared with my three crazy roommates, Cheyenne, Gabi, and Shelby, I bounded up the stairs and inside. Since Grant and I had gotten back together three weeks ago, I hadn’t been home this early in the morning. I usually kept a change of clothes at his place and left for campus from there. Staring at the surprised faces of my roommates as I barreled through the door, they made three weeks seem more like a year.

“What are you doing home?” Cheyenne asked. She flipped her crazy red hair over one shoulder and c****d an eyebrow. “Shouldn’t you be in the throes of passion or whatever?”

I rolled my eyes and kept walking toward my room. “What? Just because I’m home early one morning I’m not in the throes of passion? Geez, I don’t see you and Vin together every morning.”

“Whoa! Chill. Vin and I aren’t even dating.”

“That’s because he’s a douchebag.” I pushed open the door to my room and leaned against the doorframe waiting to see Cheyenne’s response.

Cheyenne shrugged. “Well, yeah.”

“Would the both of you shut it?” Shelby asked. “This feels like last semester all over again. You two bickering like an old married couple.”

“We do not!” I said defensively.

“She doesn’t like to give us the goods,” Cheyenne complained.

Shelby looked at Gabi for back up, but she had her nose buried in her laptop and was dripping the milk from her cereal onto the table. “Gab?”

“Oh huh?” Gabi asked.

“Never mind,” Shelby said.

“You guys can’t sit there and act like you don’t want to know what’s going on with them.” Cheyenne threw her hand out at me.

“Actually, I’d assume that if she’s never home, then the s*x is pretty amazing,” Gabi said into her computer screen.

“I never thought she’d be the one to go from proud holder of her V-card to s*x pot living at her boyfriend’s house in a matter of a couple weeks.”

I huffed at Cheyenne’s comment. “I’m still standing right here.”

I hadn’t even considered what my roommates were saying about me while I was away. I knew that I’d made a drastic change in my life by agreeing to date Grant, but I thought they would be happy for me. Maybe they were and this was their backward way of showing it.

“Anyway, I have to get ready for class.”

I disappeared into my room and changed into a purple V-neck sweater and jeans. Instead of taking the time to straighten my hair, I pulled it up into a tight ponytail at the nape of my neck. After applying some mascara and a baby pink lip gloss, I made a hasty retreat.

“You know,” Cheyenne said when I walked back into the living room.

“No, I don’t.”

“You’d think you’d be in a better mood with how often your getting laid.”

I slung my backpack over my shoulder. “I probably would be if you stopped badgering me about it.”

“Yeah Cheyenne, if she wants to tell you how big Grant’s d**k is, she probably already would have,” Shelby cut in.

“Grant would probably show you before I’d tell you,” I said, crossing my arms over my chest.

“Noted,” Cheyenne said with a wink.

“Cheyenne!” Shelby cried. “You’re not going to ask Grant to show you his dick.”

“You’re right. That doesn’t sound like me at all.” Sarcasm dripped out of every word.

Laughter bubbled up out of me. I couldn’t help it. I’d been on edge all morning and now I was clearly losing my mind. I was sure that it all had something to do with my crazy course load and the issues with Grant. I wish I knew why Grant and I couldn’t work out our problems. When we had gotten back together on the beach, I’d thought the worst was over, but I had a feeling the worst was yet to come…