Page 83 of Study Buddies

“If you had to pick one of us to be your boyfriend, who would you choose?”

Tori reeled back, as if slapped.

“Uncool, dude.” He had no right to put her on the spot like that.

Tori’s mouth hung open as if she’d forgotten how speaking worked.

“You don’t have to answer that,” Lucas growled. As if he wasn’t dying to know the answer. But as always, he put her needs over his.

“She’s a grown woman,” Kyle muttered. “She doesn’t need a guard dog.” He looked at Tori, his eyebrows raised. “Well?”

“Can I use my safeword?” she said at last.

“Nope. My question made you feel uncomfortable, not unsafe.”

“That’s not—” She trailed off, looking confused.

Kyle smirked. “You could always switch to dare.”

It was like seeing a car about to cross over the median into oncoming traffic and not being able to stop it.

But it was too late.

“Okay, I choose dare,” Tori said. Completely unaware that the entire game had been orchestrated by Kyle to reach this point. But I couldn’t blame her—I didn’t catch on until it was too late, either.

Shit.

This wasn’t good.

Lucas knew too, and he looked like he was about to murder Kyle, who hadn’t—yet—done anything wrong.

Yet.

Kyle leaned back in his chair, reaching a new level of smug arrogance. He drew out the moment, likely enjoying Lucas’s anger. Or just enjoying having Tori exactly where he wanted her.

I just hadn’t figured out where that was yet.

“This dare isn’t for now. It’s for Sunday night.”

She swallowed hard, and I realized that meant something to her.

“What’s on Sunday?” I asked.

Kyle smirked, leaving it up to Tori to answer.

“Our date,” she said quietly.

“Your what?” Lucas said sharply. For such a smart guy, he sure as hell played right into Kyle’s hands a lot. At least when it came to Tori.

“Yes.” She didn’t meet any of our eyes. “We, um, a long time ago, we agreed to go on a date.”

“And how did he get you to agree to that?” I asked.

She shrugged, her cheeks turning pink.

“I asked her,” Kyle said. They exchanged a quick glance.

Oh yeah, there was definitely more to the story than they were letting on.

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