ROSE

27. Hidden

♡

I giggled and threw my head back at what he was saying. Again, we were both found sitting on the hill, looking at the whole town from on top. I knew it was his favourite place but now, it was becoming my own.

After opening up about how I feel, I felt myself more loosen when I'm around Anthony. I could tell how hard he was trying to not make me feel like he was going to leave but I knew that, at least, he understood what I'm going through and that was enough for me to feel so grateful and more confident to let him in.

"So, since you weren't with the douche yesterday —" he started but I cut him.

"His name is Dylan." I gave him a warning look then took another lick of the ice cream he bought me. "And he isn't a douche."

"Whatever his name is, if you weren't with him like Cameron made me think you were, where were you?" Since he called me baby for choosing to have my ice cream in a cone just so I am licking it, he bought his own in a cup that he was eating with a small plastic spoon.

"Oh true, I haven't told you. I had an internship in the Aujourd'hui magazine, it's Jones's. I found out that one of my old dad's friends lives here now and started his own magazine."

"You told me something about an internship." He said.

"It's not so known but this is what I always dreamed to have a career in." I smiled excited and he just watched me with a small grin on his lips. "What?" I shyly asked and took another lick from my cone.

"It's just so cute seeing you happy." He said.

"Okay, lucky charm. Stop obsessing over me now, you weirdo." I joked and leaned on his shoulder. His free arm formed around my back and continued eating his ice cream.

"I can't. Stop me if you can." He joked along.

"Actually, I wanted to talk about something." I pulled away. He frowned and let his spoon down. Maybe because he wanted to listen to me or maybe because he didn't like where this was going. "Someone told me something and I wanted to hear your point of view."

"Oh, here we go with the rumors. Who told you what?" He sounded mad which made me even more careful to not get Dylan's name into this.

"Just someone...that person told me that you live here alone." I started the conversation but I wanted to know the truth from him. I wanted him to tell me everything.

"I do." He concentrated on his ice cream but deep down, I knew that he was only doing that to avoid the contact with my eyes.

"Why? Where is your family?" I tried to spill the tea from him. He was so hard to open up.

"Well, my mother lives with my brother in California and opened a business there, a paper company." He looked at me.

"You never told me you have a brother," I said and got a little closer, laid on his shoulder to make him feel more comfortable to tell me.

"I...do." He softly said. "We don't talk much though so you can consider me not having one." He gave me a small smile then turned to eat his ice cream again. I bit my lip not knowing if I should ask why or not but I wanted to know about his father.

"And your dad?" I simply asked but his eyes flew to me as if I said something that was unexpected. My heart fell in my knees because I didn't know how to take back my words. From what Dylan said, his father is dead so maybe it hurts him to talk about it.

"Can we...I don't...I don't want to talk about it." He shook his head and I held his hand and rubbed it.

"It's okay, I understand." I do understand, the point is that I really want him to open up and I didn't know how to open his shell.