“Told you. She’s probably back in LA.”
“But that’s impossible. You’re injured and…” My eyes go wide andsomethingmakes me ask him, “Youareinjured, right?”
I look down at his feet.
He has a washed-out pair of blue jeans on. I stare at the spot where his knees are. As if I’ll be able to tell if he’s injured or not by staring at his jeans.
“I know that you tore your knee.” I glance up to find him still looking at me with heavy, intense eyes that are wreaking havoc on my breaths. “That’s why you came back, isn’t it? You’re not finishing out the season and you said you were going back home. I saw the press conference.”
“You saw it.”
I swallow, nodding. “Yeah. O-on TV.”
I grimace slightly.
That’s a lie, of course.
I saw it on a forbidden cell phone, but he doesn’t need to know that. Somehow though, he already does and his smirk comes back.
And my breaths run away.
“So sneaking out in the middle of the night to go to a bar for dancing isn’t your only crime. I’m not sure if sending you to a reform school was a good idea. You might be a worse influence on the girls who’re already in trouble for being bad.”
My embarrassment jacks up a thousand times and I mumble, “Hey, I’m not that bad.”
He flicks his gaze all over me again and my lips part.
“I’m starting to get that,” he murmurs. “You’re worse.”
It’s not a compliment. I know that.
But the way he says it, and the way he’s staring at me with eyes that possess a shade of blue that I’ve never seen on him, it feels like it.
Itfeelslike a compliment.
But I can’t focus on all of this.
“So?” I ask instead, keeping my control.
“So what?”
“Did you… you tore your knee, didn’t you?”
“Why?”
“Because I…” I pause to gather my thoughts.
There are many ways I can answer this. Many, many, dangerous ways.
Because I love you and I need to know you’re okay.
Because I love you and I want you to be safe.
Because I love you and I can’t see you injured.
Because I love you…
But I decide to go with the safest, the only option that I have.
