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“And that’s thirty seconds!” Eve called as soon as she could.
“Thirty seconds of the most boring, virgin kiss I’ve ever seen,” Selena grumbled loudly.
I leaned away, my skin prickling with the feeling of eyes on me. It was Cayden. He bored a hole into the side of my face. I didn’t dare turn and meet his eyes.
The game moved on, and thankfully, I wasn’t called again. Only ten minutes later, one of the Ice God’s minions appeared at the door of the pool house and announced that it was cake time. Cake time? Right, this was both a birthday party and a victory party. Beckett had actually gotten us a cake? I looked over at him as he sat quietly in the corner, smoking again, seeming to be in a funk. I didn’t get the guy at all, but then, I didn’t really get any guy, especially not the Ice Gods.
We all got up to go back to the main house. Josh talked in my ear as we left the pool house.
“I mean, if you want,” he was saying.
I could feel Cayden watching me. He drifted closer. It was like my whole body was attuned to his. I could feel as he approached without even looking.
“Sorry, what?” I asked Josh, suddenly aware that he had asked me something.
“I said we could go to the movies sometime, if you wanted,” he repeated. His ears had turned red at the tips.
Was he asking me out? I didn’t know what the hell to say to that. After the lukewarm kiss we’d shared, I never expected that he’d ask me out.
“I—” I started and never got further.
As we skirted the pool, a hand landed on my hip. I spun, trying to see who was touching me. Then the hand shoved, and I fell.
Lily
The water was freezingas it swallowed me whole. It rushed into my open mouth, still frozen in a silent scream, and streamed up my nose. The shock blanked my brain for a long moment.
I was underwater. Someone had pushed me into the pool.
I kicked to the surface, grasping at the lip of the pool until a hard hand closed around my wrist. I was wrenched out of the pool, ungracefully coughing up water and flailing around.
“Jesus! Walk much, Bug? I didn’t know you were such an attention-seeker,” Selena said smugly from the side.
Cayden had hauled me out. He stood holding my arm while I coughed. Eve hovered at my side. Selena’s satisfied titter grated my jangling nerves.
“Not cool,” Marcus muttered at her, and with a hard shove, he launched Selena off the side of the pool and into the water. “I love a little tit for tat.” He was still chuckling as he headed toward the house, leaving a screeching Selena to swim for the ladder by her herself.
“Oh my God, are you okay? You need to change,” Eve worried.
“There are spare clothes in the pool house,” Beckett said lazily, not seeming very bothered that two fully-clothed girls had fallen into his pool.
“She needs a private place to shower,” Eve snapped at him.
Beckett seemed to wake up at her harsh tone. He turned his chiseled face toward her and cocked an eyebrow. There was something vaguely menacing about his demeanor. “Is that right? In that case, she can use my room, if that passes your inspection, Cinderella. Eve knows where it is,” he tossed to me before striding off toward the house.
Eve muttered a curse at my back and tugged me after him. “Come on, let’s go get dry.”
I couldn’t meet anyone’s eyes as we walked through the house. Curious stares followed us, and I wondered what rumor I'd hear about myself on Monday. Probably something likethat loser virgin Lillian Williams got wasted at her first party and fell in the pool.That would be a fun one to explain to my dad when he inevitably heard it.
We went upstairs. The top floor was even fancier than the ground level.
“I’m dripping on the wood,” I worried as I squelched along.
“So what? Like Beckett cares. He’s a spoiled, angry rich boy who doesn’t care about anything, especially not hardwood flooring.”
“Okay, you need to tell me what’s going on there,” I mumbled, shivering as we made our way to the end of a long hall and stopped at a door. Eve knocked once before pushing it open. “Don’t think I didn’t notice how you knew your way to Beckett’s bedroom without a second thought.”
“I told you, I’ve cleaned here. Go ahead and shower. I’ll leave clothes on the bed for you.”
