Surrender

8

The first thing I did was to pull the blanket off the bed and hide my panties.

At least I didn't have to bother about them being granny panties since Hannah had gotten them for me knowing I was an adult.

Oh but the humiliation. He had watched me grab my butt and encourage my size. When did he walk in?

"You didn't see anything," I told him, trying more to convince myself.

He walked over to me with his eyebrows raised. "But I did," he said, fanning my face with his warm minty breath.

He had brought out a packet of cigarettes, pulling one out as he turned around to back me.  "Did Kade tell you you have a flat ass?"

"No, I was--"

"Eryq?" He asked and I shook my head, trying to ignore the fact that he rudely cut me off.

"No, it --"

"Roderick?"

"For pit sake!" I lost it. "No one told me that! I was just trying--"

"So why --"

"Tobias would it fucking kill you to let me finish a damn sentence?!" I said bluntly with frustration and impatience, surprising both myself and Tobias.

He turned and looked at me in awe, his lit cigarette between his lips.

He took it out and came closer to my face. "No," he said, making sure to let every atom of smoke out of my mouth and basically right up my nose.

I choked on it. I coughed like I was about to lose my oxygen and pass out right at the spot. How could he inhale such toxic thing and not pass out?

"I just don't care what you have to say," Tobias said, and he disappeared into the bathroom, leaning me hopeless on the floor, trying to catch my breath.

***

"You're already packed up, I hope?" Tobias asked once I came out of the shower.

"Packed for what?" I asked, almost with a chuckle. Was he kicking me out because I was too infuriating to live with? Or better yet... "Are you sending me back home?"

"I thought by now you would've gathered some common sense into that thick skull of yours," he said. "You're not going anywhere close to home. At least not under my watch."

I gulped at his harsh statement. He had to be kidding. I was eventually going to be left to go home. "What do you want with me?"

"I want you, Emily Warson, to pack. Hannah brought you some clothes...  more mature this time," he said, pressing away on his phone.

I rolled my eyes. He knew that was not at all what I was talking about. But then again, I knew him well enough to know he never answered my questions.

He powered off his phone and looked up at me with a forced smile. "We're going to Connecticut. We leave in an hour."

This was insane. I was missing my date with Kade to go on a road trip with Mr. Annoying Face over here.