“Whoa, vicious!” Presley laughs in that awkward way where she’s clearly trying to dispel the tension. She gives Tyson a playful look, “What are we going to do with him?”
“I mean, we could technically kill him.” Gwen leans forward with an open, earnest face. “But it’s just that we’d have to hunt down all the horcruxes first, you know?”
“As you can see,” I conclude to Presley, refusing to acknowledge Gwendolyn just compared me to Voldemort. I mean, obviously, if we’re making Harry Potter comparisons, I’m the Draco Malfoy of the group. “Voluntarily spending time with her is an obscene form of self-torture.”
“Exactly.” Gwendolyn looks at me for the first time that night and I see the flicker of fire in her eyes. A deranged smile creeps onto her face and I feel the tug of a sharp grin pulling at my own lips.
“Ooookay,” Presley says from across the table, jabbing Tyson with an elbow. “That’s…um, babe? Ready to go?”
The two grab their trays and hover over the table while Gwendolyn and I continue our silently hostile standoff.
“Gwen?”
She blinks twice, removing her hand from mine, then looks up at Tyson. “Yeah, coming.”
I ease out of the booth, standing to give her room to pass. When she brushes by me, her curvy ass grazes my groin. Accident? Maybe. On purpose? God knows. Neither option stops the heat that rushes through me or the way my pants suddenly get tighter.
“It was nice meeting you, Hamilton,” Presley says. “Hopefully I’ll see you at some of the meets.”
“Nice to meet you, too,” I murmur, dragging my eyes away from watching Gwendolyn toss her trash into the bin a few feet away. “Thanks for the company.”
Following them out, I part from them and head to my car. In the rearview mirror, I watch them approach Riggins’ beat up truck. He holds the door for them both, like a gentleman, and Presley gives him a kiss on the way in. Adams smiles in appreciation.
That’s who she should be spending her time with, anyway. Nice, regular people. People who get her and her need to help others. Not assholes like me.
I start up the car and peel out of the parking lot, tires squealing on the pavement. All this time I thought Gwendolyn Adams was wrong for Preston Prep. In reality, Preston Prep was wrong for her.
15
Gwen
The knock comes only a few minutes after I walk into my dorm. I instantly regret answering it, because there he is.
Hamilton’s broad form darkens my doorway.
I tiredly ask, “What do you want, Bates?” and turn back to my room. After the last time, I’m smarter than to think he won’t invite himself in, and he does exactly that, closing the door behind him with a soft snick. “If you’re looking to get your face drenched with primer again, then I’m sorry to inform you I’m fresh out.”
It was a shock to see him at The Nerd, to say the least. Devils typically don’t lower themselves to eat at any establishment that lacks a bare minimum of two chandeliers. But Hamilton just looked so off, his whole demeanor slack and subdued. Dejected. It wasn’t a look he wore well. When he said he’d come from his parents' house, I figured that explained it. I suppose even spoiled brats get frustrated with their parents at some point. For once, I could actually relate.
“I was on the way back to my room,” he says, long fingers trailing over my dresser. His face is shadowed by the low light of my lamp, but the blank hollows of his eyes look just as tired as before.
When no further explanation is forthcoming, I sigh in annoyance. “And?”
He pulls a book from my shelf, just like last time, and fans through the pages. “Instead, I came here.”
I lean against my desk, arms crossed. “Bates.”
“Adams.”
All it takes is one look from him and that flickering spark between us—that weird mixture of anger and lust—flares instantly to life.
I just want to pull my hai
r out.
It isn’t fair.
It isn’t right that he can walk in here and, with a couple words and a single semi-hostile glance, send my body alight. Is this how it’s going to be? Has he completely ruined me for other guys? Will I ever be able to feel this painfully alive with a nice, normal guy, or are hostile glances and the quick-fire exchange of barbed insults all that will ever do it for me?