Page 60 of Bulletproof

“Jory, I’ve been calling you all day.”

And I knew he had, but I had ignored it.

“What the hell was that all about last night?”

“I’m sorry,” I apologized, moving closer, hands in the pockets of my peacoat. “I just … the way I figure things out, they kind of just hit me, you know? I get blindsided, and when that happens, I just dig out. It’s a bad habit, but see, I had no idea you were interested in me until last night. I really thought you just wanted to hang out.”

“I do.”

I shook my head. “You don’t. You wanna come upstairs and get in my bed. I’m slow, but not stupid.”

He took a settling breath. “Just come get a drink with me.”

“Why?”

“Because I want to talk to you and I know you won’t let me come up.”

“We have nothing to talk about,” I assured him. “Sex is a dead issue.”

“Then come hang out with my friends and me. We were planning on going to a club tonight. Doesn’t dancing sound like fun?”

“You dance?”

“Of course I—why are you squinting at me?” He was indignant. “I can dance.”

But he didn’t even have good music in his crappy house.

“Jory, just … c’mon. Let’s start over. I need friends, all right? God, do I.”

“You could buy some.”

“That’s a really shitty thing to say.”

And it was.

“Sorry.”

“Please get in the car.”

I got in the car.

The club was a techno wonderland of light and sound. The dance floor was huge, but the crowd was still crushed together in sweaty, hungry heat, and I could feel the throb of the music inside my skin.

There was no way to talk; it was too loud. So, I met Hayes’s friends with handshakes and hugs before he pulled me after him into the press of bodies. On the dance floor, we were basically shoved together as we swayed from side to side with everyone else. When he put his hands on my hips, I shook my head and started back through the press of skin to the table. I did not expect to be grabbed and swung around.

“What are you doing?” Hayes yelled at me.

“I need to go,” I told him. It was another stupid decision on my part. “This doesn’t feel right. It doesn’t feel like friends.”

“Jory,” he began.

I turned, and when I did, I was suddenly face-to-face with Cristo Liron.

“I thought you didn’t date?” he said, and even as loud as he had to yell the accusation, I still heard how low and icy and filled with venom it was.

I flipped him off, stepped around him, and headed toward the coat room, but he grabbed my arm and yanked me back hard.

“No one blows me off.”