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That smile faded the moment I snatched the cigarette out of his hand and threw it on the ground, stomping on it to snuff it out. “Hey,” he said, sounding bored. “That was rude.”
“Do you know what else was rude? What you did at that party,” I rattled off, not even giving him the chance to make a guess. I’d spent the last few weeks stewing over what Travis did, hating myself for the crushes I had on these guys, and going over what I would say once I saw him again.
The bastard had to be laying low for a reason. He knew I was pissed.
Travis stuck both his hands in his pockets, giving me a million-dollar smile. “What did I do at the party? You’ll have to remind me. It was a while ago. My memory isn’t that good.” Bullshit line after bullshit line. Travis was the sort of person who knew how to lie; he was too smooth otherwise. How else could I have fallen into his lull when we were sitting outside staring up at the constellation-filled night sky?
I glared at him. Even though we stood with two feet between us, it wasn’t enough space. All my mind could think about was running a hand up each of his arms, tracing each and every tattoo on his body. It was hard holding myself back, let me tell you.
“You know exactly what you did,” I hissed. Other students walked around us, and I quieted. It was only after we were relatively alone again that I said, “You did what you did to start drama. I don’t like drama, Travis.”
His blue eyes fell to my feet, slowly trailing upwards, taking in every aspect of my appearance. His lips were parted slightly, and I resisted my urge to shiver. The look he gave me—it was hungry. There was no other word for it. “That’s not why I did it, Ash.” So simple, so easy, as if the real answer was right in front of my face all along.
Hint: it wasn’t.
“Then tell me,” I said. I would’ve crossed my arms had I not been holding onto my skateboard. As it was, I debated on whether or not I should hit him with it. No, no, I shouldn’t. I’d get suspended or something. Dean Briggs would take away his sponsorship and I’d be forced to pay for Hillcrest at full price.
No physical violence, Ash. Not while other people could see, at least.
“Are you sure you want to know? You might not like the answer,” Travis warned me.
I let out an annoyed sound. “I’ve had it with you guys. You all think you’re hot shit, but in reality—”
He spoke as if I wasn’t in the middle of a rant, cutting me off easily, as if he interrupted people all the time, “I did it because I didn’t want you to fall for Sawyer.”
My comeback died. “What?” I had a hard time believing him, when the person who it hurt most was Declan. Declan was the one who unraveled that night, not Sawyer. Granted, I hadn’t been with Sawyer after the party, but I could only assume he spent the rest of the night balls-deep in some other girl. He wasn’t lacking willing volunteers.
Honestly, what did sending a picture of me and Sawyer do to make me not fall for Sawyer? It didn’t make sense. It boggled my freaking mind. I wanted to slap the fool right out of this idiot.
“You saw how ugly he was when Declan was there,” Travis went on. “I thought you should see the real Sawyer, not the Sawyer he puts on for show. He’s unstable.” A simple fact, as if everyone who’d ever met Sawyer knew that.
“He’s your friend,” I said, shooting him a frown. My frown only solidified when Travis took a step toward me. He smelled of smoke, and since I’d been around smokers before, it wasn’t a bad smell. I’d grown used to it. I liked it, as twisted and unhealthy as it was.
“Sometimes you have to keep the monsters close,” Travis whispered. The blueness of his eyes sat behind long, dark eyelashes. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say he was wearing a hint of eyeliner. Or maybe his eyes were really just that pretty.
When he took another step closer to me, less than a foot between us now, I felt my heart speed up. “Are you calling Sawyer a monster?” Granted, he’d flipped when Declan arrived at his house, but if he really thought he killed Sabrina, who could blame him? The kiss, that was crossing the line a bit, but I wouldn’t call it monstrous.
Travis’s lips smiled a slow, sluggish smile. My eyes fell to his mouth in spite of myself. “We’re all monsters at Hillcrest,” he said, deadly serious. “The only thing that’s different is the type of monster you are.” He was calling everyone a monster. Me, Sawyer, Declan…himself.
“That means you’re a monster,” I told him, unable to pull myself away.
He reached a hand to my face, lightly caressing my cheek, tracing my jawline. My skin tingled everywhere he touched, a low fire erupting in my belly. I wanted those hands somewhere else, somewhere lower.
Someone wearing a hoodie with its hood up walked by us, but neither of us pulled away. I was too lost in him, in his carefully-wound web, and he was too good at playing his own game. Because that’s what this was, right? A game. Travis wasn’t touching me right now because he wanted to.
“Ash,” he murmured my name, “I just might be the worst monster of them all.” As his words sunk in, Travis pulled himself away from me, his arm falling to his side. My face immediately felt his loss. He gave me a smile, a self-assured grin that made my inner core warm. “A word of advice? Don’t trust any of us, especially me.” He said nothing more, turning on his heel and walking away, leaving me with way more questions than I’d started this conversation with.
I watched him go, feeling uneasy in more than one way. Crazily turned on by just a small touch to the face, and also crazily apprehensive and anxious. People these days didn’t talk like that. No one called himself a monster. The only time the word monster was brought into daily conversations was when Halloween was right around the corner or the news was talking about someone who’d shot up a school or a movie theater. The nightly news in America was full of monsters.
What did Travis mean? Was he just like them? Was he a monster like those in prison? Or, I realized in horror, watching as his figure disappeared down a sidewalk, between two tall buildings, did he just admit to me that he did it? That Travis was the one who killed Sabrina?
I had to be reading too much into this. This was…driving me insane, all of it.
I went into the union and got the food, skating slowly back to the dorm with a plastic bag in hand. Travis…I didn’t know what to make of him. I was drawn to him, just like I was drawn to all of them, but there was something different about him, something I couldn’t name. A darkness hiding behind his blue eyes, something tucked neatly in the back of his demeanor.
A monster. The worst monster of them all. Did he mean he was a worse person than Sawyer and Declan? Was he warning me away from him? Way to be cryptic. Way to only make me think about him even more than I already was.
Shit.
