“Please,” I beg. “I’ll do whatever you want. Just let me go.”
She tilts her head, shining her light in my face. “Whatever I want? Anything at all?”
“Yes.”No.
She’s scaring me. How is she so in control of this situation?
“First answer me this, Easton: Why are you doing this? It’s not worth it. Why would you risk getting yourself kicked off the hockey team to pull a prank?”
“Because I lost a dare.”
She doesn’t respond to that. “And?”
And…“I lost a dare.” I shrug. “What more do you need to know?”
Harper lets out a frustrated puff of air. “Why are guys so…so…dumb? Honestly. You wouldn’t find a girl in this position. You could have just refused to do it, but look at you, lying in the dirt with a rhino head on.”
“That isn’t helping my situation.”
She hums, thinking.
Hums some more, tapping her foot on my chest.
When Harper stops humming, she gives me her full attention, bending down so I can get a look of her face. Her pert nose. Upturned lips.
Shit.
“I won’t rat you out on one condition.”
She stands over my body, lording over me with her fucking phone and her fucking attitude and that sassy smile as if she were wielding actual weapons. Where does she get the nerve?
“What!” I can’t stand it. “Spit it out!”
She is next-level annoying.
No wonder I fixate on someone uncomplicated like Maddieand not haughty like Harper. Sheesh. She’d shred my balls and put them in her purse if I let her.
“I won’t turn you in to my parents. Or to school.Orto the police. If…” She hesitates, as if she’s still deciding on her next words, and turns the flashlight on. “If.”
It’s dark, but that light shines on her face, and I can see her worrying her bottom lip as she debates.
“If…what?” Jesus Christ, spit it out. “Do you need me to drive you to school every day for the rest of the year?”
Kiss her? Carry her books in the hallway at school? Buy her hot lunch until the end of the year? Buy her a gift card to Target?
I’d be willing to do all those things if she’d just let me—
“Be my prom date and do a promposal like you invited me and I was your first choice.”
If I could fall over from shock, I would. As luck would have it, I’m still flat on my back in a frozen state of surprise.
Be her prom date?I don’t fucking think so.
“That’s extortion. Coercion.”
Her face is a mask of pure innocence, wide-eyed and blinking. “Is it?”
“Yes,” I grind out.
