Page 32 of The Ruse

“How is it that I never ran into you?” I asked, still shocked at this discovery. “I mean, I haven’t been close friends with Logan and Jace since freshman year. But we went to some of the same bonfires over the summer. If you were hanging out with them, I should have seen you.”

“I went to a couple of them.” He shrugged. “But there were so many people there that we probably missed each other.”

“Probably,” I said.

I would have remembered if we’d met before. Asher didn’t have one of those forgettable faces.

The first time we met, I had thought to myself that he had the type of eyes that held secrets. And now that I knew a little more about him, I couldn’t help but wonder how many secrets Asher Park was keeping.

He’d given his speech during dinner, where he pleaded for everyone to help him find the answers for his girlfriend’s disappearance. But for some reason, I still felt the need to be cautious around him.

There was just something that told me he wasn’t showing us all of his cards.

We walked through the gothic colonnade that attached the main part of the school to the dorms. When we made it to the common room, Asher opened one of the large, dark wooden doors for me to go through.

“Thank you,” I said, grateful for the gentlemanly gesture.

The common room buzzed with the sounds of students winding down from the busy school day. There was a table in the corner where a few sophomores were playing what looked like Slapjack. A group of juniors and seniors were watching a movie on the big TV above the fireplace. And in the back corner, Megan Winters and Collin Daniels were playing tonsil hockey with each other.

“Um, I’ll just grab my books from my room and meet you back here, okay?” I turned to Asher who seemed to notice Megan and Collin just then from the way his eyes went wide.

“Sounds good.” He cleared his throat and looked back at me. “I’ll grab my backpack, too.”

I ran up the stairs and down to the very end of the girls’ hall where mine and Ava’s room was. I grabbed my brown leather shoulder bag from the corner where I’d stashed it earlier and caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror.

My ponytail was sagging a little, so I straightened it. I was also a little washed out, so I grabbed my blush and added a quick dash of color to my cheeks.

Much better.

I did a quick armpit sniff as well. It had been a long day and my new deodorant had yet to prove itself to last the full twenty-four hours it bragged about on the label. I still smelled okay, but I grabbed my perfume bottle anyway and sprayed a stream to twirl through.

I was about to swipe some lip gloss across my lips as well when I stopped myself.

What was I doing?

Asher was totally going to think I was primping for him.

Crap.

Earlier this afternoon, he’d totally bragged about getting all the girls Nash liked to fall for him, and here I was two hours later putting in extra effort to look better for a study session I’d invited him to.

I was an idiot.

I set the lip gloss back down on my dresser, not about to accidentally feed his ego. I considered changing out of my school uniform—because he’d probably notice the new perfume on my clothes. But I didn’t want to look like I’d changed just for the study session, so I kept my freshly perfumed uniform on.

Though, I did grab my towel from its hook on the back of the door and wiped off whatever scent I could. Then I slung my bag over my shoulder and rushed back down the hall.

As expected, Asher was waiting at the bottom of the stairs in the common room.

Not looking like he’d changed a thing about his appearance in the past five minutes, since he was normal, unlike me.

“Ready?” he asked, standing up straighter.

“Yep.”

He opened the door, and when I walked past him, he said, “Someone smells good.”

“Oh…” I peeked up at him, willing my cheeks not to flush from both embarrassment and pleasure over him noticing my perfume. “I, uh, it’s a new one, and I just wanted to see how it smelled on this shirt.”

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