Page 20 of The Casualty of Us
“Hey, Hayes.”
I look over in time to catch one of the cheerleader girls from the other day smiling as she passes us by with a couple of her friends.
“Hey, Josey.” Hayes nods at her in greeting, and the words pop out before I can stop them.
“Isn’t she like a junior?”
“I don’t know, I guess.” He shrugs, eyes lighting up happily when ours lock a second later. “Why do you care?”
“I don’t,” I scoff, quickly closing my own again. “Just making an observation.”
“Mm-hmm,” he murmurs, going silent for so long that I almost start to drift off before he breathes out quietly. “Freckles.”
He punctuates the soft word with an even lighter touch as his fingers trace down the bridge of my nose. Feathering across my skin and making me take a deep breath that carries something like cedar up my nose before reluctantly cracking my eyes again. Staring up at his gaze that seems transfixed by the faint splattering of marks across my nose and allowing the contact for a moment more.
“You’ve got to stop it,” I finally sigh. “People are starting to get ideas about us.”
He smirks, lifting his finger from my skin. “And that’s a bad thing?”
“Yes.” I admonish seriously. “Yes, it is.”
“Debatable.” He shrugs, stealing my seltzer and taking a sip like it’s his own. “We can argue it next week in class.”
“I’d rather not.”
“Too bad.” His gaze runs over my face once before coming back to mine. “What was it like being kidnapped?”
I blink at him. “Are you serious?”
“Very.” He nods. “I don’t like feeling like I’m walking on eggshells around you when it comes to it.”
“What makes you—you’re just—absolutely,” I sputter ineffectually, mind whirling for the proper way to tell him to fuck off before settling on caustically pushing back. “What’s it like having a rock star for a father?”
Hoping to distract him for long enough that I can get enough breath to read him the riot act, but then he goes and knocks it from me again.
“Absent.” His eyes drift away from mine, but the emptiness in that single word holds more answers than a dozen ever could. “Absent,” he repeats with another small shrug. “But the old maninvited me along for his tour next summer, so that’s something, I guess.”
I quickly look away as his gaze comes back to mine again. “Yeah.” Clearing my throat and staring at the sky instead, I finish off, “Yeah, I guess it is.”
Don’t do it, Ophelia.
Don’t you dare fall for his poor little rich boy with absently famous parents routine. Don’t tell him—
“Your turn, Freckles.”
“Goddammit.”
“Always with the cursing at me.” He chuckles, air from the sound actually making its way to brush along my skin this time. “Come on, one word, same as me.”
I purse my lips, fighting the inevitable for a moment more before the absence of my own voice feeds the guilt enough to leave me breathing out, “Terrifying.” My stomach collapses under my hands as the air leaves me with the truth. “It was terrifying.”
“I bet,” he murmurs, bringing his fingers back up to start tracing down the bridge of my nose again. “Three days, right?”
“Yeah.” I close my eyes at the reminder, struggling with the reality of it for a split second as a dull pound goes through my head. Something about the way he’s tracing his fingers down either of my cheekbones now soothes me enough to add, “It felt like a lot longer, though.”
“Why’s that?”
“Didn’t sleep much.”
