Now all I have to do is figure out what that even looks like. Do I have to talk to her about it? Do I ask her to be my fucking girlfriend?
I let out a bark of laughter as I jog across the parking lot, heading for the Charger—a bark of laughter so loud and random that two guys standing by a flashy brand-new Mercedes (I think they’re in my English class) jump at the sound, staring at me nervously, as if they expect me to charge at them and start swinging.
I shoot them a sour grin. “As you were.”
This freaks them out even more. They scramble inside the car, slamming the doors, and I shake my head.
I’m not that volatile.
I don’t just attack people in parking lots for no reason.
I can be normal. I can talk to my fellow classmates without it meaning that I’m about to knock out their front teeth. Dash and Wren might say otherwise. And my mother. And anyone else who knows me even faintly well. Maybe they’re right. I suppose I’ll be a reformed character, then. Starting from now, no hitting people for no reason in parking lots.
I sit in the driver’s seat of the Charger, staring blankly out of the windshield as I think all of this through. I’m shocked when I realize that I’m absently twisting the two friendship bracelets around my wrist, toying with the braided threads. Aside from the weighty silver signet ring on my right index finger, I don’t wear jewelry. Necklaces annoy the fuck out of me. I don’t even wear a watch. Stuff like that has always irritated me beyond belief. But these two woven strands of cotton around my right wrist aren’t annoying to me at all anymore.
The car door opens, jarring me back to reality. Wren hurls himself across the back seat, adjusting his dick in his pants as he makes himself comfortable. “That girl will be the death of me,” he groans. “One kiss and my cock is hard as fuck. I swear it’s gonna fall off soon. Penises were not designed to take this kind of constant abuse.”
“Urgh! Stop.” I make a face at him in the rearview.
“Please.” Wren rolls his eyes. “I don’t wanna hear any more of that shit out of you. You don’t have a leg to stand on.”
“The fuck are you talking about, Jacobi?”
Before he can answer, Dash opens the passenger side door and gets into the car; he looks at me with a stunned smirk on his face.
“What?”
“I just heard from three different sources that you kissed Presley in the hallway in front of the entire senior class.”
“That’s what I’m talking about,” Wren says, affecting a bored yawn.
I start the car, and my unhappy growl is almost louder than the snarl of the engine. “Don’t people have better things to talk about?”
Wren shoves his phone through the gap, into the front of the car. There I am, on his phone’s screen, cradling the back of Chase’s head and laying one on her. I see the identical looks of shock on all of the students’ faces and my ire builds.
“That’s a Gone with the Wind kiss right there, my friend. I’d give it a nine out of ten,” Wren says. “Would have gotten full marks if you’d just dipped her a little.”
“Fuck off.”
Dash takes Wren’s phone. “Let’s see.” The sound of people gasping fills the Charger again.
“I swear to God, if you don’t stop that I’m gonna hurl that damn thing out of the window.”
“You wouldn’t dare,” Wren says.
“How do you figure?”
Jacobi sits up and leans through the gap himself. He scrubs his hand over the back of my head annoyingly. “Because I haven’t breathed a single word about how much shit you’ve given me and Lord Lovett ever since we started seeing our girls. If you gripe one more time about us enjoying this moment, we’re both gonna make you apologize for your behavior. You dumbass fucking hypocrite.”
“That sounds fair.” I chew on the inside of my cheek as Dash restarts the video for a third time.
She doesn’t come to the house.
Again.
I knew she wouldn’t, which is why I’m the one scaling the drainpipe that leads up to her bedroom window at precisely eight o’clock on the dot. She isn’t in her room when I drag my ass up onto the small roof outside her window. There are no lights on inside, and I can’t see any movement to speak of. When I attempt to open the window, I find that she’s drawn the latch across and locked it.
Silly, silly Chase. Does she really think that an old sash window is gonna stop me? I take a suitably flexible card from my wallet and wedge it into the gap between the frame and the window, and then I work it through, wiggling it from side to side until it catches on the latch and flips it up. Fucking cakewalk.
Once I’m inside, I make myself very comfortable on her bed and I wait.
She shows up half an hour later, carrying her laptop and a stack of books in her hands. She lets out a yelp when she flicks on the light switch and finds me stretched out on top of her comforter.
“I knew it. I knew you were gonna be in here,” she hisses, slamming the door closed behind her.
“If you knew then why did you squeal like a frightened little mouse?”
“Because it’s still a surprise when you turn on the lights in your room and find that someone’s been lurking there, waiting for you in the dark.” Her voice brims over with reproach. I almost feel bad for scaring her. But not quite.
I point at the laptop and books in her arms. “I take it you were in the library, writing your little heart out?”
“What’s it to you, where I was?”
“You and I are creating a story together, sweetheart. It matters if you were writing your chapter because I need it before I can write mine. I’m being held up because you’re not delivering on your end of the bargain.”
“You came here and waited for me in the dark because you wanted to personally come and get my chapter?” She crosses the room and sets her things down on the desk. “I said I’d email it to you.”
“No. I came here to have sex with you.”
She whirls around, leaning against the desk. Her eyes are alive, bright and sharp. Fuck, every time I look into them now, all I can see is the moment when she woke up on the concrete outside the hospital, gasping for that first life-saving breath. She was so beautiful and so terrible in that moment, and I knew it then. I knew I was in trouble, but I buried it down.
“We’re not supposed to mention the sex, remember,” she says. Her cheeks are high with color. Her pale, pale skin and her Celtic hair refuse to let her hide her emotions. It’d be a crime to hide the kind of beauty that blossoms on her face. “What?” she whispers. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
I sit up, positioning myself on the edge of her bed, facing her. “I’m tired,” I say.
“Then you should probably go home and sleep.” She gestures to the window.
“I’m not going anywhere. I’m staying here with you,” I tell her softly.
Her brow furrows. She shakes her head. “I don’t—what? First, that kiss in the hall. Now this? You’re being weird, Pax.”
How do I explain that the tight, angry, sharp-edged pieces of me are unfolding? That she has done this to me, and I’m as confused about it all as she is. I can only say, “I’m being…me.” She has no idea how monumental that is. How long I’ve done everything in my power to not be me.