Page 78 of Darkest Obsession

Clover holds my pencil like she’s going to throw it at me, but she just rolls it over to me.

“It’s not about candy, dumbass,” she grumbles.

“Then tell me.” I want to know everything about her.

“My parents put my entire life on the internet. They made all my choices. Some of them… were weird.”

“Like what?”

“My Halloween costumes. Let’s list my childhood costumes shall we? Sexy Jasmine, Playboy bunny, a monkey eating a banana, Marilyn Monroe, sexy lifeguard, sexy Pocahontas… Do I need to continue?”

“A monkey eating a banana?”

“Subscribers voted for that one. And the Playboy bunny. I was seven.”

“Seriously?”

“Yes,” she sighs. “Some of the people who watched us were really really weird. I don’t want to talk about it.”

I get that. I had a weird childhood too. You don’t grow up in a Bainbridge household without a few screws coming loose. Violet’s only high strung. The rest of us are all properly fucked.

“You’re eighteen,” I remind Clover. “You don’t have to be sexy if you don’t want to.”

“What are you going to dress up as?” She asks, definitely deflecting.

“Isn’t it obvious?”

“Um. No.”

“Tarzan. Loincloth. Hair loose.”

“Ew.”

“Sexy Tarzan,” I tease her.

She rolls her eyes so far back they almost disappear.

“Why does everything have to be sexy?”

“I dunno. You’re the one obsessed with sex.”

It was only a joke, but she definitely doesn’t take it that way. Fuck.

“What the hell does that mean?”

Great. Nice going, Thomas. I was only teasing her, but the expression on Clover’s face tells me this isn’t a joke.

“I’m not shaming you or anything.”

“I am not obsessed with sex,” she hisses.

Fuck, she smells amazing.

“No? You can’t seem to live without it,” I accuse her. She’s hooked up with Jude. Kit. Who knows how many other secrets she might have. I seem to be the only man who utterly repulses her.

“I haven’t gotten any in months and I’m totally fine. Do you think you could last that long?”

Clover snickers. “Boy, I don’t know what the hell you are, but you ain’t fine.”