Free Chasing Butterflies by Terri E. Laine

for her. She’d summed me up without giving me a chance to defend myself. Plus, she was cute as hell when she blushed. “You’re what?”
    Her gray eyes rose, chin up, and she said, “I’m sorry, okay? I was given bad information, and I treated you horribly because of it. I want to help you get caught up.”
    “There are things you can help me with.” I let my gaze fall over her, watching her pout change as I made myself clear. We didn’t have classes together, so I hadn’t seen her all day. She wore jeans and a tee that fit her. And even though she was all but covered, my imagination filled in the blanks. “But today’s no good.” I glanced behind me, but the blonde was gone. “And I can’t risk missing dinner.”
    I had just enough time to make good with the blonde and walk the few miles home.
    “If you think being crude will scare me off, you’re wrong. Let me buy you dinner?”
    She didn’t have to buy me anything. I could feast on her all day.
    “I’m not some charity case.”
    She frowned, not getting it. “It’s not charity. I totally owe you for how I treated you. I’ll buy you dinner at the diner just down the street, and I can help get you caught up.”
    The fact that I was wavering was a bad sign. I knew better.
    “What will your boyfriend have to say about it?”
    Joel had pointed the guy out as if in warning. Although he was one of a kind and stood out like a Cyclopes, I would have pieced it together myself. He was about my height, but stockier. He probably packed a serious punch, but he would be slow to my quick moves and have to catch me first.
    “What can he say? It’s not like this is a date. Besides, he doesn’t own me.”
    Her defiance was cute. But then everything she did I found cute. I reached out and touched her hand. Her skin was as soft as I imagined. Then I held it up, ring finger sparkled in the light from the windows.
    “This ring seems to say otherwise.”
    She snatched her hand from mine. You would think she’d been burned the way her eyes flared.
    “It’s a promise ring. Not an engagement ring.”
    Interesting choice of words. “Could have fooled me and not what’s being said around school. Guy doesn’t put a ring like that on a girl for a promise. He’s stating his claim loud and clear that you are his forever.”
    “It’s a promise ring,” she said, and I scoffed. “Now do you want to go get burgers or not?”
    Blonde forgotten, I shrugged. “Will I get in trouble for being out with the town’s princess?”
    “I am not…” She snapped her lips closed and didn’t bother saying anything else. She stalked down the hall, and I moved to follow.
    The view from behind was just as good as the front. My dick leaped for joy thinking he was getting some action. I groaned a bit, remembering the sure thing I left behind for the sure no, yet I followed like a dog wanted a bone.
    She hadn’t lied. The diner was only a few blocks away. Seeing that it was just after four, the place was deserted. School was over and it wasn’t a Friday night. Everyone who didn’t have to be at school had gone home somewhere, to study or to bang. And I wasn’t doing either. The pretense that we were going to study was lost on her, because I hadn’t brought a book with me. Not that she’d given me time. She had a backpack, but we didn’t share any classes, to my utter disappointment. Needling her in class could have been the highlight of my day.
    “Burger,” she said to the waitress who appeared.
    Then they both turned their eyes on me. I’d been watching Lenny, studying her face like the answers to a pop quiz were there. She was more than pretty. Yet, she didn’t paint her face or even wear that gloss shit on her lips. I wanted to kiss her and that was a first. I did it mostly because I had to on occasion. Wanting it was an entirely different thing.
    “Yeah, what she’s having,” I said to end the scrutiny the two were giving me. “And fries.”
    “Fries come with it,