“You guys are together?” Caleb asked, his eyes on me and his expression more than a little pissed off.
“No,” I said.
“Yes.” That was from Trevor.
“You could have said something.” That was for me. “Dude, I didn’t mean to chat up your girl. I had no idea you guys were hooking up.” That was for Trevor.
“Oh my God, we’re not hooking up.”
Okay, so I shouted. And maybe half the kids at the party might have heard me. Whatever. My top was way too skimpy, my jeans on the low side of low rise, and the flats I wore pinched my toes. They belonged to Hales, so it wasn’t surprising. I’d worn them because she’d insisted the sparkles would look great with my barely there top.
Most important, the guy I liked had been sucking face with Drive-In Girl, or at the very least, I’d watched her grind up against him.
“Everly,” Trevor said. “Can we talk?”
I could have done one of two things at this point.
Who was I kidding? I was never going to do the second one.
“Sure,” I said sharply.
Caleb muttered a bunch of stuff, and I’m sure none of it was nice, but neither Trevor nor I was paying any attention to him. He took off, and then Trevor and I were alone with only the echoes of the party and the flickering fireflies among the trees.
It was warm—June usually was—and the air was heavy. I closed my eyes and dragged in great big gulps of it, trying to calm my butterfly-infested stomach.
“Everly.”
He was close. So close.
Slowly, my eyes opened and, well, wouldn’t you know…that big old lump of something was back clogging my throat. I couldn’t swallow. Couldn’t speak. I couldn’t do anything but look up into the face of the most beautiful guy I’d ever seen.
Suddenly, I didn’t want to do the whole “I’m going to play games and be mad at you” thing. Not anymore. I wasn’t a kid. I wasn’t some girlfriend who’d been wronged either, and I guess that was the problem.
Trevor was looking at me in a way that had all sorts of things zigging and zagging inside me. Maybe it was time for me to find out what all of this meant.
“Did you come with Drive-In Girl?” I asked, careful to keep my voice neutral.
“Who?”
Right. No more games. “Jess. Because that’s fine, Trevor. I just…”
He stepped closer. “You just what?”
Could he hear my heart beating? Or the blood rushing through my veins like a tidal wave? Or how my breaths were ragged, catching on the emotion inside me as I exhaled?
“You just what, Everly?”
His hands were at his sides, and he kept opening and closing them. It was dark, so I couldn’t be sure if the beating I saw at the base of his neck was his pulse or just a play of shadows.
“Everly.”
Something in the way he said my name made my knees go weak, and I spoke in a rush.
“I just need to know what this is.”
There. Good. I got it out.
“This?” His voice was low and kind of raspy. Of course it was. Because how sexy was that?