Page 63 of Hidden

“Not one of the lads, you haven’t,” he replied, looking down at me. He smiled, but it was a smile that filled me with dread. He was too sure of himself. Too cocky. That wasn’t a natural smile. There was something wrong with it, I just couldn’t put my finger on it. “I just think it’s strange you’ve never shown any interest.”

“I’m sixteen… What interest was I supposed to be showing?” I said with a small laugh in an attempt to lighten the mood and brush off his investigation.

“Aren’t sixteen-year-olds supposed to be raging with hormones? I know I was.”

“Maybe I’m a late developer. Besides, are you really complaining that I haven’t dated the entire Junior division, instead of celebrating that you were my first and only choice?”

I mentally patted myself on the back for my quick thinking on that one. These men were egotistical and proud. All I had to do was say the right words, soothe and stroke his pride, and then never speak to him again once he dropped me off home.

He didn’t reply to me, but he continued walking, and I dutifully followed along, casting nervous glances at him. As we passed under a streetlamp, the orange glow cast over his face, sending a shiver down my spine.

“Cold?” he chuckled, releasing my hand and wrapping his arm around my shoulder. I froze, my body instantly tensing up, which made him laugh even harder. “Relax, Gabby. We can go back if you want.”

“If you’re sure you don’t mind?” I asked, praying that the desperate tone in my voice wasn’t easily heard.

“Sure… for a price.”

“A price?”

“Kiss me,” he said, surprising me by spinning around and grabbing my waist. My feet came off the floor as he picked me up and turned us, sitting me on a nearby wall and stepping between my legs.

It had only been a second, and everything had changed.

I felt trapped.

“If I’m your first and only choice,” he muttered, a mocking tone to the words. “Then you should have no problem kissing me.”

“Is this usually how you get girls to kiss you?” I said back, proud that my voice came out loud and clear. “No romance, no build up, just straight up demands?”

“It is when I feel like the girls bullshitting me.”

His face grew darker.

I hadn’t been stroking his ego at all.

I had been naively fanning the flames of his anger.

“Kiss me, princess,” he breathed, lowering his head to mine, his words a whisper against my lips.

My heart raced. And not in the way it had when…

No. I wouldn’t think of that.

I wouldn’t think of the morning after the funeral. When it had just been me and Luke.

We had fallen asleep in the grass, and when we woke up, there was something different… something unspoken.

He had lowered his head to mine, just like Darren was doing. But my reaction had been completely different. My palms had grown sweaty, my heart racing. I felt dizzy and delirious.

And then his phone had rung, and he’d pulled away from me.

He hadn’t been the same since then.

We still had our late-night texting sessions. But they had dwindled to once a week. Whenever he saw me at school, he gave me a courtesy nod, and that was it.

The boy who had once climbed monkey bars and barked at Macbeth in the park had disappeared into something else.

He was lost in the throes of the club and the Descendants.