Page 41 of The Chemistry of Us

“It’s been torture.” He groaned and turned to his side.

“The concussion?” I guessed.

“No,” he grumbled. “Seeing you.”

My heart sank to my stomach. I turned away from him so we were back to back and didn’t let him see my tears. I hated that I agreed and whispered, “Same.”

CHAPTER 16

VAUGHAN

Iimagined this was how the CIA tortured people, and if it wasn’t, then the government really needed to rethink its methods.

Because right then, I was in hell.

If she slapped me on the ass one more time, I was going to smother her with my pillow. So far, she’d woken me up from a much-needed blissful sleep five times. Two she claimed were an accident. Accident, my ass—literally—as she held her hands above it in mock innocence and said, “I was just checking you were still breathing.”

“People don’t breathe out of their asses, Tru.”

Her smirk said it all. “Some apparently do.”

“You’re a demon.” I jabbed a finger at her. “From hell, one of the really bad ones.”

“Aw.” She’d skipped out of the room like she was in a motherfucking musical playing the lead role of villain. The fact that she didn’t cackle on her way down the hall shocked me enough to give me pause before passing out again.

It had been well over an hour, which meant my palms were already sweating, knowing she’d come strolling in any time. I had a plan, though. It could have been the concussion, but whenI stumbled into the bathroom, I saw water and a cup. Maybe I was channeling Tru because my reflection was pure evil in the mirror.

Footsteps sounded, so I jumped back into the bed, then quickly set the full cup on the nightstand and pretended to be asleep. The floor creaked, and the door opened. I smiled and scooted closer to the nightstand, eyes still closed. There were at least seven small steps toward the bed—don’t ask me why I was forced to memorize that minor detail—and she always took small, aggressively powerful steps toward me.

“Wakey, wakey,” she whispered and then hopped on the bed. I could almost feel her raise her hand. In three, two, one—I snapped onto my back and pulled her onto my stomach, then reached for the water and spilled it directly on her chest, then dropped it and immediately panicked and shoved her off me. “Shit, that was pee!”

“WHAT!” She scrambled off the bed. “Why do you have pee on your nightstand!”

“I’m concussed!” The way I was able to keep it together. “Look, I’m sorry, you said to stay in bed, to be careful. You’ve been coming in here slapping my ass so hard that I’m bruising, so I grabbed a cup from the floor and peed in it. Well, I guess, I technically peed on you.” I pressed my lips together as she stared down at her white T-shirt, then immediately regretted the fact that it was so dark in my room. I should have thought that through way better.

“Unbelievable!” She did a little dance, then tugged off her shirt and chucked it at me. The next thing I knew, she was in my arms, punching me in the chest with her legs wrapped around me like a monkey.

She always did have a temper.

I threw her onto the bed. “I’m injured!”

“I’ll injure you more!”

“Aghhhh.” I flipped her onto her back and pinned her wrists to the mattress. “Look, I was just playing a prank because my ass is sore.”

“Oh, like that’s new for you, and wait—” She frowned in the darkness. “You lied about the pee?”

“It was water, Cinderella, and not even dirty. I just wanted to see your face after having a sliver of the torture you’ve been dishing out to me for the past eight hours.”

She shoved against me, but I held her there. “You’re a monster. You just wanted me to take off my shirt!”

I rolled my eyes. “Please, I’ve seen bras before.”

That silenced her up real fast until her eyes flickered down toward her torso, then upward toward mine.

“What?” I followed the direction of her gaze and froze. I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to keep her pinned, send her running from the room, or use actual words.

She was topless.

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