chapter eight

as lydia awaited tatums arrival, she grew nervous. she had changed into something more casual when she had gotten home from the fair, as her mother did not approve of her wearing her previous outfit to a friends house with children. lydia was now wearing black leggings with a tight fitting plain black long sleeve shirt, in which hugged her curves perfectly.

she was now stood in the kitchen of her mother's friends home anxiously waiting for tatum to roll into the driveway. what she didn't know, was that she was being watched.

"lydia is your name?" the deep voice from before hummed into the kitchen. with a slight gasp, she was faced with the same boy from before who she now knew as rory's older brother. lydia felt like she was always getting startled, and she made the mental note to herself to stop getting so wrapped up in her head and to pay more attention to her surroundings to avoid this. she needed this skill, anyways.

"everyone is always startling me!" she laughed to herself, putting a hand over her quickly beating heart. "yes, i am lydia" she finished. the boy chuckled along with her, which she appreciated.

"i'm river, i'm rory's brother" he replied nonchalantly.

"nice to meet yo-" she was cut off by the sound of her phone going off, as she now knew she was getting a phone call.

"one second," she said to the boy now known as river.

"hello?"

"okay, i'm coming" and with that she hung up the phone.

"i really hope we can continue this conversation another time, i would love to get to know you more" river said, as he noticed lydia gathering up the last of her things from the counter.

"absolutely, river!" she replied in a sing song voice. river liked her, she seemed very interesting to him.

as she opened the front door, she spotted tatum in his car looking down onto his phone as he waited. just as she turned back around to close the door, river reached for it causing it to refuse to shut. lydia looked up at him with a sweet but confused look on her face.

"can we exchange numbers?" he asked, now leaning his tall frame up against the door in front of lydia.

"o- okay, yes" she stammered out, as she knew she was making tatum wait.

he gently took the phone from her grip, entering in his number. after he had handed lydia back her phone, she looked down to notice that he had set his name to "". she wasn't going to change it, though.

"i'll see you, lydia" river announced, slowly shutting the door as if he was granting her access to leave. with a smile, lydia walked off the porch and towards tatums car. tatum had a very nice car, which was a bit of a shock to her. not because she thought tatum was poor, but because he just didn't seem like the materialistic type to her.

"hi tatum!" lydia said with excitement as she opened the car door. tatum did not respond, though.

after positioning herself into the passenger seat of the black sedan, she took the time to look over to tatum. he seemed tense, and she was confused as to why. her mood immediately dropped as she felt as though she had already annoyed him. even if she hadn't been the cause of his tense demeanor, she simply didn't like seeing people upset.

"tatum?" she quietly asked, sliding her hand to be on top of his thigh as if to gain his attention. tatum immediately looked over to her, clenching his jaw in the process. he removed her hand from his thigh, placing it back into her lap.

"don't do that." he lowly said, with a strong tone of firmness in his voice. lydia didn't understand what she had done wrong, and she was still extremely puzzled as to why he was not in a good mood. he seemed happy over the phone when speaking to her, so she began to think it was something he saw on his phone in which he was looking down at when she was walking out of the home.

lydia had decided once again that silence would be the best option for the two. it had seemed to ease the mood between them earlier in the day when he had snapped at her about his father. speaking of which, she was still dying to know about. privacy has never really been a thing for the girl, as she told her mother everything her entire life. it seemed that she simply did not understand that sometimes people would rather keep things to themselves.

as lydia was thinking, she started holding her own hand in the process. it was something she was taught to do by her father, being that whenever her mother was not around to hold her hand she would have to hold her own. her father's love language was definitely not affection, and it showed in the way that lydia had many nice things. she had her car that she received as a gift from her father over two years ago as her sixteenth birthday gift, many clothes, and a nice home in the suburbs.

looking down at her hands that were tangled together, she had noticed her outfit in which she changed into earlier. she had decided that she was not content with this choice of clothes, and she was going to gently make tatum aware of that.

"tate?" she quietly said, looking over to him.

"hm," he shortly hummed in response.

"do you think we can maybe stop by my house so i can change into something more presentable? we're going to the fair after all, and there are going to be a lot of people there." she politely asked.

without even an ounce of second thought, tatum quickly gave her a nod of his head. he knew exactly why he was going there, and that was to know where she lived. he would need it, and he knew that.

he was excited to see lydia again, as she made him feel something he hadn't felt in over twenty years. happiness. drive. a purpose.

however, tatums demeanor completely changed the moment he brought his head up to meet with the sight of his little speaking to another man. this was enough, in fact, more than enough, but when he caught sight of the man putting his number into his lydias phone, he knew it was done. he couldn't even think about how absolutely stunning she looked in something so simple, he couldn't even think of how bad he wanted to push her over and have her take him right in front of that mans eyes. everything that he had worked so hard for, everything that he had put into his sweet facade for his girl, he needed lydia, and he needed her he had spent so much of his delicate time being nice to his little, gaining her trust, making her think that he was the boy that would come in and sweep her off her small feet, and it was all going to be a waste.

a waste because he knew he was going to give in. he simply couldn't wait another minute.

lydia was his, and she was coming with him