Page 38 of Jack

Nikolai nodded his head. “Yep. Why are you asking about those two?”

Hannah told him what I had told her earlier.

“So, are they going to the party together?” Nikolai asked.

I cleared my throat. “Um, not exactly. He kind of avoided the question, then I had an accident in class,” I held up my bandaged hand. “When she asked again, he told her he was taking me.”

“Whoa! First of all, holy shit, Ava, look at your hand! Did you stick it in a paper shredder?”

“No, I kind of dropped a beaker, or a beaker broke while I was holding it,” I tried to explain without divulging that I’d been having a temper tantrum.

“Yikes. Second of all, did Jack ask you to go to the party with him?” Hannah asked.

“Not really, he just told Addison that he was taking me, so I’m not sure if he used me as an excuse, or if he really plans to take me.”

“Well, you could ask him,” Nikolai said reasonably.

Hannah and I shot him a dirty look. “I don’t want him to think I want him to take me if he was just using me as an excuse!” I explained heatedly.

“Do you want him to take you?”

“That’s not the point,” Hannah said, understanding where I was coming from.

Nikolai rolled his eyes, obviously tiring of this conversation. “I’ll ask him.” He reached in his pocket and started to type in his phone as Hannah and I tried to grab it out of his hands. He was able to easily avoid us. “Okay, sent.”

We stared at him.

“What? How the fuck do you expect to find out what his plans are, if you don’t ask?” Nikolai responded irritably.

“Well, right, but now it looks like Ava is talking about him.”

Nikolai rolled his eyes. “Jesus Christ.”

Nikolai’s phone pinged. “He’s picking you up.”

Hannah shot me a look like she wasn’t sure if I thought that was good news or bad news. The sad thing was I wasn’t sure either.

****

Chapter 22

Jack

I waited in front of Ava’s house—she was running late, as usual—wondering for the millionth time why I was here. I had been doing great at avoiding her all week, then we had that fucking lab. I had no idea why Addison was coming on so strong all of a sudden, but I was absolutely not interested.

A part of me wanted to believe I told Addison I was going to the party with Ava so I wouldn’t look like such a dick, but I was a dick, and Addison knew it.

No, I used Addison’s interest, and Ava’s apparent jealousy, to my advantage. I didn’t like the idea of that asshole, Crenshaw, taking her to the party. I still couldn’t believe Ava had smashed that beaker out of anger because Addison was hitting on me. Normally, I fucking hated when girls acted jealous. It was an unfounded emotional reaction that did nothing but create drama and make my dick soft.

But seeing Ava jealous? Incomprehensibly, it’d had the opposite effect; I found her jealousy adorable, and instead of annoying me, the angry looks she gave Addison turned me the fuck on. I wanted to fuck the jealousy right out of her.

I felt my dick buck against my jeans just thinking about her flushed, frowning face, her mouth tight with aggravation as she slammed the beaker down. Fuck, she was hot. Except when she’d injured herself, but I found myself enjoying taking care of her, getting the opportunity to touch her. I finally got the chance to tell her what a dickhead Crenshaw was, too.

Ava ran out of the house, waving to someone who was on the other side of the closed screen door. I took a moment to appreciate how she looked, which was, as usual, sexy as fuck. Fitted dark jeans, black boots and some type of wide necked dark-blue shirt that showed a hint of her black bra strap when it shifted. I had to reach down and rearrange myself before she got in the car. At this rate, we’d never make it to the party.

She opened the door and got in, and I was flooded with her scent. A scent I remembered all too well as it faded from my pillow throughout the course of the week.

“Hey, thanks for picking me up,” she said neutrally, and I hid a small smile. It was sort of shitty, but I liked how off-balance I appeared to make her. She didn’t know what the hell was going on with me, and that made me feel better about how fucked up I was about her.

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