“Why?” I push, holding the door shut above her head so she can’t open it, twisting my head away to ignore how damn alluring she smells.
“He doesn’t know!” She shouts.
“What?” I breathe, accidentally inhaling the intoxicating scent on her skin, enriched from dancing so hard. Her natural musk is better than any perfume, and it makes my blood pump painfully through my veins.
God, she smells good.
“I haven’t told him,” she whispers, twisting that damn boulder around her finger. The brilliance of it has been seared into my brain since the day I saw her at the sanctuary.
“Why?”
“Because it isn’t anything. It’s not a big deal.” She shrugs, trying to convince herself, because she definitely isn’t convincing me.
“But you’re afraid,” I object softly, breathing against her hair.
“No, I’m not.”
“Yes, you are. I can see it on your face. I know you.”
“No!” She barks, spinning to face me. Her anger shoves me back until the span of the porch is between us. “You don’t know me. Not anymore.”
“You’re right, I’m sorry.”
“You’re sorry?” She laughs. “Too late for sorry, Jensen. Get the fuck off my porch and leave me alone.”
Chapter Five
Liv
Fourteen years ago…
All the other kids are crowded around the stop sign waiting for the school bus, while I stare down the street into the early morning fog. It’s my first day at my new school, and I don’t know anyone.
I’m too sheepish to walk up to any of them to introduce myself, so I keep my distance, balancing on the curb and rubbing my hands up and down my arms to ward off the bite of autumn in the air.
“Most people wear a sweater instead of mimicking a cricket,” a boy’s voice comes from beside me. My spine stiffens, and I barely glance over my shoulder, checking to see if he’s speaking to me.
He’s tall with jaw-length blonde hair pushed back behind his ears like the skateboarders you see in the movies. He’s not carrying a backpack despite being at the school bus stop.
“I don’t have any sweaters,” I utter, confused as to why he is talking to me.
“I know it’s a shitty trailer park, but I’m sure you’re not that poor,” he scoffs, pulling out a cigarette to light. I mustscrunch my nose because he chuckles and puts it back in his pocket, unbothered.
“The last place I lived was warm year-round, and my mom only believes in sustainable goods. She made us get rid of most of our frivolous attire.”
“Frivolous? Are you 75?”
“I just turned sixteen.”
“Sophomore?”
“Junior. I placed high on my test scores.”
He rolls his eyes, and I don’t know why. I’m telling the truth.
“Senior,” he replies, and I look him up and down subtly because he looks much older than me, but he catches on. “I got held back.”
“Oh.”
