Page 50 of Spark
It was all fake, she thought.He was just trying to get laid and to score points against Matt.
And to think that she’d been ready to do just about anything with Chris! She thought she knew her friends, but maybe she was just as wrong about them as she’d been about Hunter.
I hope Chris enjoyed his blow job,she thought savagely.Because I’m never going to talk to him again. And Matt can fuck off, too, if he’s in on this sick game.
The thought that sweet, sincere Matt might have been playing her, too, made Sophie’s gorge rise. She bent and threw up in the grass verge next to the gravel road as bitter memories overwhelmed her.
Hunter looked shocked after their O-chem class final when she tentatively asked him out on a date. “You’re asking me out on a date?”
She nodded anxiously. He’d been so sweet to her, bringing her coffee at every lecture, spending the entire semester getting together a couple of times a week for study dates mixed with heavy flirtation. He’d been attentive, kind, and smart. Just the kind of guy who would make a perfect first boyfriend.
“You can’t be serious!”
She stared at him, bewildered.
Then came the lift of his brows and the cruel twist of his lips. “Oh, wait, you thought I wasinterestedin you?You?” And then he laughed. “Jesus, Sophie, you’re pathetic, you know that. Look at yourself. Do I look like the kind of guy who dates pathetic, needy fat girls?” He grinned at her. “But, hey, I appreciate all the help with my homework. Thanks to you, I’m pretty sure I aced that final.”
Then he walked away, leaving her standing amid the shards of her self-esteem in the front of the chemistry building.
She should have never let herself forget that she wasn’t pretty or thin and sexy like other girls. She wouldn’t make that mistake again.
Sophie wiped her mouth, told herself that she wasn’t going to cry, and set off for home.
Chapter Sixteen
Grizzly Creek Ranch
Tuesday, June 12
Sophie didn’t answer any of her texts.
Chris spent a sleepless night tormented by the knowledge of how badly he’d screwed up. Not only that, but he'd just let her walk all the way home by herself.
I should have at least offered her a lift. Even if there wasn’t a chance in hell that she was going to let me drive her anywhere.
When she still hadn’t replied to his frantic apologies the next morning, he couldn’t help himself. Unable to face breakfast, he poured himself a mug of coffee, then got in his car and drove over to Damaris and Mitya’s place to see her.
Her red RAV-4 was parked next to the house, so that meant she was probably home. Gathering his courage, he knocked on the front door.
“Sophie? Can I talk to you? Please?”
“Go away. Leave me alone!” came her muffled reply.
He sighed. “I just wanted to say that I’m sorry. Really,reallysorry for what I said.”
Silence.
He turned to go. He hadn’t felt this bad since he was a kid, and Uncle Dan had been shot trying to protect Chris from bad guys in Albuquerque.
Then, to his dismay, Matt walked by, a big metal toolbox swinging from one hand.
“Whatdidyou say to her?” he demanded, his dark brows drawing together in a frown.
Chris sighed.Fucking shifter hearing.
He had managed to avoid his housemate yesterday evening and this morning because he wanted the chance to make things right with Sophie before Matt got involved and predictably stormed to her defense.
He didn’t know what kind of expression he was wearing, but Matt’s scowl abruptly vanished.
