Page 48 of The Season
A curt nod.
I wrinkle my nose, tucking my snowboard tighter under my arm, like maybe it can give me some comfort.
“But… it’s not like that with you and me,” I point out, my cheeks flushing.
Okay, yes, maybe Ihavefelt the slightest fluttering of butterflies when Antoine stroked my hair. And yes, I can acknowledge he’s objectively a beautiful specimen of a man. But that doesn’t mean anything. It’s just a normal physical reaction. It doesn’t mean I’m attracted to him.
“I mean, you’re gay for one thing,” I say, keeping my voice a low whisper.
Antoine stumbles, his boot catching on a lump of ice as he turns to look at me with wide eyes, his mouth opening, closing, opening again.
“Can you two hurry up?” Liam snaps.
“Sorry,” I say with a grimace, trotting carefully across the icy asphalt.
“I can do that,” Matty says, not quite looking at me as he takes my board from my hands, placing it on top of his on the roof racks of my car.
“Thanks,” I murmur, casting Matty a searching glance, my mind still racing with Antoine and my earlier conversation.
I frown when Liam heads around to the passenger side of the car, looking like he’s going to take Matty’s usual spot in the front seat. He knows Matty doesn’t fit in the back.
“Nuh-uh,” I say, slipping off my helmet before sliding into the driver’s seat. “You don’t get shotgun. Not when you’re being an impatient grump.”
Liam shoots me a dark look, then slides into the back seat, slamming the door shut with more force than necessary. “I’m not a grump,” he retorts, sounding decidedly grumpy. “And it’s not my fault you were moving at a speed that would rival glaciers for slowness.”
I narrow my eyes at him in the rearview mirror, but he doesn’t look at me. Instead, he’s staring intently out the window, his hair mussed and flattened from his helmet, his scowl unmistakable now that his goggles and mask are off. His body is practically plastered to the door, like he’s desperate to put as much space between himself and Antoine as possible.
Antoine looks just as uncomfortable, staring blankly ahead, sitting straight in his seat with his palms on his knees, like a student terrified of reprimand from a teacher.
Okay then.
I start up the car, grateful when the engine revs to life on the first turn, and let out a sigh. I don’t think I’m looking forward to this party.
Chapter14
Antoine
I think I might be in hell.
I sit frozen in the back seat of Lily’s car, terrified for my life at being driven in something that certainly cannot be roadworthy. The first man I ever kissed is currently impersonating a contortionist in an effort to sit as far away from me as possible, and the woman I’ve been slowly falling for believes that I’m gay.
Putain de merde, what did I ever do to deserve this?
As if in response to my question, Liam’s words come back to me, full of anger cold enough to rival the winds that had buffeted us on top of the ridgeline five days ago.
You want to know why I’m angry at you? You were sixteen years old. Sixteen fucking years old. Out at a nightclub. Do you think I would have kissed you if I’d known that? And then to find that out, in the worst possible way, when I’d come to speak to your goddamn lycée or college whatever you call your fancy high school. And you wonder why I didn’t want to speak to you then…
He'd let out a hollow laugh, his gray eyes shimmering with rage behind his goggles.I was disgusted with myself. Disgusted.
And he’d looked it too, with his lips pulled back and his teeth bared and his nostrils flared. But not at himself. No. At me.
Liar.
That’s what he’d called me, up on the mountain.
I cast him a surreptitious glance, barely aware of the car jolting to a stop outside the liquor store. As if feeling my eyes on him, Liam turns, fixing me with a scowl, his gray eyes almost as wild-looking as his hair.
“Any requests?” he snaps, but I know he’s not asking me. “Everyone fine with bourbon?”
