Am I desperate? Do I care too much about what Trace is and isn’t doing? I think back over the past two and a half months.
I searched for him in the hallways, hoping to catch a glimpse of his smile. I tuned out the conversations around me and tilted my ear, hoping to hear his voice as a sexy rumble, followed by his booming laughter that has me tripping over my own feet. I get up in the middle of the night, knowing he doesn’t sleep well, and quietly head to the bathroom, hoping he’ll use the guest one instead of the one in his master bedroom.
Jesus. I am desperate for Trace Saints’s attention. This experiment won’t work. I can’t separate physical from emotional. It’s easy to fall for Trace. He’s funny, smart, protective, and he can be nice when he wants to be.
“I don’t. I’m trying to understand how a serial keep-it-casual guy thinks. I want to be like you.”
He laughs, and it’s devoid of humor. “Are you psychoanalyzing me?”
He catches on quickly. I gulp. “Yes.”
“So that you can use what I teach you on a different guy? Including the nice boy who spoke to you?”
“Yes?” I eke out. He is definitely unhappy. “I’ll tell them what you tell the girls you hook up with. No strings. If they want more, I’ll break things off.”
They’re empty threats. I could never lead someone on and break their heart. Seeing Trace kissing Rue destroyed me. How could I bear the thought of someone else experiencing what I had?
“You keeping tabs on me?”
“You have a reputation,” I point out. “And you admitted earlier, with pride, that you compartmentalize and let girls know that the sex is casual.”
Scoffing, he doesn’t address the part about his reputation. Instead, he focuses on something I’m not planning on doing, but he does all the time, from hearing his hookups crying in the girls’ bathroom.
“You think it’ll be that easy to do, breaking someone’s heart?” He stares at my mouth.
I shrug. Inside, I’m a tangled mess of insecurity, fear, and excitement. “You do it all the time and make it look easy. It won’t be a problem for me.” False bravado—that’s all I have because I don’t have the experience Trace does, nor will I.
I’m not a magnet like Trace is. The guys steer clear of me like I’m one big, angry boil ready to burst. Other than that one nice boy whom I’ve never met before, I doubt a guy would come up to me, knowing my messed-up past. Why did he come up to me? I ask the expert.
“Why do you think that boy?—”
“Rush.”
“Thank you.” I dip my head with graciousness. My mom always said to show kindness and gratitude in real time. “Why do you think Rush came up to me when other guys haven’t?”
“Curiosity. Opportunity. You’re a challenge. What’d he say to you?”
He couldn’t care less, that’s what I hear in his tone, but his body says otherwise. Sitting in his lap, sandwiched between his muscular arms, I feel him go perfectly still. I’m not sure he’s even breathing.
“Nothing important.” Rush asked me out on a date. I’m not telling Trace for a reason. I’m not prepared for how he’ll react. Either he’ll smirk that a guy dared to ask out a messed-up girl like me, or he’ll be angry that another predator wants a piece of his meal.
“Do the other guys in our school see me the same?”
“I suppose.”
“But you don’t?”
“No.”
“Because we live together?”
“Yes.”
“What if we didn’t? Would you have taken the chance to come up to me after Seven and Malice left because you’re curious and see me as a challenge?”
I wait for his answer with my heartbeat thudding against my rib cage.
“To be honest, I wouldn’t touch you with a ten-foot pole.”
