"Oh, yeah?" He dropped the diary on the floor, and I watched it land and thought about every page in it and felt sick. He walked toward me slowly. I stepped backward until my shoulders hit the wall, and there was nowhere else to go. He planted one hand beside my head. "Then it won't be a problem."
I didn't say anything.
"Invite him to the party at my house this weekend." His voice had gone soft, which was always worse than loud. "We'll play a little trick on him. Since you don't have a crush on him." His eyes held mine. "Since it doesn'tmeananything."
The wall was cold against my back.
"Colt—"
"Or I can just go find him myself." He tilted his head. "Your choice, baby."
I looked at him, and I looked at my diary on the floor, and I thought about my sweet Michael Bennett. Though he was never mine, and never could be. I thought about what Colt meant byfind him myself.This was safer. Colt would hurt him in ways I could never live with.
"Okay," I said.
Agreeing to it made bile rise in my throat.
"There she is." He smiled and pushed off the wall, and picked up his keys from my desk. "Invite him. Be convincing, tell him you want him to be your boyfriend for all I fucking care. I'll handle the rest."
He left.
I slid down the wall and sat on the floor next to my diary and stared at the ceiling, and thought about how I was going to look Michael Bennett in the eyes on Monday and pretend.
I thought about it all weekend. I never found an answer.
***
"Are you sure nobody saw us come in here?"
I've been sick to my stomach since last week when I walked up to Michael’s locker and asked him to come to this party, watching his face light up in a way that made me want to cry right there in the hallway.
He has no idea. He followed me through the noise and the heat of this party and down to the poolhouse with his hand in mine like it was the easiest thing in the world, like he trusted me completely and without question, and that trust is sitting in my chest right now like a stone I can't dislodge.
Colt's orders were simple. Bring Michael to the poolhouse at eight. Get him wound up enough to come in his pants. Hewants proof that I meant what I said — that Michael is nothing to me, just a study partner, just a transaction — and this is how he's decided to collect it. He wants to punish me for every word in that diary, and he wants to punish Michael for being worth writing about, except Michael doesn't know any of that. Michael is sitting in this room thinking tonight is the beginning of something.
It is. Just not the something he thinks.
I keep moving against him, keep my voice light. "I'm sure, Mikey." I press my lips to his neck, his jaw, and feel him exhale slowly like he's been holding his breath since we walked in here. His hands find my waist and hold on and the warmth of them moves through me, a current that starts at his palms and travels everywhere, and I hate myself for feeling it because I don't get to feel it, I don't get to have this.
I pull back and look at him in the dark, and the sight of his face does something to me that I can't afford right now.
I wish I could tell him that I'm sorry for what's coming. That I've loved him since an assembly sophomore year when he told me I had a pretty collarbone and looked so genuinely proud of himself when I smiled. That I'm going to spend a very long time not forgiving myself for tonight.
His eyes move over my face in the dark, so patient and soft.
Then he reaches up and takes one of my braids between his fingers, slips the rubber band loose, and slowly unravels it. Then the other. His fingers move through my hair and spread it around my shoulders, and he looks at me the way he always looks at me — like I'm something worth looking at, like he can't quite believe I'm here. Nobody has ever looked at me that way.
"You're so fucking beautiful, Blaire Alexander."
My eyes burn so fast it catches me off guard, and I crash my mouth into his before he can see it, before I have to sit inside the softness of him for one more second.
Michael bucks up against me and I gasp into his mouth. "Michael—"
"I love how you feel on top of me."
"You feel so good." I kiss him again, and somewhere in the rhythm of it, I stop being able to hold the line I've been trying to hold. The heat builds and builds, and I can feel it cresting up my spine.
No, no, not this. I can’t come. Please don’t let this happen...
