Page 50 of House of Hearts
Calvin’s dressed for the weather as a vampire in a red velvet fitted coat, a billowing cape, and ruffled sleeves. The costume suits him too well. His eyes skirt over mine in the dark, and I ease into the empty space beside him.
“You make me feel overdressed,” he jokes, and his gaze lingers a little too long. “A cat, huh?”
I sniff to mask my embarrassment. “Don’t ask, Lockwell.”
“Claws out already?” he taunts. “You’re in luck. I like it when a girl is feisty.”
“That’s too bad because I like my men silent.” I retract my imaginary claws and ball my fists against my knees. “What made you choose Dracula tonight?”
“There’s something alluring about becoming someone else for a night,” he answers wistfully, tipping his head back to soak in the moonlight. “I’m sure if you asked Sadie, she’d psychoanalyze that statement and rip me to shreds, though.”
“I could, too, if you gave me a minute.”
His lips curl wryly. “I know better than to give you a second.”
His eyes are trained on me as I hear the ring of a cocky junior blowing into the mouth of a dumped-out glass Coke bottle. “All right, spin the bottle. Who’s first?” the guy taunts, puckering up for the air. Hisfake kiss has some other guys breaking out in laughter.
“What are we? Twelve?” a girl taunts with a roll of her dark eyes.
“Twelve and a half.” The original guy grins. He scans the crowd desperately before his shit-eating grin lands on Calvin.
“Cal, why don’t you kick us off? C’mon, man, that will get the girls to stay.”
Calvin throws me a sheepish look, his Casanova attitude momentarily set back to an expression I’ve rarely seen on him: anxiety.
“I…I’m not sure.” He winces, wiping a bead of sweat from the back of his neck.
“Calvin, Calvin, Calvin!” The circle has started chanting for him like a guy at a college frat party being told to chug.
“Worried about your girl being upset?” someone jeers, and now I instantly recognize the emotion on his face. Horror. The disgust of anyone assuming I’m of any importance to him.
“Thought you lived for this kind of thing,” I retort icily. What was it that he said back when we first met?I’d never dream of kissing you.
My cheeks burn, and my throat feels horrifically dry all of a sudden.
“Anyway, if you’re going to do it, do it fast. We need to be out of here when Tripp gives the signal.”
He arches a brow, and it’s clear he’s searching for something in my eyes, but for what, I couldn’t say. Whatever it is, he seems to reach some final verdict and nods grimly to himself, gulps, and then plasters his typicalplayboypersona back on.
“All right, then,” he announces with a cocky gleam in his eyes. “I’ll bite.”
He probably does, a wild part of me muses, and I’ve never been so relieved that my thoughts are trapped in my head.
Some girls I don’t know chitter like a flock of lovesick birds. Preening and fluttering in hopes of catching his eye. It’s a record-scratch moment as he leans in and grabs the bottle, everyone frozen in anticipation and pleading with the gods that it will point their way.
It spins and spins and spins some more, and when it finally lands, it’s so close to me that even I need to catch my breath.
But it isn’t me. That’s clear from the sharp gasp and giggles to my left. The chosen girl smooths a wayward strand and tucks it shyly behind her ear. She’s pretty—warm, sun-kissed skin, hair in an immaculate fishtail braid, her face painted with iridescent mermaid scales.
He cradles her cheek, leaning in only after she gives a shy nod. It might be all of five seconds, but it lasts a lifetime in my head. I’m consumed by the sight of his lips pressing against hers and the brush of his fingertips against her face.
I have no reason to hate her, I have no reason to hate him, but hate is all I feel.
More than anything, I hate how these seconds won’t pass. And when they finally do, I hate the dizzy satisfaction spread across her face as she draws back with parted lips and flushed cheeks.
“Satisfied?” Calvin asks the group, and he’s far too casual about this whole ordeal.Of course this would be casual for him.
“All right, moving counterclockwise, Violet, it’s your turn,” the junior announces with a wink. His interest is completely unreciprocated, and yet it still has me pushing back my shoulders, emboldened by the possibility that anyone here mightwantto kiss me.
