Page 45 of Hot Shot

That photo is right next to our eighth grade Valentine’s dance picture. I’m in a little red velvet off-the-shoulder thing that clashed with my hair and shoes I had no business wearing, and Wilder wore slacks and a button-down that was two sizes too big. At the time, we were the same height. With my business casual pumps on, I was actually taller than him. By the end of freshman year, I had to stretch up on my tiptoes to kiss him.

Things were so simple back then.

If the little girl in that picture could talk, the first thing out of her mouth would have been,Did we marry him?I don’t think she would have been able to comprehend my answer.

Honestly? Same, girl.

He’s making it really hard to be angry when everything is so sickeningly perfect. Like at the funeral when he wasalsosickeningly perfect, in almost the same outfit he wore to the eighth grade dance, except now I’m pretty sure his suit pants were designer, and he filled out the whole situation to goddamn fucking perfection. He smelled good too.

It makes me so mad, the way my heart flutters againeven at the thought. God, it pisses me off that my cheeks flush when he looks at me like he’ll devour me and make it feel like worship. I could spit fire at how good it feels to have his arm around me, to be nestled into his side like I was carved out of the great mass of him.

See? Mad. Furious. Completely ready to share a bed with him.

“Whatever did those books do to you?” Jessa asks.

“Hmm?”

“You’ve slammed at least a dozen books on top of each other in succession, so I wondered if it was something they said or if you were just angry.”

“I was thinking about Wilder.”

“Ah. Anything in particular?”

“Well, it started with him assembling all the furniture, then went into the photos in the hall.”

“And where did it end?”

“Book slamming.”

She chuckles into the drawer as she lines up a rectangle of liner.

“It’s just not fair.”

“What, exactly?”

“Any of it. All of it.” I grab another book from the box and slap it on top of the stack. “Everything’s just soperfect.Like, how does he always know the right thing to say? To do? I meanafterfucking up.”

Jessa clicks her tongue and shakes her head. “Terrible that he’s so capable. The worst.”

I give her a flat look. “Do you have any idea how much easier this would be if he would just act like an asshole? I’d rather be mad at him than the alternative.”

“What’s the alternative?”

My lips pinch, and I slap another Magic Tree House book on the others. “Nothating him.”

“So, being friends?”

She’s acting all innocent over there with her pretty blonde ponytail, but I know better.

“I’ll be sharing a bed with him. Friends is the least of my concern. I was minutes away from banging him when he told me we were married. Mad or not, my body isready.The rest of me is decidedly not. So when he prances around being Mr. PerfectMcThoughtful Hotness, Esquire, he makes it real hard to ignore the splash zone, you know?”

With a laugh, she finishes cutting the last piece of lining paper. “Yes, I know. I didn’t want anything to do with Remy, but my body did the first time I saw him, and everything he did somehow made it worse. Like when I got in the Scout for the first time and the stick shift was stacked with hair ties. Really, he’s the master of making things somehow thoughtfulandslutty. It’s a real talent.”

“Well, that doesn’t bode well for me, since you ended up one: sleeping with him, two: falling in love, and subsequently three: moving in with him. I am currently trying to avoid one and two. I already fucked up on three.”

“Alright, then let’s do a little problem solving, shall we?”

“If we must.” With more force than necessary, I pick up the stack of books and put them on the shelf. I’ll organize them when I’m through sulking. Instead, I decide to finish unpacking the last boxes of things for Cricket’s room.

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