Stubborn Love by Natalie Ward Read Free Book Online

always does.
    “You alright?” I ask her
again.
    She shrugs at me now, but
doesn’t look away this time.
    “You have nothing to be
sorry for Mia,” I tell her. “A lot of shit has gone down over the last few days
and…” And I’m not really sure what else to say.
    She shrugs at me again and
I don’t know if she’s agreeing with me or she’s not sure herself. We sit,
neither of us saying anything now. Mia is playing with the blanket and I’m not
really sure what to do. Why do I get so fucking tongue tied around this girl?
    Eventually, Mia speaks,
“I’m really sorry about last night, Jared. I was drunk, but it’s no excuse for
what I did.” She’s playing with the ends of her hair now, wrapping it around
her fingers.
    I take a deep breath,
knowing I need to speak; that I need to let her know it’s okay. “There’s
nothing to apologise for, I promise,” I tell her. “Like I said, a lot’s
happened, sometimes you need to let off some steam. God knows I’ve done…” I’m
about to say, dumb things when I’ve been drunk, but I don’t want her to think
that what happened or was about to happen between us, was dumb.
    “Yeah but it’s no excuse
for what I did, what I tried to do,” she says, thankfully not giving me a
chance.
    I look at her and watch as
Mia blushes and looks away. I can’t help but think back to any other time a
girl has thrown her drunken ass at me. I’ve said no to them in the past, but
not all of them, and not necessarily that often. Some, I just wasn’t interested
in; some were crashing a guy’s night out. But Mia is definitely the first drunk
girl I’ve said no to, who I actually wanted to sleep with. And strangely
enough, that’s exactly why I did say no to her. Because I
don’t want just a drunken night with Mia. I don’t want a one-night
hook-up. Because I’m interested in her, most definitely, but I’m interested in
her, like long-term type interested in her. And I certainly don’t want to fuck
that up with any drunken misunderstandings, even though it seems as though that
might have already happened.
    “Do you wanna talk about it?” I ask her instead, hoping.
    “Not really,” she answers,
staring at her hands. “I think I’d rather just pretend it never happened.”
    I smile, even though she
isn’t looking at me. Although I haven’t known her that long, I now know this is
typical of Mia. Ignore the problem, put a wall around it and hope it will go
away. She doesn’t, but I do want to talk about last night. I want her to know
why I said no and that if she asked me right now, I’d only be saying yes to
her. But I also know there’s a bigger problem that caused last night, the
problem she still refuses to talk about at all.
    “Do you want to talk about
what happened with your dad, Mia?” I try.
    Mia smiles now and finally
looks at me again. “Can’t we just talk about something else, something
completely different?” she asks, hopeful.
    “Sure,” I say, even though
I know she is once again avoiding it. But at least we’re talking again and to
be honest, right now, I’d rather that than trying to force her to talk about
something she doesn’t want to talk about. God, I’m such a fucking pussy.
    Mia smiles at me now,
before a shiver runs through her. I realise she must be freezing sitting on the
end of my bed dressed like that, so I scoot over and pull back the covers for
her, indicating she should slide under it.
    “What?” she asks,
surprised as she rubs her hands up and down her arms. I can see the goose bumps
from here.
    “You’re cold,” I say. “Get
in.”
    She stops moving now as
though she actually is frozen. She’s looking at me like she’s about to say no,
and I can’t help but hold my breath as I wait to see whether she does.
    “Thanks,” she eventually
whispers as she crawls forward and slides under the covers. We lie down, heads
on separate pillows and I pull the blanket up so we are covered to our chests.
We are both staring