I snatched my phone back up, scrolled down my contacts.
She still hadn’t texted or called. I thought she might after last night at the gym, but nothing.
I wanted to call her. I wanted to hear her voice, to tell her I was sorry for disappearing, to ask her to help me forget who my father was.
But as I looked at her name, I paused. My hand was still shaking, and my anger brimming.
I shouldn’t let her hear me like this.
Blood on my hands, rage inside of me.
I threw my phone back down on the sofa.
The last thing I wanted was for her to get tainted by me.
Chapter eight
Ingrid
Iwas supposed to be studying. Yet all I could think of—all I’d been able to think about all day—was Tristian.
Every time I closed my eyes, the memory of the gym, him stripping away my wet clothes—the heat, the vulnerability, the way he looked at me—rushed back until my cheeks burned.
I was terrified I’d driven him away, that I was just a foolish girl who wanted the real world but ran the moment she tasted it.
Then, my phone buzzed.
Tristian
You busy?
My heart lunged.
He’d texted me first.
I didn’t hesitate to reply.
No, I’m not busy.
Tristian replied in an instant, as though he’d been holding the phone ready for myresponse.
I want to see
you.
Are you free?
Yes… I’d love to.
Want me to pick you up?
I hesitated. Now I needed to think, not just act on pure impulse and instinct. My father was home. If Tristian pulled up to the gate—if he so much as existed within fifty feet of the driveway, Papa would lose his mind, probably have an aneurysm, then lock me up forever. So that probably wasn’t the best idea. Then again, he was going to have an aneurysm anyway when I asked him to go out. He hadn’t approved of my going to the boxing match last night—my abuelita had needed to get involved again, granted me permission herself—and no way was he going to let me go out again, two days in a row.
I was going to have to text Tristian back and say I couldn’t come.
But the thought of not seeing him… the thought of pretending I didn’t want him… I’d been thinking about him all day. I couldn’t get the feel of his hands, his voice, his presence out of my head.
So sneak out.
