Finally, I shake my head.
Enough.
Enough.
I frown at him and another surprising thing happens. A shocking thing.
He smirks at me. At me.
After eight years.
After eight fucking years, I finally get what I’ve been wishing for. His smirk.
And my stupid fucking heart can’t handle it. My stupid fucking heart swells and swells in my chest until it’s aching, and I know it’s a rather drastic reaction to a simple smirk, and people might call me crazy.
But they don’t know.
They’ve never been in my position. They don’t know what it feels like when a guy you’ve loved for eight years, who loves someone else, smirks at you, and his eyes shine because of it.
You lose your breath. You lose your sense. You lose all your goddamn goodness and almost tell him that you want him.
But somehow, I pull myself back.
Somehow, I dig my nails into my palms and remember that he’s Sarah’s boyfriend and I’m here for her.
And he’s lying.
He’s trying to distract me. That’s what it is, isn’t it?
He’s playing with me and he’s enjoying it.
So weird.
So glorious.
“You’re trying to distract me,” I accuse.
“It’s not my fault that you’re so easily distracted.”
“And you’re lying to me, aren’t you?” I squint my eyes at him, trying to control my heart. “You’re making this whole thing up. You didn’t punch a door.”
“Yeah? What did I punch then?”
“I don’t know. Whatever it was, it wasn’t a door.” I stab a finger at him. “You’re trying to distract me from the real question.”
“And what’s the real question?” he asks in a whispered, almost mocking voice.
“Where’s my sister?” I snap out.
His eyes bore into mine then. And maybe it’s the trick of dismal light or whatever, but his features glow, as if drawing attention to themselves.
Attention to how sharp and harsh they look.
How tight.
“Told you. She’s probably back in LA.”
“But that’s impossible. You’re injured and…” My eyes go wide and something makes me ask him, “You are injured, right?”
I look down at his feet.
He has a washed-out pair of blue jeans on. I stare at the spot where his knees are. As if I’ll be able to tell if he’s injured or not by staring at his jeans.
“I know that you tore your knee.” I glance up to find him still looking at me with heavy, intense eyes that are wreaking havoc on my breaths. “That’s why you came back, isn’t it? You’re not finishing out the season and you said you were going back home. I saw the press conference.”
“You saw it.”
I swallow, nodding. “Yeah. O-on TV.”
I grimace slightly.
That’s a lie, of course.
I saw it on a forbidden cell phone, but he doesn’t need to know that. Somehow though, he already does and his smirk comes back.
And my breaths run away.
“So sneaking out in the middle of the night to go to a bar for dancing isn’t your only crime. I’m not sure if sending you to a reform school was a good idea. You might be a worse influence on the girls who’re already in trouble for being bad.”
My embarrassment jacks up a thousand times and I mumble, “Hey, I’m not that bad.”
He flicks his gaze all over me again and my lips part.
“I’m starting to get that,” he murmurs. “You’re worse.”
It’s not a compliment. I know that.
But the way he says it, and the way he’s staring at me with eyes that possess a shade of blue that I’ve never seen on him, it feels like it.
It feels like a compliment.
But I can’t focus on all of this.
“So?” I ask instead, keeping my control.
“So what?”
“Did you… you tore your knee, didn’t you?”
“Why?”
“Because I…” I pause to gather my thoughts.
There are many ways I can answer this. Many, many, dangerous ways.
Because I love you and I need to know you’re okay.
Because I love you and I want you to be safe.
Because I love you and I can’t see you injured.
Because I love you…
But I decide to go with the safest, the only option that I have.
Looking into his new-colored eyes that are strangely watching me in the same way that I’m watching him, I say, “Because soccer is your life and I know that it must be awful for you that you can’t finish out the season. It must hurt. It’s hurting me…”
Damn it.
I shouldn’t have said that.
That kinda slipped out, and obviously he catches it.
He catches it with both hands, his eyes narrowed and roving over my face. Curious.
“Why?” he asks again.
“Why what?” I stall, my heart in my throat, on my tongue even.
“Why is it hurting you?”
Great going, Salem.
Just fantastic.
We’ve been talking for ten minutes and I’ve already fucked up.
“Uh, because.” I look at his glinting chain, the V of his gray t-shirt. “You’re my sister’s boyfriend. She loves you very much. Of course I’m hurting. I’m worried. For her and for you. And that’s why I can’t believe she’s in LA when you’re here. Besides, why are you here? Why aren’t you resting that knee? Shouldn’t you be like, recovering instead of bar hopping or whatever? And…” I swallow, looking up from his chain. “Kissing strange girls who’re not your girlfriend.”