“Look, I know you want to protect yourself after the shit you went through with your ex. I don’t blame you for being afraid.”
His words incite a sharp spike of anger. Who does he think he is analyzing me? I’m not afraid of shit.
“But I’m not out to hurt you. I don’t want a relationship any more than you do. I’m only saying it was a damn good kiss.”
Even though it should come as a relief—he feels the same way I do—it only makes me angrier. I yank my wrist free. “You know where you went wrong, Reeve? Assuming I’m as stupid as you are. You might get through life thinking with your dick and convincing girls it’s your heart, but every word you’ve said since we met has only proven you’re incapable of having any emotional connection to a woman.” I don’t know why I’m saying such awful things to him, but I don’t try to stop the words. “Sono, you’re not going to convince me that was some special connection you felt when we kissed; that was your dick getting hard. And I didn’t have to be pressed up against it to know that. You might be charming, but you’re predictable as fuck.”
I should be turning away by now, but instead I’m watching his face as a look takes over that I’ve never seen before. Hurt. My heart squeezes painfully, but I say nothing.
Like the flip of a switch, he looks away from me, and the hurt is replaced by a steely gaze. “Okay, Jade,” he says coldly.
He gets up and walks down the street, his pretzel still untouched on the table.
SIXTEEN
jade
I’m not goingto apologize to Reeve.
Not because I wasn’t wrong—I’m cringing at what a bitch I was—but because it’s a waste of time. This entire school worships at Reeve Dalton’s feet. Why would one minor insult make so much as a dent in his thick shell of arrogance? And if it did, good. He needs to hear the other perspective once in a while.
Besides, I don’t stand for being psychoanalyzed by someone who doesn’t know or respect me. Right or wrong, he had no right to speculate about my emotional state or what the breakup with Sam did to my heart. He doesn’t deserve to know any of that.
I focus my attention on my laptop screen and the blinking cursor in front of me. I’m three hard-fought sentences into a one-page essay in Spanish that’s due in a couple of days, and I’m stuck. I swear I’ll never understand the difference between the verbsserandestar; every time I think I’ve got them straight, one of them throws me a curveball. I wonder how forgiving Spaniards are about mix-ups like that. Suddenly Reeve’s offer tohelp me with Spanish seems pretty tempting. Too bad I freaked out on him.
I hear his words again:There was something between us that night. For the first time since I told him off, I let myself replay the kiss. That feeling of being swept away from everything that existed around us was unreal. Reeve was completely right: There was something powerful in that kiss, and I flat out denied it. Is that cruel? Somehow it seems even meaner than telling him he’s a clueless moron.
I scrape together another four sentences of my essay, trying to push away thoughts of Reeve. It’s too quiet in my bedroom, though, and I can’t think. I need a distraction.
I walk down to the dive bar on the corner to throw some darts. Even though it’s a Thursday and the sun is still high in the sky, the weathered men glued to the sticky red vinyl barstools are the same ones I regularly see at closing time on weekends. It’s a shitty bar, and not in a cool, ironic kind of way, but it’s good for cheap drinks and a little distraction when I’m not in the mood for the college bars. Plus it never fails that I can win a ten-dollar bet by beating the older tough-guy types in darts.
“Hey, honey,” Candace says as I approach the bar, my boots squeaking on the beer-sticky floor. Candace is my favorite bartender. She looks like she’s been doing this since she was twelve, and she doesn’t take a single word of shit from anyone. “You drinking alone?”
“You know it. Just one beer, please.”
“No one in here has just one beer, love.”
“This is my thirty-minute break, and then I’m due back at home to finish writing a Spanish essay.”
“Spanish, huh? You ever had a Spanish lover? I did, and let me tell you: He ruined me for all other men.” An old guy downthe bar turns to look at her. “He was worth it, though,” Candace tells the room.
See, this is exactly what I come in here for.
I gather up the darts and start throwing them at the old, cracked board on the wall, thinking about Spanish men. A foreign lover isn’t exactly what I’m going to Spain for, but I wouldn’t complain if it ends up being the highlight of my, ahem, studies. I let my mind wander to thoughts of sunny Spanish beaches and warm nights, men with accents—never mind that I’ll be the foreigner with the thick accent; men with deep, sexy voices, strong shoulders, and piercing blue eyes.
Oh god. I snap out of my daydream and realize that I’m picturing Reeve. What the hell?
I direct my attention to the dartboard and the smooth feeling of each dart leaving my hand, but the darts are landing wildly off target. And I hardly care, because now my last interaction with Reeve is playing through my head like a movie, completely out of my control. I feel it all again, less intense this time, but it’s there: the surprise—and was that satisfaction?—at hearing him say he felt something when we kissed, then the annoyance when he claimed to know why I was denying a connection between us ... and then the fear when I realized he might not be wrong.
The injured look on his face flashes across my mind. My stomach feels heavy with guilt. I hurt him.
I take a long drink of the beer Candace poured me. I have to stand firm; I willnotapologize to that man. But I can’t exactly do nothing and still call myself a good person, can I?
That eveningI stop by Somerset to pick up my check because even though I work in two days, my bank account needs adeposit before then. Cecily is at her desk, scribbling something in her planner book so hard I’m waiting for the paper to rip.
“Hi,” I say. “Just came by to pick up my check.”
“You know where to find it.”
