Page 52 of I Hate You More

My heart pulsed in strong, hard beats as I tried to remember I despised him. We were standing so close to each other it was hard to believe my body had ever wanted distance between us. Every cell within me was alive and urging me toward him. But kissing Chase wasn’t part of the plan right now and definitely wasn’t something my body was supposed to desire with such intensity.

I dragged in a breath and quickly shook my head. “No, we just have to stay stuck in this room together for seven minutes, that’s all.” I moved past him and farther into his room, unable to stand being in the same space as him. He seemed to suck up all the oxygen around us when I got too close, and I felt like I could breathe more easily as the distance between us grew.

I tried to concentrate on Tessa’s advice about connecting with him. But what were we even supposed to talk about? I had absolutely nothing in common with the boy before me.

“So, I like what you’ve done with the place,” I said, waving a hand around the room. I hadn’t entered Chase’s bedroom since he’d first moved in, and not a lot had changed in that time. He’d done nothing to make the room his own.

Chase chuckled under his breath. “I was going for the minimalist look.”

“I can see.”

“Plus, I’m only a guest here. I didn’t really see the point in changing anything,” he added.

I glanced at him out of the corner of my eye. He almost seemed sad that his place at our house was transitory, and a flicker of guilt raced through me because I was planning to boot him from his temporary home. I swiftly looked away to focus on his room once more and attempted to push those troubling thoughts away. Chase was far from innocent, and I couldn’t go feeling sorry for him.

I continued to scrutinize the room until I noticed a heap of books stacked on the floor next to his bed. Like a moth to a flame, I couldn’t seem to help myself as I walked over and crouched down to read the titles. There must have been thirty books in the piles. Their spines were all crinkled from years of use, and many of the books were old classics I’d never bothered to pick up.

“You read?” I asked, glancing up at Chase over my shoulder.

“No. The books are just there because they look pretty.” He rolled his eyes.

“Hey,friend, we’re lowering our weapons, remember?” I said, making his mouth twitch in a small smile.

“Yes, I read,” he admitted, walking over and sitting on the bed near me. “Although I much prefer actual books to that Kindle you’re always carting around.”

“Hey, don’t diss the Kindle.” I continued to run my fingers along the spines of each book and read their titles. I was surprised Chase had even noticed that I read from a Kindle. I guess it was practically glued to my hand whenever I was in the house. “I doubt you could fit all these books in a suitcase, whereas I always have an entire library at my fingertips.”

“Your Kindle doesn’t smell like old paper.”

“Your books don’t light up at night so you can read in the dark.”

Chase chuckled. “Why on Earth would you want to read in the dark?”

I glanced over my shoulder and glared at him. “Why on Earth are you sniffing your books?”

He grinned widely in response. “Maybe I have a fetish for it.”

“Maybe I do too.”

I picked up a book off the top of one of the piles and sat on the bed beside him as I looked at the blurb. It was calledThe Book Thief, and the story sounded far more thought provoking than the type of reading material I would have expected to find at Chase’s bedside. To be honest, I wouldn’t have expected to find any books at all.

It felt weird that I’d hated him for so long, but I didn’t really know all that much about him. He was my brother’s best friend, he thought he was too good for all the girls at school, and whenever we spoke, we seemed to naturally fall into an argument. That was really all I knew about Chase Williams these days. He used to play football with my brother, but since he’d quit the team last year, that didn’t really feel like current knowledge.

Chase had always been a bit of an enigma, but that didn’t change the fact he still drove me crazy. We both appeared to love books, but even then, we couldn’t seem to agree on how they were best read. His library was also completely at odds with my own. I loved everything paranormal and romantic while his books all seemed more historical.

I could feel Chase’s eyes on me and realized I’d been staring at his book for far too long, as I got lost in my thoughts.

“Is this any good?” I asked, tearing my gaze away fromThe Book Thiefto look up at him. All thought of the book in my hands disappeared as our eyes met. I hadn’t realized we were sitting so close together. That our legs were brushing against each other. That our faces were only inches apart.

His eyes were filled with a myriad of emotions, but none that I could decipher, as he looked at me. All I knew was that he wasn’t shying away from me, and he wasn’t scowling at me like I was his mortal enemy.

I swallowed as I tried to recall what I was talking to him about, but my brain had decided to stop functioning because all I could focus on was a small fleck of gold in his light-blue eyes. I could smell a hint of beer on his breath and sunscreen on his skin, and where our legs touched, my skin buzzed like it had been hit by static electricity. There was a yearning ache in the pit of my belly that was almost impossible to deny. I think he must have been feeling it too because his eyes dipped to my lips, and ever so slowly, he started to inch toward me. The air between us crackled like the brewing of a storm, and I found myself leaning toward him rather than pulling away.

A loud banging started on the door, and it felt like a bucket of cold water splashing over my head. The strange urges I’d just experienced were completely extinguished, and I jumped back from Chase with such urgency it was like I’d accidentally gotten to close to an open flame. It was a relief we’d been disturbed. If we had been left alone for a moment longer, I had no doubt I would have been burned.

My eyes darted toward the door as it opened, and I stood up from the bed. Chase mirrored the action beside me, but I suspected he looked far less guilty than me. I couldn’t bring myself to look at him after the strange moment we’d just shared, and I wondered if he was feeling the same confusion as me. It had felt like he wanted to kiss me, but surely, that couldn’t be right. Chase Williams hated me, and he definitely didn’t want to kiss me. I hated him too though, so what was my excuse? I certainly hadn’t been thinking about the plan to get him out of my house when I’d been staring into his eyes. Perhaps I had been subconsciously working toward Operation Pest Control.

“Please don’t tell me you made out with my sister,” Shane said, scrunching his face up with disgust, as the door opened wide. Tessa was standing at his side, her eyes filled with mischief and a devious smile curving her lips.

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