A Wild Thing - Troy Otto

forty-three

"Happy birthday, Troy," Evelyn wrapped her arms around her boyfriend's shoulders.

     Troy responded with a kiss to the side of her face. "We've been together for 4 months, exactly."

     "I know, but it's also your birthday," the girl pulled back but kept her arms wrapped around him. Evelyn had nothing to give Troy, since she got impatient and gave his gift to him a week early. So now they were just sitting in their spot, enjoying each other's company. "I can't believe you're eighteen."

"It's not any different than seventeen," Troy shrugged, his hands gently pulling at Evelyn's waist to get her closer.

     "Boring," Evelyn groaned as she allowed herself to fall forward and twisted her body to fit with Troy's. "Doesn't growing up scare you?"

     "Nah, why would I need to be scared? I don't have any grand plans," Troy answered nonchalantly, running his hands through evelyn's hair.

     Evelyn huffed. "I can't believe I'm almost like, halfway done with senior year. I'm terrified to graduate."

     "Why?" Troy chuckled in a teasing manner.

     "Because," she whined, "I don't want to have to go to college and make super important life decisions. I have no idea what I'm gonna do."

     "Come on, it can't be that hard."

     "Well, you decided what life you wanted years ago. All I did growing up was sit around in my house, I've never had much of a purpose," Evelyn pouted. She never exactly knew what she wanted to major in, but she knew she wanted to go to college somewhere up north. That was before Troy though, and she had hope that they'd last long enough for Evelyn to attend college somewhere nearby. She had limited time to make the decision and find a school she thought would be the best fit for her.

     "I guess you're right," Troy calmly shrugged for the second time, "maybe if you'd done some errands and went to the pantry a couple years ago, you'd have more time outside. And of course, more time with me."

     Evelyn softly laughed as troy pinched her side. "Maybe, but I do plan on making up that time we lost in the future," Troy planted a kiss to her forehead. She sighed and pressed her head into his shoulder. "I forget how chilly it gets here in november," she rubbed her hands together and covered them with her sweatshirt.

     Troy responded by tightening the embrace he had her in and, somehow, bringing her body closer to his. "Yeah, your face is really cold. You should get off of me or something," he joked.

     Evelyn scoffed. "You're the one that keeps pulling me closer to you."

     "Whatever, it's all the coldness in your heart that's making you feel like that."

Evelyn playfully rolled her eyes. "So nothing interesting happened today? Really?" she urged him to talk about his day. Evelyn was interested in everything he had to say. He didn't talk much about himself, which left her curious about a lot of things she probably should know, but she made some excuses since they were still pretty early on in their relationship... even though they spent practically everyday together. Maybe Troy was just didn't like talking about himself, and Evelyn figured there was nothing wrong with that.

"Well, my dad told me that I need to start training more seriously. Now that I'm eighteen I can really start helping to protect this place," though Troy kept calm, Evelyn could hear a tinge of pride and eagerness in his voice. Whatever it was, he was excited to be apart of it.

"Protect this place? What do you mean?" Evelyn tried to ask as innocently as possible. She was careful with her tone, because the last thing she wanted to do was crush Troy's excitement— even if she didn't understand it.

"You know," Troy shrugged while Evelyn continued to stare at him with a blank expression, "from the bad people that want this land."

"What?" Evelyn did her best to keep her tone neutral and not get too pushy. "Bad people want this land?"

"Yeah," Troy nodded. He looked down to see Evelyn looking at him with a confused, but intrigued look on her face. He elaborated, sort of. "It's some fight, rivalry my father has had going on for ages with an indian tribe nearby."

"Oh?" this was all news to Evelyn. She'd never heard either one of her parents talk about it. Maybe they just weren't involved.

"Yeah. My dad, Scott, and all the other 'founding fathers' really got into it with them back in the day.
They've showed up here multiple times demanding 'their land' back, even brought law enforcement into it, but obviously it's never worked," Evelyn couldn't believe how casual Troy was about this.

"That's kind of... frightening," Evelyn mumbled. Even her father was involved with the so-called bad people.

"It's nothing to worry about," Troy placed a hand on her cheek. "What we should be worrying about is how cold your face still is."

"Well it is cold outside," Evelyn retorted sarcastically.

Troy didn't respond as he usually would. He only stared at her with a look that made her heart race.

"What?" Evelyn couldn't contain her smile.

"I'll just never stop wondering..." Troy trailed off, not wiping the stupid, awestruck look on his face.

"Wondering what?" she bit her lip, trying to stop her smile from growing embarrassingly wider.

"How I managed to get such a pretty girlfriend."

Evelyn let out a shallow breath. Her hands instantly went up to her face to cover her pink cheeks. "Stop it," she turned away from him, hiding her giddy expression.

Troy removed her hands before replacing them with his own. He forced her to look at him. "There, now your face isn't so cold," he teased with a smile.

Evelyn's smile quickly faltered. "So you only compliment me when it's convenient for you."

"Not always. In situations like this, yeah," Troy chuckled as Evelyn lightly shoved him. His arms slid around her waist once again, pulling her over so that she was leaning on him. "I didn't lie," his fingers gently stroked the skin he found under her sweatshirt.

"How am I supposed to believe you after what you said?" Evelyn dramatically sighed.

Troy moved one of his hands to grab her chin and pull her in for a kiss. Evelyn sighed into it, making Troy smile and pull away. "That's how."

"Okay, I guess," Evelyn shrugged with a grin on her face. She was happy, really happy.

a/n
time skip
i could've done better
wc: 1099
06.23.22