Page 13 of The Ruse

“So you weren’t just admiring her?” Rosa leaned against the open doorframe that led into the kitchen. “You were simply meditating and not at all staring at the girl sitting by Nash?”

“She’s on a date. With the son of a billionaire, I might add.” I dried my hands on a paper towel. “I wasn’t having one of those romantic fantasies you think all guys my age have when a pretty girl walks into the restaurant.”

“But you do think she’s pretty, though.” Rosa smirked, mischief in her brown eyes.

“Sure, she’s pretty.” I shrugged. Only an idiot would pretend not to find a girl who looked like she could be a doppelgänger for Nina Dobrev attractive. For all I knew, Elyse had every guy at our private school wrapped around her finger.

“I hear she’s playing Christine in your school play,” Rosa said, like it should mean something to me. “And you’re playing Raoul.”

“Yes, that’s what I’m told.” I started filling another glass with Dr Pepper. “Nash is in the play as well, as you’ve probably heard. And as you can see,heis the one Elyse is on a date with tonight.”

“Yes, they’re on a datetonight.” Rosa lifted her shoulder in a shrug. “But just because someone is on a date doesn’t mean they’redating. Lucca was dating someone when we met in culinary school. That didn’t stop me.”

“I know you love playing matchmaker.” I grabbed the glass for Nash’s drink and took it over to the horchata machine. “But I’m actually not looking to date anyone right now. Especially not someone Nash is into.”

I didn’t need to give him another reason to hate me.

I was already on unsteady ground with the people in Eden Falls. If I started dating the first girl I met when I was supposed to be mourning my missing girlfriend, it wouldn’t exactly make me look that great.

I had to be careful. Play everything just right. Because even the slightest mess-up would put me right back at the top of the police’s people-of-interest list in Bailee’s case.

Having a mother who was already in prison wasn’t exactly making me look like the golden boy I wish they’d see me to be, either.

Nope, I needed to stick with my plan. Keep my head down. Stay out of trouble and do what I could to keep a low profile.

Then after the school year finished, I could finally escape this small town for good and put as much distance between me and my past as possible.

5

ELYSE

“How did you like the movie?”Nash asked me as we drove down Main Street toward the school.

We were at the end of our date, and it was getting closer to the time when I would find out if he was going to kiss me or not.

I hoped he would.

We’d been dancing around this thing growing between us for weeks now. There was only so much anticipation I could take before I made myself crazy.

He’d been giving me all the clues that he liked me, though. He’d held me close as we danced at the Halloween dance a few weeks ago. He always found an excuse to sit next to me when we were watching a movie with our friends. I often caught him looking at me across the way on the occasions when we weren’t sitting by each other.

All throughout dinner and the movie tonight, I’d felt a charge of electricity buzzing between us. And when his fingers had brushed against mine when we reached for popcorn at the same time, it seemed like he’d felt something too, from the way he had looked at me.

We hadn’t actually held hands yet, but it seemed like a goodnight kiss might be the logical next step. Something to finally propel our relationship into something more.

Heaven knows I was dying for him to kiss me.

It had been so long since I’d been kissed by a guy that I felt literal withdrawal symptoms—cravings and the inability to concentrate on anything else during our study sessions.

I was more cautious on the outside. Didn’t ever make the first move. But in my head, Nash and I had been kissing for a long time. In my daydreams, we would sneak off to the back of the library stacks where he would trap me between himself and a bookshelf. And then he would tell me how he couldn’t stop thinking about me before cupping my face in his hands and kissing me.

In my fantasies, his kisses were what brought me to life. The things I looked forward to reliving when I closed my eyes at the end of a long day of school and homework.

But so far, they were just daydreams.

I wanted it to become reality tonight.

“The movie was good,” I said before I could start having one of my daydreams while he was sitting right next to me in his dimly lit BMW. “I’m used to seeing Justin Banks play in more serious roles, so it was fun watching him do a comedy.”

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