“Pretty sure I just did. Aren’t you supposed to be listening as we talk?” I expected a snicker from Cal for that, but he sat stoically beside me.
There was nothing subtle about it when I glared at him. Like a flipped switch, his shoulders tensed around his ears, one knee wouldn’t stop bouncing, and his knuckles were white because of how hard he clenched.
I slid my foot toward him until it hit his and kept it there. Cal glanced at me, finally, and the tension in the room eased with his deep exhale.
“Uh, sorry, Trent,” I forced in a surprisingly convincing tone. “Last game this weekend,” I added. “I’m on edge.”
Trent leaned back and laced his hands over his stomach. “I get it. Reminds me of my senior year. Football team went to state …”
Jesus, fuck. Threw Trent an olive branch, and he used it to tickle his own ass.
As Big Brother droned on, my focus shifted to Cal. Or rather, it lost all interest in anything else since a part of me was always focused on him. He never said a word the whole hour beyond different grunts for a “yes” and “no” when appropriate.
I kept my foot touching his. I didn’t know what it meant, and Cal never moved his away, so I rubbed it back and forth a few times. Who the fuck knew why. Was I trying to comfort him after storming off and leaving us both with blue balls? Maybe. A silentmy bad, in a way.
Cal relaxed in slow degrees. He loosened the clamp he had on his jaw. He flexed his hands and flattened them on the top of his tight quads. He inhaled and expanded his ripped chest with slower and slower, even breaths.
The alpha inside me wanted to preen and gloat, thinking I was the cause. Whether heating or mellowing, he reacted because ofme. I did that. I took his silent frustration and—fixed it.
However, the realist in me figured that couldn’t be it. Cal was his own alpha. By the laws of the jungle, this thing between us would never work.
Would I stop pushing because of that little detail?
The answer to that was a resoundingnever.
“What’sthis?”Daddyjerkedhis head toward the papers he held and kept his glare aimed at me across the dinner table. Surprisingly, he’d joined us tonight.
So many smart-ass remarks flew into my mouth, but I kept it shut so they wouldn’t fly out. From our distance, there was no way I could read the words. My fuse was short and still smoking from yesterday. Jack fucking with my head and body, then whatever that was with Trent after school. Jack didn’t lose his cool. Ever. Well, except the one time he’d punched me, but details …
Top all that with the very annoying reality of Sasha. She wouldn’t quit. Every day, I had to remind myself not to block her texts, or she’d get worse. She hadn’t shown up at my house again, but she kept hounding me about who I was seeing, that I couldn’t have broken up with her—in the rare moments she acknowledged it—just because. There had to be someone else.
I felt sorry for all the girls whose names she’d thrown out, her suspects, but she was way off the mark. Even if I had no clue what his dick rubbing all over my ass meant to Jack, the fact wasI liked it, just as he’d accused.
No girl had come between Sasha and me. And frankly, no guy either. There was no one to blame, which she couldn’t understand. We just didn’t belong together. Simple as that.
With all that drama hanging over my neck like a dull axe, now this?
I shrugged. “Not sure. I can’t read it from here.”
“These are college registration details, timelines, and campus information. Georgia.” Daddy slammed the top page onto the dining room table, making Cara jump. “Alabama. Duke. MIT.” With each college, he slapped the paper on top of another.
How did he … “You’re readin’ my emails?”
“Why’re you interested in applying to colleges you aren’t attending?”
My temper shot high and hot like a geyser. Daddy wasn’t aware of the last few weeks I’d been through—no one in my family was—but that didn’t stop the fed-up emotions from pitching me over the wall I kept my anger locked behind.
“Who says I’m not?”
Daddy’s disapproving frown deepened. “You’ll answer me, Cal, and drop the attitude when you do. After the trouble you’ve caused, you think these schools will accept you? After the disrespect, you think you’re gonna move across the country and waste my money on it?”
Whoa. The fuck? Disrespect? Shouldn’t respect run both ways?
“Besides,” Daddy added, “we talked about this. You’re going to a school closer to home.”
I jerked in my seat. “When have we ever talked about this?”
“You mentioned Auburn.”
