It takes me a moment to understand what he’s saying and when I do get it, I hug the book so tight that the binding hurts my chest and my arms.
“The girl you were kissing,” I whisper. “You were looking for someone to…”
Have sex with.
That’s what he means, doesn’t he? He was looking for a one-night stand.
Someone to dull the pain, and I have to breathe slowly to let it digest.
To let the fact digest that the guy I’m in love with, my sister’s ex-boyfriend, was looking for a girl to fuck.
“Yeah.” His dark eyes squint for a second as he agrees with me. “I was looking for someone and I would’ve found her. But then you showed up.”
I bite my lip. “I…”
“All messy hair and flushed cheeks.” His gaze roves over my face before dropping to my mouth. “And darkly painted lips, and ruined everything.”
I wince at his harsh tone.
But I don’t think he notices because he keeps looking at them, my lips, and I have a feeling that he’s thinking about them painted. He’s thinking about the lipstick I wore and I can’t stop myself from whispering, “I-it’s called Teenage Decay.”
He raises his eyes and does that lip-lick thingy that he did back at the soccer field. Where his tongue peeks out and takes a slight swipe of his plump lower lip and where I have to go ahead and do the same.
Because it’s still so unbelievable to me. That sexy move of his.
“Teenage Decay,” he repeats on a whisper, and I feel the bookcase wobble at my spine again as he grips it harder. “It suits you. Or at least, I think it does. Because that’s the problem, see. I don’t know.”
“You don’t know what?”
He tips his chin at me, studying me like I’m a puzzle or something. “You. I don’t know a thing about you. Until now, I didn’t know you played soccer. I didn’t know you had a talent for lame poetry. I didn’t know anything. About you. The girl who knows so much about me. You do, don’t you? To draw all the conclusions about me. About my hurt.”
Oh, he has no idea.
He has no idea all the things that I know about him, and I don’t want to give him any idea either. So I try to act casual and shrug even though it comes out awkward.
“Uh, yeah. We lived in the same house. For years. A-and as I said before, you were busy with soccer and other things.”
“Well, again lucky for you. I’m not busy now, am I?”
I look to the side. “I don’t understand.”
And as if in response to me averting my eyes, he raises his other arm as well, grabbing the same shelf by the side of my head, making a prison out of his limbs and chest. So I never look away from him again.
“Who taught you to play soccer like that?”
“Like what?”
From the corner of my eyes, I see his biceps bunch. “So magnificently.”
“What?”
His jaw clamps as he keeps staring at me. “Yeah. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a talent like that.”
I press my back into the bookcase and crane my neck up. “B-but you said all those things and –”
The bookcase shifts again and if he keeps putting pressure on it like this, all the books will fall out.
And dig a hole on the floor and I’ll fall.
