Just Give In by Jenika Snow Read Free Book Online Page B

him.
    She
hadn’t decided on where she was going yet, probably waiting until he told her
if he got accepted, which he didn’t and hadn’t. That was something else he
still needed to come clean about.
    “But
what if you get accepted into one of the schools you applied? You still haven’t
heard back from any of them?”
    He
felt shame that he wasn’t as smart as she was, that he hadn’t been able to get
into even the lowest college on his “hope” totem pole. He felt shitty that he
honestly didn’t care about college. He only cared about her and making sure she
succeeded. “I didn’t get accepted, Lena.”
    Her
eyes widened slightly. “To any of them? There were like five you applied to,
right?”
    He’d
never been interested in school, and had struggled in focusing on it, on making
sure he passed his classes. Maybe if he’d actually applied himself his GPA
wouldn’t be shit.
    “I
don’t know what to say other than I didn’t get accepted, and this job has come
as a godsend, baby.”
    “You
kind of stunned me with all of this, Rory.”
    He
felt like an ass. “I know, and I should have told you about it long before now,
but hell, the whole rejections letter humiliated me. You’re just so damn smart,
and I’m lucky to have even graduated.”
    “Don’t
say that. You are smart. You’ve just been dealt a shitty hand.”
    He
smiled. “You have the sweetest heart, Lena, but the truth is the truth. I’m
just not one of those guys.”
    “One
of those guys?”
    He
leaned back again. “One that hopes to get into the college of his dreams, that
even has a shot at a shitty townie one.”
    “You
can be any guy you want to be, Rory.”
    There
she went again, being optimistic even though everyone in town knew about his
old man and the shit life he led. “You’re right, but the truth is still the
truth, and reality doesn’t change. I’m the type of guy that loves his girl more
than anything else, and that’s all I need in life.” He winked at her and loved
that even three years later she still blushed. “I’m the kind of guy that does
hard, manual labor, providing for his girl because he wants her to have
everything.”
    “Rory,”
she said softly. She stood, walked over to him, and in front of everyone in the
café she sat right on his lap. But Rory didn’t care if anyone watched, didn’t
give a fuck what they saw. He liked that she wanted to give him a little PDA,
craved it even. He held her, pushed her hair off of her shoulder, and pressed
his mouth to her ear.
    “I
swear, Lena, I fucking swear everything will work out.” He held her tighter,
and prayed that it did. This was the one thing he didn’t want to fuck up, and
this was the one girl he didn’t want to lose.
    He
meant it when he said he was the type of guy that worshipped his girl, that she
was all he needed in his life, the only thing he needed to be happy. He didn’t
lie when he’d said providing for her was what he wanted, needed to do.

Chapter
Six
     
    She’d
been dreading this day since the first time Rory spoke about it a little over a
month ago. Lena sat on the back of his pickup truck, staring at the lake across
from her, the beer in her hand ice-cold. Droplets of condensation slid down the
bottle and landed on her bare thighs, and the sound of Rory rustling in the cab
of the truck seemed overly loud. She was just in a whole other world right now,
everything seeming too sensitive, too painful.
    Tomorrow
morning Rory would leave her, leave this town behind, his fucked up father,
and, she hoped, create something wonderful for himself. He deserved this more
than anyone else, but there was this part of her, this selfish part, this part
she hated but that was reality, that wished she could just tell him to stay
with her.
    Of
course she wouldn’t say that to him, wouldn’t tell him to forget about leaving
the bad life he’d been dealt and starting fresh somewhere else because she was
selfish. He’d be back, but a year was such a