Page 28 of The Casualty of Us
My brows fall in confusion, and he nods at my phone, clueing me into what he’s talking about, and I cross my arms while turning fully to him. “Jealous, Dimples?”
He takes a step closer to me, forcing me to tip my head back, and his gaze moves between mine a couple of times before giving me a low rasp. “Very.”
And something about the intensity of his gaze has me whispering, “Fuck.” I look down, quickly clearing my throat. “He’s not—uh—we’re not.” Sucking in a quick breath, I lift my eyes back up to finish more strongly. “He’s not my boyfriend.”
He pauses, gaze searching mine like he’s checking for the truth there before giving me a slow nod. “Then…” His eyes narrow on mine. “I don’t understand.”
I cock my head. “What do you mean?”
“This, you.” His brows shoot down, hand moving between us with a quick move. “At first I thought maybe I’d pushed too hard, and then it hit me that maybe Holden was more your type when you started hanging out with him.”
“Holden and I are just friends,” I cut in.
“Right, yeah, I got that,” he bites out quickly. “And then I thought I was fucked because you liked Graham and I’d somehow missed that, but now…” He trails off, swallowing visibly. “Do you like me?”
“I…” My lips part around the sound, and I blink up at him before finishing softly. “It’s complicated.”
He tips his head to the side. “Because of your brother?”
“Yes—no—I,” I sputter lamely. “Because we’re friends, and everyone’s friends, and yes, Ollie would probably throw a fit for a lot of reasons and start yelling about Kyler, but—”
“Who the fuck is Kyler?”
“Not important.” I brush him off, taking a second to stare at his increasingly confused face and sighing truthfully. “We don’t even know if we do like each other.”
“But there’s a possibility,” he jumps in, lips curling for a split second like he’s fighting a grin. “A definite possibility that you like me, isn’t there?”
“I don’t know—yes—maybe.” The words leave me so quickly they’re practically on top of each other and have me falling back on. “We don’t even know each other that well.”
He lifts his hand in the next instant, bringing it to rest on my waist, and the action silences me.
“I think there’s something here.” His thumb moves across the top of my corset, making my breath hitch, and his dimples come out to play fully. “And maybe if you stopped avoiding me—”
“I’m not avoiding you.” I scowl. “We literally eat off the same plate every morning.”
“Showing up to the one class we share alone with five equally boring topics ready for us to debate each week definitely counts as avoiding.” He raises his other hand up to my face and runs his thumb down one of my brows, smoothing out the scowl there. “Now stop avoiding me and find out whether you like me or not.”
Fuck.
Not that it hadn’t been my plan for the night, but…fuck.
There’s a difference between something I can drunkenly write off as attempting to be a normal girl and something based in a conversation.
“It’s compli—”
“I dare you.” He lifts a brow. “Or are you scared, Freckles?”
“I…” I stare up at him with my mind whirling, and the pretty grin and mischievous eyes he’s leveling at me are not helping one bit. “I told you to stop that.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“And what happens in this grand plan of yours?” I narrow my eyes, lifting my chin and trying to regain the upper hand. “If we do like each other? What happens then?”
“I—” His eyes widen, voice cutting out and making me tense under his hand before seeming to swallow the surprise down. “I guess we would see what happ—”
But he’s already giving me exactly what I need.
“Right.” I roll my eyes, keeping it light despite the twinge somewhere in my chest. “That’s what I thought.”
