“Why?”
He looks really bothered about that and I want to laugh at his disgruntled expression. “Because you’re my friend now. You have to be nice to me.”
His eyes flick back and forth between mine. “Is that right?”
Nodding, I smile. “Yes. In fact, that’s the first rule of friendship. Be nice.” I go up on my tiptoes to get closer to his face. “And for a rule-follower such as yourself, it shouldn’t be too hard, should it?”
He stares down at me, his hand still wrapped around my bicep. “If you think it’s not hard then you’re underestimating yourself.” I narrow my eyes at him but he continues, “And for a girl who plays soccer so gloriously, it shouldn’t be too hard to stay upright, should it?”
Gloriously.
I play soccer gloriously, he said. He said the same thing last night in the library but he was being such an asshole to me that it didn’t make the impact that it should have.
But it does now.
That word drips down from my chest and settles somewhere low in my belly, like a warm dose of honey or sunshine.
My favorite soccer player in the whole world thinks I play gloriously.
Biting my lip, I say, “Well, I’ve got you now. To save me. Don’t I? My friend.”
Something dangerous and delicious flashes through his eyes. “What did you do before?”
“Before?”
He squeezes my bicep as if he’s making sure that I don’t fall again. “Before I came around to catch you.”
I swallow at his question. At the inadvertent meaning of it.
What did I do before he came around to catch me?
What did I do when I didn’t have his arms to break my fall and when I didn’t have his gorgeous eyes looking at me like he wants to know all my secrets?
“I fell,” I whisper.
His features become sharp for a second, snap taut, and I think I’ve said too much. I think he knows everything now. He hears everything now too, the loud drumming of my heart and the slight change in my breathing.
But I’m wrong.
He doesn’t know and I’m never going to tell him.
This isn’t even about that, about my witchy heart and my secret longing. This is about him, being his friend.
“You fell,” he whispers back, his tone even lower than mine.
“Yeah.”
“And hit your head?” he asks, his eyes grave.
“What?”
“Because that’s the only explanation as to why you like this place.”
It takes me a second to absorb his words and when I do, I push at his chest. As expected, he doesn’t go anywhere; his chest is a solid, unmovable mass. My useless movements only make him chuckle and it’s so adorable that I can’t hold onto my anger.
“Just FYI, that is bordering on mean, friend.”
His chuckle dies out. “It’s harder than I thought, actually.”
“Being nice to me?”
He shakes his head once. “Being nice to anyone.”
I don’t know where my boldness is coming from tonight – first taking off the t-shirt in a crowded bar, then asking him to be my friend.
But it’s here, my boldness, and it’s here to stay, at least for tonight.
So I stretch my neck to get even closer to him, where I can clearly see the pulse on his neck, thick and thrumming. Where I can map out his silvery features, the hills and dips of his cheekbones.
And then, I touch him.
I raise my hand and put it on his cheek and he stiffens.
Last night, everything happened so fast that I didn’t get to feel it, feel the bones and the structure of his darling face. The face I see in my dreams.
But tonight, I feel everything.
His cheek is as hot and alive as his hand was, back when we shook hands at the parking lot. Slightly rougher though from the five o’clock shadow.
When I feel his jaw ripple, I whisper, “I’m sorry I hit you.”
He stiffens even more, if possible. “Don’t be.”
I rub my thumb over the arch of his cheek. “I’ve never seen you like this.”
“Like what?”
“So… uninhibited. So rough around the edges and sharp as broken glass.” His jaw thrums again. “So cut open.”
That’s what he is, I realize.
He’s cut open.
Like all these years, his emotions were under wraps, they were shoved somewhere deep inside of him. He was calm and collected and unruffled by anything and everything, always focused on his game. But now they’re coming to the surface.
Now they’re rushing through his veins and pooling under his skin, making him intense and hot and edgy.
Somehow, making him all the more irresistible to me.
He was right.
I do have a thing for everything crazy and dangerous.
“Cut open, yeah.” His eyes glow as he stares down at me. “I’m that.”
I’m compelled to say, “It won’t help, you know. Hurting other people. Revenge.”
His skin heats up just under my touch, becomes hotter than before, and my fingers skitter over his cheek, hitting all the sharp, stunning bumps of his face.