Page 51 of Worth the Risk

How was I not supposed to think about that? How was I not supposed to obsess over those words to the point I slipped my fingers under the waistband of my panties and put them to work while I thought of him last night.

It was just a kiss, Sidney. He didn’t reject you. He didn’t anything you, so stop overthinking. Don’t fall off the estrogen-edged deep end thinking this is about you when he’s simply talking about participating in the contest.

“Not all of us get to come and go on a whim like you. I don’t have time for this in my life. Not in the least.”

“Time for what? What do you mean?”

“This. The photo and the goddamn contest. Us. The kiss. Me wanting you. It was a huge mistake, and your response a few seconds ago just made it more than clear why it was.”

“Grayson, I—”

“I’ve gotta go.”

The call ends, and I’m left standing in the middle of a photo shoot that isn’t going to take place. I stare at my cell phone, not really knowing what the hell just happened, and eventually come to the realization that I never really knew I wanted there to be an us until the door shut in my damn face.

Talk about screwing myself on all fronts. And not in the good way.

Shit.

What am I going to do now?

If there is any silver lining in my day, it’s that when I walk out of the Sunnyville Gazette’s office an hour later, I have a thumb-drive full of photos of Grayson I can possibly use for our site. No, they aren’t of him in his flight suit with the front unzipped like I’d planned. Yes, I had to deal with the searching comments from the gossip columnist about whether I really needed the pictures just for the contest.

But I have them.

At least there’s that.

I meet him stare for stare. His eyes hold so much depth, but the angry red mark on his cheekbone stands out bright against his olive complexion.

“Fighting isn’t the way to solve a problem,” I say to Luke. On the inside, a part of me wants to give him a high five for doing it, and another part of me wants to pull him against me to protect him from the cruelty of other kids. “Do you want to tell me what happened?” It’s the same question I’ve asked three other times. In the school’s office. In the car. In the driveway once we were home.

“No.”

“Mr. Malone, there’s been an incident here at school. You need to come and get Luke.”

“What’s wrong?”

“He’s been in a fight.”

My laugh filled the line. “You’re kidding, right? My Luke?”

“I’m sad to say I’m not kidding. We have a zero-tolerance policy for fights.”

“I’m on my way.”

“Luke, buddy, I can’t help you if you don’t tell me what happened. You’ve sat here for the past two hours, now it’s time to talk.”

“Nothing happened.” He spits the words out at me, but his bottom lip quivers.

“Hi. What’s up?” Sidney’s voice filled the line and aggravated every single part of me—good and bad. “Where are you?”

“I can’t make it.”

“What?” The superior tone in her voice sliced open my temper, the intonation implying no one ever cancels on her and she didn’t quite know how to handle it.

“I can’t make it.” Deal with it.

I think back to what a day it’s been so far, and hell if I’m not sitting here at seven o’clock at night, trying to coax my eight-year-old to explain what happened. All I got out of the principal was that it had to do with that goddamn photo in the paper, some teasing, and then Luke threw the first punch.