Page 22 of The Invitation
“I’m going to go inside. I’ll let Jeremiah know something came up and I have to leave,” he says. “Not dealing with your shit is better than ruining my afternoon.”
“By all means, please go. Save both of our afternoons. But at least take the blame,gentleman.”
“You are incorrigible.”
“I’m …” My head spins as I try to find a quick comeback.Who uses words like that?“Corrigible.”
He smiles. “Corrigible, huh?”
“Yeah,” I say, shifting from one foot to the other.
“Do you even know what that means?”
“Yes,” I say weakly.
“So you’re admitting you can change? You can be reformed from your incorrigible, witchy ways?”
“That’s not what corrigible means.”
He smiles smugly. “That’sexactlywhat it means.”
I start toward the house with Ripley on my heels.Fuck him and his vocabulary.
“What I mean is that I’m pleasant,” I say. “Nice. I can get along with anyone. So the fact that I can’t get along with you is very telling.”
“Yeah. It means you’re an asshole,” he says.
“It means thatyou’rethe problem.”
He stops abruptly beside the pool, and I turn and face him. Sweat coats his skin, drawing attention to the ridges of his face and the smooth skin of his neck. He licks his lips as he looks down at me, studying me like a project.
Annoyance rolls through me, intensified by the sun and the heat rolling off his body. I should walk away and leave him behind … but I don’t. I’m stuck in place, waiting for him to speak.
“Do you realize that our biggest argument is over us arguing?” he asks. “We fight the most about the fact that we fight.”
“Because we never get beyond that. As soon as your lips part, I want to punch them.”
He tilts his head to the side, and I loathe that I notice how much his blue eyes shine in the sunlight.
“What would happen if we stayed silent toward each other when we’re in the same room?” he asks. “If we completely ignore the other person instead of going for the jugular?”
I consider this. It might be possible, but I’ve never thought about it before.
“I mean, you would have to take that stick out of your ass, but I think you can do it,” he says.
What?
My jaw hangs open, anger and frustration swirling wildly inside me. It rises too quickly to contain. Before I know it, my hands are planted on his solid, wall-like chest, and I push him backward.
His eyes fly open as his momentum swiftly changes directions, and he loses his balance. He snaps out a hand, wrapping it around my wrist, and yanks me off my feet.
“No,” I squeal as I shoot through the air, my tumbler banging against the decking as it falls. Ripley drags me with him, his fingers burning into my wrist, as we sail toward the water.
I barely hold my breath before I plummet into the water.
Two splashes ring through the air as Ripley and I sink to the bottom of the pool. I open my eyes to find him a few feet away, grinning mischievously.
Oof.
