Page 61 of Slay Ride

“Yet I wasn’t included in the planning,” Bennett grumbles.

“Yes, well, if you hadn’t been so busy chasing skirts in Florida, we might have included you a bit more.” Ezra levels him with a glare that shuts his mouth.

Those little jabs at his expense usually give me a twinge of joy, but not this time. Can no one else see the glimmer of hurtin his eyes? Perhaps this glimmer is something new, something brought on by our little affair. Maybe I’ve softened him.

Or maybe that glimmer of pain has been there all along, and we’ve all been too self-absorbed to see it.

I tuck this little tidbit away for later. If I bring it up now, he’ll get defensive and I’ll get nowhere. In fact, I’ll get the opposite of nowhere. I’ll go backward. His walls are already up for some reason I have yet to discern, and the last thing I need is for his alarm system to start wailing.

“Everyone, gather around over here,” Ezra calls to the people wandering the edges of the narrow strip of water.

But as we step closer, I realize there isn’t only one lane. There are several, each of them set at an equal distance from the next. The lanes aren’t terribly long, but from this distance, I can’t tell how deep they run.

Eve appears from the group heading our way. She sidles up to me and puts her arm through mine, then pulls me closer. “Glad you made it,” she says.

“Do you know what we’re doing?” I ask.

She shakes her head, and her braids rub against the inner lining of her hood. “Not a clue. I tried to get more info out of Maverick, but he said Ezra would break his fingers if he leaked the details.”

“Speaking of Maverick . . .”

“Oh! Right!” She starts to pull me away from the group, but Ezra stops her.

“Ladies?” he says after clearing his throat. “If you don’t mind, I was about to explain the activity.”

We offer him matching smiles of equal sheepishness, then move back to the group.

As Ezra runs down the rules for the event, I try to pay attention, but my mind keeps wandering to Bennett andMaverick. Eve can answer any questions I have about the latter, but she can’t tell me why I don’t care anymore.

Maverick has been my obsession since I met him after the summer retreat. He’s easy on the eyes, and he’s sweet enough to give a toothless grandmother a cavity. Kindra and Ezra encouraged it at first, but somewhere along the line, they changed their minds and subtly hinted I should put my efforts into someone else. I’m not desperate enough to continually throw myself at someone who doesn’t want to catch me, but I also wasn’t ready to relinquish my crush. Hoping he’d eventually develop feelings if given enough exposure, I inserted myself into situations just to be near him.

It’s not an easy thing to admit, but the obsession I had with Maverick was borderline unhealthy.

And that’s what’s so puzzling to me.

The obsession Ihadwith Maverick.

“Earth to Cat?” Bennett’s fingers snap in front of my face. “Did you hear anything he said?”

I look around. Eve is no longer beside me, and everyone has split off into their pairings. Bennett and I are the only two still standing away from the lanes.

“Sorry, I was lost in thought,” I say.

Bennett scoffs. “Your brain isn’t big enough to hold more than one empty box, so you couldn’t have gotten that lost.”

“In case you haven’t noticed, we’re the only people over here. You can drop the asshole act.”

“It’s not an act. I’m an asshole, remember?”

Yeah, something is definitely different.

“Bennett, what’s wrong? You’re acting strange.”

“Maybe I’m just realizing some things, that’s all.”

“What sort of things?”

“Let’s get this show on the road!” Kindra yells from one of the lanes. “We can’t start stripping until you two line up!”

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