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“Reasons?” My neck and face heated further with rage. “That’s not even an answer.”
“Course it is.” He ambled deeper into the room, unfastening his towel. I looked away, squeezing my eyes shut. Why was he a ruthless douchebag all of a sudden? What had I done to deserve this? “I don’t owe you jack shit, Dot. You aren’t my friend. Just my little sister’s annoying sidekick.”
By the rustling coming from his direction, I gathered he was getting dressed. “You used to like me,” I heard myself say, and hated how childish and whiny I sounded.
“No, I used to tolerate you,” he amended. “Still do.”
My eyelids fluttered open, my pride overriding my fear. Luckily, he was already dressed in ripped jeans and a worn-out white Henley, the clothes clinging to his defined muscles like they were sewn onto him.
“Cutting my face out of all of Dylan’s pictures is actively hating me,” I breathed out.
“Maybe you’re not as lovable as you think.” He tucked a cigarette behind his ear, smirking at me. I stared at him, dumbfounded. I didn’t deserve this. Either he was going to tell me what the hell I’d done, or he could take a hike.
“Know what?” I grabbed my backpack from his floor, slinging it over my shoulder. “I’ll walk home. Thanks for sending Rhyland off just so you could be a major dick to me.”
“Speaking of dick, heard you’ve been getting lots of those recently.”
“Yours is not gonna be one of them, so if that’s why you’re bitter…” I crouched down to tie my shoelaces. “Hope you stew on that fun fact.”
I stormed out of his room, taking the stairs two at a time. My pulse was pounding between my ears. His parents weren’t home, and Dylan was still outside, so there was no one to witness whatever shit show this was. I heard his feet pounding on the rotten wood of the Casablancases’ stairs, and my heart dropped to the pit of my stomach. His hand caught me by the shoulder, spinning me around. He pinned me against the rails, panting hard, like he was running. We were flush against each other when I noticed his hands caged me from either side, fingers curled over the banisters. Our faces were so close, I could see the individual pieces of stubble on his face. My whole body drew in a breath, my nipples pebbling against my swimsuit, brushing the ragged fabric. Heat pulled beneath my navel, and I swore I could smell my own arousal. Could he too? Crap. I hoped not.
Row’s jaw flexed. “Don’t do this,” he warned.
I waited for the fear to finally arrive. For the terror to kick in at our proximity. For my tics to make an appearance. But all I felt was burning desire and unbearable anger. Those two feelings danced together seamlessly, flooding the space between my thighs with heat. My breaths quickened, pulse pitter-pattering across my skin. “Do what?”
“Jump to conclusions.” His throat bobbed, and he looked like he was struggling with something. His eyes dropped to my lips. “I don’t hate you.”
The alternative, that he liked me, had never occurred to me. Because even though Ambrose Casablancas always spared me his wrath, he was also too impossibly dazzling, popular, and gorgeous to notice me. He’d always had the most glamorous girls flung over his arm, and breaking hearts and noses were his official hobbies. There wasn’t one woman in this town who wouldn’t let him warm her bed.
“Why did you do this, Row?” I licked my lips, swallowing hard. I held his gaze, ignoring the confusion teeming inside me. The liquid honey that uncurled behind my belly button and how empty I felt. How…unsettled.
“Are you really that dumb?” His lips hit my ear; the hair on my arms stood on end.
“Are you really that rude?” I stomped on his foot. “Just answer the damn question.”
He took a deep breath, closed his eyes, then opened them again. “Remember the paper ring I gave you?”
I rummaged my memory bank for a paper ring but came up empty-handed. “No?”
Row’s jawline was a hard, square line of annoyance, and he barely moved his mouth when he spoke. “You were in first grade. Everybody fake-married their classmates. Nobody offered for you, so I made you a paper ring to stop you from crying. You were a mess.”
I stared at him, shocked. He had. Now I remembered that he had. But back then, he had just been Row, Dylan’s awkward big brother.
“And when you were in ninth grade and forgot your lunch?” There was a desperate, determined zing in his eyes, like he wanted me to read between the lines. “I drove to Wendy’s to buy you some, skipping physics.”
“What are you trying to say, that you were once nice to me, so now you have a free pass to be a douchebag?” I thundered.
“No.” His eyes crinkled with disappointment. Whatever I was supposed to understand, I didn’t. “I’m saying I don’t hate you and never have. I just don’t want to be around you, and you should fucking respect that.” His breath smelled of spearmint and cigarettes, and I wanted to kiss him. Wanted to know if he tasted as good as he smelled.
“But…why?”
“Because you’re temptation.” He released the banisters, slamming his fists against them with a loud thud. I jumped a little. “Look at you. With the sun on your skin, freckles everywhere, mouth red as a cherry. My dick swells just from knowing you and I share the same zip code. Whenever you speak, all I can do is stare at your mouth and imagine it wrapped around my cock. You’re a shiny apple, and do you know what people do to shiny apples?” His nose glided down mine, and I could almost feel them. His pouty, perfect lips.
“What?” I croaked.
“You eat them.” We were chest to chest. Heartbeat to heartbeat. “To the core.”
Oh fuck. Best blush? Anything coming out of Row Casablancas’s mouth.
