Page 68 of Fall Into Me

“You…you…” I was pointing right at him like lightning might spontaneously fly out the tip of my finger and smite him.

“No, wait. I can guess. I make you sick?” He ran a hand through his hair before crossing his arms in this smug, cocky stance.

“Among many other things,” I muttered, spinning on my heels to avoid looking at him.

Fane grabbed the food and darted back inside before reemerging and locking the door, his shoes laced. “I could probably guess those things too,” he continued, that infuriating beam still plastered across his face as he started to stretch.

I should have been stretching too, but instead I crossed my arms and gave him my most unimpressed expression. “I highly doubt it.”

“I make you nervous?”

I scoffed. “Try annoyed.”

“I make you all gooey on the inside?”

“Sure, in amy organs are failingsort of way.”

“I think I turn you on, Calista.” He was still stretching, but the smile had dropped off his face. Replaced with a look that translated roughly toI could rip off all your clothes without damaging the buttons.

“You actually remove all the moisture from my body.” I was eighty percent sure I held my composure…until he opened his mouth to reply.

“Yeah, from too many orga—”

I slid my earbuds into place, giving him my bestsuck itsmile and cutting off whatever he was going to say. I had a pretty good idea, and if the way my entire body was humming was any indication, I was firmly in the danger zone of volunteering to experience the sort of dehydration he was describing. Which I didn’t want to do.

Right? Yes.Yes.

Even with my music blaring, it didn’t stop his laughter from trickling in and evaporating almost every single one ofthe clouds that had turned my life into one overcast, gray, and dreary twilight.

I looked over my shoulder once, not fully able to evade the small amount of lingering terror from the day before, to find Fane running right behind me.

It didn’t even occur to me that the smile that still lingered on my face was something I should have hidden away. Not when the one he was giving me now sent the remainder of those heavy rain clouds that followed me around running for the hills, leaving me to bask, just for a bit, in nothing but never-ending sunshine.

22

Fane

Before

“I can’t do anymore.” I was holding onto the sides of the treadmill with a death grip, my words made infinitely more dramatic by Cali’s playlist blasting from the gym speakers with “Mess It Up” by Gracie Abrams on repeat.

I might never admit it, but her playlists had grown on me. Her taste in music had infiltrated my Spotify so thoroughly that I hadn’t really had a choice at the start, but I could admit to belting out a country song or two in the shower now.

“We’ve been running for twenty minutes.” Cali guffawed from her spot beside me, hardly breaking a sweat. “And you’ve run longer than this.”

“Run, yes,” I panted, “You’ve been sprinting.”

“This is not a sprint.” She waved one slender hand in my direction.

I glared at her. “It really fucking is.” I smacked the emergency stop button on the treadmill, and just before it stopped, I let it take me, depositing me in a sad pile of fuckingsadnesson the gym floor.

“Oh my fuck.” I think there were actual tears pouring out of my eyes. “Just take me now,” I whimpered.

“Fane Mackenzie, are you crying?”

I cracked an eye open to find Cali leaning over me.

“No.” I was definitely crying.

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