Page 110 of Tempt

He grabs my hand. “Kat, please.”

Tell me you need me. You want me.

Tell me this has been the best two months of your life. Because it’s been the best two months of mine.

“I need to give you something.” He disappears into the house and returns a moment later. He presses a slip of paper into my hand. “For the rest of the semester.”

I stare at the check.

I want to tell him to go fuck himself.

I want to tell him I never needed the money, that I didn’t want to be alone and he already gave me a place to stay and more.

But if I stay like this until I decide which of those to tell him, I’m going to cry, and I don’t want to cry in front of him.

So I shove the check in the back pocket of my jeans. “Goodbye, Daniel."

* * *

Liv: Someone’s here to see you

I arrive back at their place to find a tall man at the door and nearly drop my schoolbag.

“Clay?!”

He turns and grins. “Wanted to check on you.”

“But you have a game this weekend.”

“Tomorrow in New York. Needed a detour and you still have Find my Phone turned on.”

He folds me in his arms and I exhale hard.

“Let me take you for dinner,” he says. “Or we can get takeout. You won’t even have to fight off the fangirls.”

My lips twitch for the first time all day. “I could use a fight.”

In the end, we get takeout.

Clay’s still recognized a few times when we pick up the food. He signs a handful of quiet autographs but doesn’t pose for selfies.

Back at his hotel, we shut the door and eat.

“There’s something I need to say to you,” I start.

He looks up, surprised.

I tell him everything.

My roommates moving out.

The nanny gig.

Grad school and my professor.

“I’ve been wanting to tell you all of that,” I finish. “But we don’t talk. We haven’t really talked in years.”

Clay shifts forward. “It’s my fault Mom and Dad weren’t there when you got sick. Hell, it’s my fault it happened in the first place. I was the one playing games and tournaments all the time.”

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