Page 38 of Heart of Thorns

She pauses. Her gaze lifts over my shoulder, then sweeps around the room. When she refocuses on me, she clears her throat.

Did something spook her?

“You want to know what’s rattling around in my brain all the time?” Her voice drops. “‘Fire.’”

Before I can answer, she collects her stuff and shoves away from the table.

CHAPTER 13

BRIAR

I’m goingto have to give him an answer eventually.

I’ve been dragging my feet—no pun intended. Thorne makes me uneasy, but not in the way the rest of the football team does. There is something genuine about him, even when he’s playing football and has that stern, focused glint in his eye.

He has a kind smile. It wouldn’t be a bad thing to get close to him so I can watch some of his teammates without hiding behind the bleachers and taking cover in the weight room.

We all know how that worked out last time.

I came so close to telling him yes the other day in the library. I had already made my mind up. My pros and cons list grew exponentially larger after Marley showed up at the apartment. She and Lydia made their own list which matched mine to a T, except all the reasons relating to figuring out who my arsonist is.

But sitting in the library set me back.

A chill zipped down my spine the second I looked past Thorne’s adorably messy hair. There was a slip in time, and I panicked. All it took was one glimpse of the student in the back of the library wearing a dark hoodie and I got spooked.

There’s a very good chance he doesn’t even want me to be his fake girlfriend anymore.

“Let’s go.” Lydia snaps her fingers at me.

I peek one eye open and see her standing above me. One raised eyebrow later, and she’s explaining herself.

“We have plans.” She doesn’t let me protest, she just continues explaining while gathering her purse and our phones. “The football players are practicing. Marley is meeting us there.”

I spring up quickly. “Absolutely not.”

She ignores my protesting. A pill bottle rattles, and like magic, one of my pain pills is at the center of her palm with a bottle of water in her other. She offers both to me.

“Do I need to go get the pros and cons list off the fridge?”

I snort.

She literally taped the list onto the fridge when she learned that I had fled from the library the other day. She doesn’t knowwhyI chickened out, but that’s semantics.

I growl under my breath.

There’s one teeny, tiny sliver of fear that’s holding me back from finding out who trapped me in that building, or at least getting stronger in case I never find him.

Without saying anything, I take the medicine from Lydia and throw it down the hatch.

I swing my sore legs over the side of the couch and sigh at the sight of her pleased face.

“Fine,” I say. “But we arenotsitting beside the jersey chasers.”

They go to every practice, and I refuse to be labeled as such.

Lydia laughs. “You don’t want to be called a jersey chaser, yet you’re about to be dating the quarterback.”

Her laughter doesn’t fade even as we walk out the door.

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