Page 84 of The Prince of Broken Crowns

I shake my head as the wind blows strands of my hair into my face. “Nope. I’ve tried to give them to myself, but this feels way better.”

“So, you never had a boyfriend who offered to give you one?” He says it causally enough that I internally roll my eyes.

I can read the underlying meaning of his question all over his face. “No, and to alleviate your curiosity about my love life, I currently don’t have a boyfriend, nor have I ever.”

He blinks, giving me this dumb sort of look as his fingers freeze. “What?”

“What do you mean, what?” I ask, amused by how surprised he is.

His fingers start moving again. “I mean, how in the hell have you never had a boyfriend?”

“Have you ever had a girlfriend?”

“Well … no, but?—”

“Then why is it so impossible for me to have never dated anyone?” I cut him off.

“Fair point.” His fingers travel to the back of my leg. “I hook up, though.”

“Maybe I do, too.” I will my face to remain straight but must not meet the mark.

“Do you?” he inquires, eyeing me.

I could lie, but what the heck do I care?

“You know what? I don’t,” I admit with no shame. “I’ve never had a boyfriend. Never hooked up. Never had sex.”

I bust up laughing as his eyes nearly bulge out of his head.

Confusion weaves across his forehead. “Are you kidding me right now?”

I shake my head. “Nope, but again, why do you act so surprised?”

He blinks a few times. “Because you’re hot as hell. Like, seriously gorgeous. And then you add that with your personality, and I just don’t get how guys haven’t been lining up to be with you.”

“Even if all of those things you just said were true—which they’re not—who’s to say guys weren’t and I just reject them?”

“That makes the most sense.” He lifts his free hand and wags his finger at me. “I could kind of see that. Although, what is with the no-sex thing?”

I lean to the right to lift my hand and sweep strands of my hair out of my face. “Because I have a plan.”

“What sort of plan?”

“It started with getting into college. But now it’s to graduate.”

“And sex gets in the way of that?”

“It could, if I got pregnant. It happened to my mother.”

He bobs his head up and down. “I get it. You don’t want to end up like her.”

I exaggeratedly widen my eyes. “That’s the understatement of the year.”

He presses his lips together, considering something. “She sounded unpleasant when you talked to her on the phone while we were in jail.”

“She’s an unpleasant woman,” I agree. “She ended up not bailing me out of jail, either. Someone else did.”

He rubs his lips together. “Who?”

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