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“You shouldn’t be wearing that,” he says, drawing my gaze back to his. “It’s only going to draw the kind of attention you don’t need. Stan might get the wrong fucking idea.”
I step closer, closing the distance between us, forcing Jace to look down at me while I allow my gaze to fall to his mouth. “Maybe Iwanthim to get the wrong idea,” I whisper.
His brows rise to his hairline, and I grin at his surprise, before I turn around and head back to where Stanley waits, a small frown on his lips. “Sorry about that,” I say. “He clearly thinks his position as my brother’s best friend gives him this completely unnecessary obligation to look out for me in his absence.”
“Ah.”Stanley’s expression immediately softens. “I totally get it. I have two sisters, and if they looked like you,” he says, his eyes raking over me, “well, I’d be nervous, too.”
I chuckle politely, then smile as we rejoin his group of friends, glad to see Charlotte fitting right in. Since most of them are sophomores, they fill us in on what campus life is like in the fall and regale us with stories of past frat parties, insisting we go to the one they’re having in a couple weeks. I’m listening to them discuss pledging when a warm palm finds the small of my back, followed by Stanley’s voice as he leans in to my ear.
“I can’t take my eyes off you,” he whispers.
A smile stretches across my face as my cheeks heat, and I realize how good it feels to be wanted and to allow myself to want someone back after so long.
“Promise me a dance tonight?” he asks.
“I can arrange a dance,” I say, my stomach doing a little flip. The last time I danced with a boy was Sadie Hawkins sophomore year . . .
“Just watch your toes,” Jace interrupts, practically stepping between us. He’s so close he’s practically my shadow. “This one, here, has two left feet.
I scoff. “I donot.”
“You totally do.” He smirks.
I glare up at him, my mouth a thin line. “Don’t you have anything better to do than troll me? Like finding a girl to add another notch to your belt.”
Stanley laughs, and I’m not sure what irritates Jace more. My insult or the fact that Stanley found it amusing.
Jace waggles a finger at me as if he’s saying,Ya got me!before a venomous grin turns his masculine features serpentine. “Do you remember that time when you were convinced you’d marry Prince Harry, so you wanted me and Teagan to teach you how to waltz? I think my toes were bruised for weeks.”
My hands fist. “I was eleven,” I grind out.
Jace offers me a rueful smile. “Is that the same reason you only went tooneformal throughout all of high school.”
My cheeks flush and my chest heaves with indignation as I struggle to maintain my composure. I want to snap back with a biting remark, something to knock that cocky smirk off his stupidly handsome face, but my mind is blank.
Instead, all I can think about is that night at Sadie Hawkins when I saw Jace on my way out of the locker room.
A rush of emotions floods my veins as I struggle to push them back, keep them at bay.
I try to ignore the intrusive thoughts about all the ways in which that night shaped me and how it would go on to dictate my entire high school experience.
My chest swells, filling with lead and threatening to drown me as I fight to stomp down the burning flame of memories sparking to life inside me.
“You two have a lot of history,” Stanley chimes in. It’s more a statement than a question, and I’m grateful because it brings me back to earth and away from my thoughts.
“Sure do,” Jace says, rocking back on his heels as a dishwater blond I recognize as another AU football player comes up beside him and claps him on the back.
“Need another?” I ask, motioning toward Stanley’s beer bottle, which appears to be empty. I couldn’t care less about drinking myself, but I need to get away from Jace, so heading to the bar seems as good an excuse as any.
“Sure. You want something?” he asks as I grab his arm and steer him away from the group—and Jace while he’s distracted.
“Um, yeah, sure,” I say, even though I haven’t had so much as a drop of alcohol since that night. Drinking means losing control and lowering inhibitions, which can lead to all kinds of bad decisions. For a long time, I wondered if I didn’t have that little bit of vodka, maybe I would’ve gotten away sooner. Maybe I wouldn’t have gone at all.Maybe. Maybe. Maybe.
But right now, I don’t seem to care. Right now, I need something to numb the memories, and a drink sounds like a solution I can’t pass up.
Just one won’t hurt.
Just enough to take the edge of Jace breathing down my neck.
