Page 131 of Chaos at Westbrook High

God, he looks so serious, so desperate to know, but still, I shake my head. “No.”

“Why not?”

“It’s personal.”

That makes his jaw clench, his hurt and disappointment clear as he nods. “Personal.”

“Kai.”

He stares at me. I stare at him. When he cocks his head, I cock mine right back.

“Tell me why you want to know,” I demand.

“I want you to let me in.” He steps closer, his chest almost touching mine, his hands flexing at his sides as he fights the urge to put them on me. “I want to know things about you. I want to know everything about you. I want to know more than anybody else does. I…I want to be your person.”

My person.

I swallow, looking into his eyes, finding nothing but sincerity and longing, a need for me that I’ve never experienced before him. No one’s ever needed me the way he needs me, and I’ve never needed anyone the way I need him. It scares the shit out of me.

“Sit down.”

He drops his ass down on the bed, his palms gliding up my thighs as I straddle his lap. I reach over to the nightstand and grab the picture Valerie framed for me when I was little. I remember the day she gave it to me. It was the same day she told me she wasn’t my biological mother. I was heartbroken, and so was she, but I know why she did it. She didn’t want me to be in the dark. She didn’t want me to be clueless and vulnerable. She wanted me to know who my parents were and who took them away from me, so that if that man ever came for us, I would be prepared.

I wasn’t prepared the day he killed her.

Nothing could have prepared me for that.

When Kai looks down at the photo, I instinctively pull it to my chest, my eyes hard.

“Hails?”

“I hate that nickname,” I blurt out. “The only person who ever called me that was Valerie.”

And now him.

His brows jump. He opens his mouth, but I don’t let him say whatever it is he’s about to say.

“If you hurt me, after all this, after chasing me relentlessly and pulling me into your web just to spit me back out, I’ll show you what a psycho really is.”

He chokes out a laugh. “What?”

“I’m serious. When I let all my guards down—if I let all my guards down,” I add when his smile is too big for my liking, “and you leave me…” There’s another threat on the tip of my tongue, but instead, what comes out is, “It would break me, Kai.”

“Look at me,” he says seriously, so I do, my chest swelling at the look in his eyes when he says, “I’ve never kissed anyone before. Only you. And Freya.” He scrunches his nose. “But that doesn’t count because I was pretending to be Wren.”

“What? Why were y?—”

“I’ll tell you later. Do you know how many girls I’ve been with since I met you?”

I steel myself. “How many?”

“None.”

I frown, pulling my head back. “Since you met me, or since I started going to Westbr?—”

“Since I met you, Hailey,” he reiterates. “The last girl I slept with was Callie. That was the night before I walked into your coffee shop. I haven’t touched or even looked at another girl since the first time I saw you.”

But it’s been months.

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