He just needed that word. Onenow, and he would confess everything, even if it changed nothing.
Yet Aubrey stayed quiet. She blinked back whatever emotion had overtaken her and looked away, a fist pressed to her mouth. When she met his gaze again, she’d raked hers to smoothness.
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to get heavy on you.” Her voice was measured. “And you won’t have to take me home again. I’ll ask Gallant next time.”
The name hit him like a slap. “Gallant?”
“Yeah.”
“Why? What does he have to do with anything?”
Her eyes changed. This time, hecouldread them, because a crack zig-zagged down the center of his chest. “Wait. You’re... seeing him? You two are dating?”
“Yeah,” Aubrey said. “We are, actually.”
A desolate stillness descended, so complete he couldn’t even find his own heartbeat within. Gallant Nobel.
It felt six kinds of wrong, and yet he should have seen it coming, because Gallant was the choice who’d made sense for her from the beginning. The picture-perfect poster boy for all-American maleness. The rich, successful counterpart to Aubrey’s genius and drive.
Also kind of an asshole, but probably only in Nick’s imagination, because Aubrey would never get involved with someone who didn’t treat her like a queen.
He forced a swallow. Someone had clearly deposited a half ton of crushed glass in his throat at some point in the last five seconds. “That’s great. That’s... right. Great. I hope he makes you happy.”
Aubrey’s lip folded under her teeth. What didthatreaction mean? He couldn’t tell. Not that it mattered. All his deductive reasoning had drained away, along with his stupid, delusional hope and every last red blood cell in his body.
“Thanks again, for the ride,” she said softly. “I’ll see you next week?”
“Yeah. See you next week.”
She thumbed off her seat belt, hopped out, and disappeared into the house.
He sat there for a long time, trying to find his composure. But it had abandoned him, so he eventually slid the gearshiftinto Drive and crept across town at half the speed limit. He didn’t want to go home. He had no desire to face Tansy and Paige like this, hurt and bleeding and freshly shredded.
But he should probably get the fuck over that, and quick, because this seemed to be rapidly becoming his new normal.
17.
Seventeen years ago
For the first time in his life, Nick had everything he wanted.
Three months in, it still didn’t feel real, even though Aubrey kissed him everywhere—in the hallway, the school parking lot, the brick alley where he’d fought Gallant.
She also kissed him on the big blue sofa in her living room, where they canoodled every afternoon. At least until one of her parents pulled into the cul-de-sac, at which point Nick disappeared through the back door. Then he’d wander Henderson with his hands in his pockets and, when the upstairs at Aubrey’s house went dark, steal around back to her ground-floor window. She’d raise the sash, pop out the screen, and welcome him in so they could kiss some more, this time in her bed, where Nick would ravel his hands in her silken hair and press himself as close as he dared.
He hardly went home anymore. Mostly just to shower and change. His dad had asked why exactly once. Noah Thacker had lowered his beer, narrowed his eyes, and muted the TV long enough to string a whole sentence together.
“Where the hell’re you off to this time?”
Nick had instinctively planted his feet, defensive. “My girlfriend’s house.”
But Noah hadn’t cared, of course, and had immediately gone back to his show. “Girlfriend? Huh. Just don’t knock her up.”
Seething, Nick had loped out into the night. He couldn’t have said what angered him so much, except maybe the suggestion that Aubrey was nothing but athingto impregnate, when in actuality, she was the sun around which his world orbited.
Ire aside, though, his dad had no cause to worry. Nick had turned eighteen in April, a mere three weeks before Aubrey had, but even though they’d both officially entered adulthood, she wanted to wait.
So Nick would wait. Happily. Not that he didn’t want to have sex with her. He did. All the time. Every time he got near her, and nine-tenths of the time he didn’t, some driving force pulsated within him, a scorching command for more, more, more.Claim her, possess her, make her yours.But he wouldn’t have dreamed of pushing. He’d barely even processed the fact that something about him had apparently earned him the right to hold her hand, to slip a new letter into her locker each morning. To explore her mouth with his at night until they both reached a state of blissful exhaustion and fell asleep with their limbs woven tight.
