I took a deep breath and squared my shoulders to face her. Tardiness be damned, she needed to understand where I was coming from.
“You don’t get it,” I told her, lowering my voice. “You and I went to different high schools.”
“Well, that’s just silly because we went to the same high school.”
I blinked. “That’s not what I meant, and you know it.”
Understanding dawned on her face, with a hint of something else: remorse. That was because June had had a very different high school experience than Kaylani and me. Unlike the two of us, June had never been on the receiving end of Ryan’s torment, most likely because she and my brother had been varsity athletes like him—volleyball and soccer, respectively.
“Okay, I hear you,” she said, her voice free of judgment. “I just worry about you, you know that.”
I smiled weakly. “I know.”
We continued our walk toward the bookstore in silence, a nearly impossible feat for June, who always had something to say. Just when I thought I might get a pass from her inquisition, she spoke again.
“Jared Pink, though? You hate the guy.”
I scrunched my nose.Hatewas a strong word. I didn’thateanyone, not even Ryan. The fact of the matter was I didn’t know how I felt about Pink, and that kiss a couple of days ago had only further complicated my feelings.
“Unless . . .” I looked over my shoulder when she trailed off. “Do youlikehim?”
“What? Don’t be ridiculous.”
She gasped. “Oh my god, you do. You like him.”
My mouth twisted. “That’s not what I said.”
“Girl, it all makes sense now.”
The truth was, I hadn’t had enough time to break down my complicated feelings for Pink. I didn’twantto like him. For months, I had chalked up my attraction to him as just that: pure, unfiltered lust, a byproduct of too much erotica and not enough sex. But his kiss—his tongue, those rough hands gripping my waist—had thrown me for a loop. One that still had me seeing stars.
I probably shouldn’t have told June anything at all. The fewer people who knew the truth about me and Jared’s arrangement, the better. She never gave me a chance for rebuttal, though, practically skipping the rest of the way to festival headquarters.
Damn tall people and their long legs.
By the time I caught up to her, she was casually leaning against the building, blocking my path. Her beaming smile made me want to scream, but I’d already done that once today.
“Don’t worry,” she said. “I won’t tell anybody.”
“There’s nothing to tell,” I fired back.
She arched a perfectly shaped brow. “You sure about that?”
A pang of unease hit me like a one-two punch. I sidestepped her, and her slightly foreboding question, and rounded the building, coming to an abrupt halt when I saw who was holding the door open for me.
“What areyoudoing here?”
And why do you look that good first thing in the morning?
I kept that last bit to myself.
“Nine-thirty, right?” Pink rested one hand against the door and used the other to check his phone. I tried to ignore the inked ivy winding itself around his well-defined forearm and the cotton joggers hugging his waist, thighs, and . . .other thingslike a second skin.Geez, thirsty much?
“I’m a few minutes late. Sorry.” The beautiful bastard smiled, almost as if he knew where my head was at. “Then again, so are you.”
I opened my mouth, ready to give him the tongue lashing of the century—and not the kind the horny bitch inside of me had been craving ever since he’d kissed me. He deserved nothing less for teasing me before I had my first cup of coffee.
“If you even think—”
