Beck watched my mouth as I spelled, his gaze dropping there with a focus that made my skin go hot. My fingers twitched. “Expected.”
“E-X-P-E-C-T-E-D.” I rushed through the word, and then I drew in a rough gasp. My lungs ached, as if I hadn’t been breathing. “This is ridiculous. You’re ridic?—”
“Eleanor.” Beck’s lips spoke my name softly, like an enchantment that snapped me still. His green eyes were locked solely on me, the tip of his middle finger brushing along my palm. I nearly shivered. “Spell it.”
Heat crept its way down the collar of my shirt, foreign to the moment. I didn’t know why I was flushing. With anger, surely. It couldn’t have been anything else. It wasn’t allowed to be anything else. And that was why I was trembling, too. Anger. Nothing else. “E-L-E-A-N-O-R.”
Inexplicably, a corner of Beck’s mouth lifted. It was less of a mocking smirk, but something softer. The smile he used to give me when we were kids. Aside from the hair, which hung in his eyes, he looked so much like the boy I’d given my heart to years ago.
And he’d never given it back.
Beck leaned close, and my heart slammed against my ribs. Close. Not close enough. “You spelled it wrong,” he mused, voice nearly a whisper. “D-E-L-U-S-I-O-N-A-L.”
And just like that, a match struck within me. The heatat my collar flooded the rest of my frame, the closet suddenly tight and claustrophobic and warm. Definitely anger, I decided. I wrapped my fingers around his own now, clamping down hard, as if it were a punishment. I sucked in a breath, taking a half step forward, bringing us closer?—
And then I heard my name right outside of the coat closet. “—you seen Eleanor?”
The flare of heat suddenly froze.
Beck turned toward the door. “You don’t want them to know you’re in here? Why not? Oh,Carter?—”
I slapped my free palm over Beck’s mouth and pressed down. His lips flattened against my skin, and I dug my fingers into his cheek hard enough that he flinched. It must’ve hurt. Good.
“Nellie?” That was Daisy. “Was she not in the ballroom?”
“I didn’t see her,” Carter replied. “I asked around, and Lydia said she saw her come out into the hallway. I want to introduce her to my parents.”
Lydia had seen me?
They had to be standing right outside the coat closet door. Beck and I were in plain sight if Carter or Daisy or freaking Lydia were to duck their heads in. With one hand still pushed against his mouth, I grabbed Beck by the front of his shirt and shoved him around the built-in near the back of the closet, pressing him up against the wall.
He tried to speak against my hand, but I pressed down harder.Shut. Up.
My pulse slammed so loudly in my ears that the sound alone was going to get us caught. I closed my eyes, mind racing to excuse away the intimate situation it looked like we were in.
F-R-A-N-T-I-C.
S-T-U-P-I-D.
D-E-L-U-S-I-O-N-A-L.
“I can call her,” Daisy offered. “Maybe she went to the bathroom?”
My phone was safely on the table back in the ballroom, so I wasn’t worried about it going off, but I still felt like I couldn’t breathe. And all the oxygen disappeared when, louder, Carter asked—“Is she in here?”
And opened the coat room door.
Its hinges squeaked so much louder than they had when Beck drew me inside, or maybe I’d been too focused on him before to hear it. Where we were tucked behind the storage shelf kept us out of sight of the doorway, as long as Carter didn’t venture further inside.P-L-E-A-S-E, I spelled frantically, pressing myself against Beck as if to hold him still. Or as if to disappear into his chest entirely.P-L-E-A-S-E-P-L-E-A-S-E-P-L-E-A-S-E.
Beck’s chest rose, and for that split second, I was sure he was about to ruin everything. This was his prime chance to. I’d been fooling myself before; there truly was no explanation that could justify the position we were in. “We were fighting” was the truth, but if that was the case, why had I hidden? Why did I press myself right up against Beck to hide him? I’d backed myself into an impossible corner.
Beck pressed his hand on the small of my back and drew me closer to him, almost in a way that was painful. Panic licked its way up my throat, becauseof coursehe was going to try and make this look as bad as possible. I wanted to wrench from his grip, except that would mean stepping out so Carter would see me.
Maybe Ishouldstep out into view before Carter found us. Maybe I should come out, hope Beck would stay hidden, and say “boo!” Surprise him. Play it off as a game. That could work. That might?—
The closet door clicked shut. When he spoke again, Carter’s voice was muffled. “Did she answer?”
“No,” Daisy replied. “Come on, let me see if she went back into the ballroom…”
