“Beck, wait.” I grab him by his jacket and pull with all my strength. He stumbles backward, nearly knocking me over, then twists free. For a split second, his face is lit by the red emergency EXIT sign above the door, angry, wrecked, unguarded. There’s no other light back here. We’re swallowed by shadow.
“Let me go, Gracie.”
“No.” I step toward him again, then stop when he retreats, putting distance between us like it physically hurts to be this close. I lift my hands, palms out, like I need to prove I’m not a threat. “I’m not stopping until you talk to me.”
He drags in a breath that sounds like it scrapes his chest raw. I’ve never seen him like this, furious and devastated at the same time.
“What’s there to talk about?” he snaps. “It’s pretty clear.”
“What Trish said isn’t true. I mean,” backtracking, “it’s true that I said it, but that’s not how I meant it to come out. I’m—”
Beck cuts me off. “I get it. You don’t have to explain. We’re friends, and that’s it…except.” He paces, raking his hands through his hair. “Maybe even that isn’t working anymore.”
My heart gives a sharp twinge. “What do you mean?” I cry out, worried this is it. The moment Kirsten warned me about. Where I lose him. As a friend. As the potential for something more. “We grew up together. Did everything together. Of course, we’re friends.”
Suddenly, he’s there. Right in front of me, walking me backward until my shoulders hit the wall. “You know how you were giving me shit earlier? For disappearing these last few months?”
I nod, nervous from the rage in his eyes, the recklessness rolling off him. He’s usually so contained. Controlled. I don’t know how to handle this version of Beck. “You told me. You were with Sarah.”
“Wrong.” Beck leans an arm on the wall, right next to my head. His breath ghosts my cheek, warm and unsteady. “I ended it with Sarah months ago. Couldn’t stand it, stringing her along.”
“What?” I shove at his chest, needing space. “Why? Why would you break up with her?”
“Because she wasn’tyou.”
The words land like a blow.
“I don’t understand.” I shake my head. “Why didn’t you call me? Answer my texts?” My voice rises, and it’s a good thing we’re in a crowded bar because outside I’d be screaming at him. Shrieking.
“Jesus, Beck. I was worried about you. I had to call and ask your mom if you were okay. Do you know how humiliating that was?”
“I didn’t call because you were with Brandon. Planning a future. Talking about a white dress.” Beck bends down, bringing his eyes right up to mine,and I flinch when I see how they blaze. “I’mnevergoing to be able to watch you walk down the aisle to some other man, okay?Never. So don’t ask me to.”
My mouth drops open at that. “Wh—what do you mean?”
“I mean, I’m a man, Gracie,” he says, raw and shaking. “Not your consolation prize. Not your stand-in. And I can’t pretend anymore.”
Before I can react, Beck takes my hand and presses it hard against his crotch.
“Feel that?” he hisses. “It’s my dick. Sometimes I touch it and think of you. Does that disgust you? Make you sick?”
He lets go, but not before I feel the twitch beneath my palm.
Beck steps back, his chest heaving, mouth set in a flat line. The silence between us crackles, charged and electric.
Finally, his breathing slows. He glances down. “Uh. You can move your hand now.”
“Maybe I don’t want to,” I say, squeezing lightly.
Beck sucks in a sharp breath, eyes screwing shut.
“Gracie.”
My name is a warning, but I’m already moving. I grab the back of his neck and haul him down to me, crushing my mouth to his.
The kiss is nothing like I imagined. It isn’t gentle or tentative. It’s not soft or sweet. It’s years of restraint detonating all at once. Beck makes a broken sound against my mouth, one hand bracing against the wall as his body presses into mine.
He was a good kisser at prom.
