Page 56 of Break Points and Face Offs

“Hey.” He touches my arm and I have to fight to stop myself from sinking into it. From giving up.

I have worked too hard for too long to be everything I need to be. I’m not going to fall at the final hurdle. Not when I’m so close.

“I will not let you get into my head.”

I allow myself the quickest of glances. He’s frowning.

“Your mind games won’t work on me.”

“Mind games?” he asks.

“Let’s just go back to the house. This whole weekend was a colossal waste of my time.”

WILL

I grit my teeth all the way back to the house, turning my victory playlist off so Priestley doesn’t taint it.

Why the fuck did I kiss him? I can’t explain it. This need just came over me watching him lose his shit. It’s no excuse, though. I can control myself around good-looking guys. Especially ones I don’t even like.

It’s just … seeing Priestley be vulnerable, it melted the ice a little. And I just wanted to find a way to get him to shut up.

And … something deep down told me he wanted me to kiss him.

I saw him checking me out in the library. I’m not blind, I know when someone’s staring at my junk. Priestley Rosenthal is queer. The fact he feels like he has to hide it only makes me want to scratch under that prickly surface even more. Give him the option to let go. To be himself for five seconds of his life without putting on an act.

But maybe he’s more far gone than I thought.

He ignores me while I drive, flipping through the notebook in his lap so hard I think he’s gonna rip the pages. Every time I think about speaking, I bite my tongue.

I don’t know how we’re gonna endure the journey back to college if this is how a short car ride is with him.

“Priestley,” I start, knowing I have to fix this.

He pretends he can’t hear me. Dick.

I know he can, so I go on.

“Listen, sorry about that. I misread the situation.”

If I didn’t know he was listening before, he shows me by pausing trying to rip the pages out of my notebook.

“Let’s just forget about it, yeah?”

“It’s already forgotten,” he says.

Oh … good.

When we get back to the house, Ma’s made dinner. We sit down to eat. Luckily, the kids are full of energy, talking over each other and being silly, so we can blend into the background.

We have to drive back tonight for class tomorrow, so as soon as dinner’s finished, we put our plates in the kitchen and are shooed away from helping so we can go and pack our shit up.

I take a second in my bedroom to try and get that stupid kiss out of my head.

What the fuck was I thinking?

I wasn’t. I was being led by something else. It’s true that love and hate are two sides of the same coin. But what about lust and anger? Nobody has ever infuriated me more than Priestley fucking Rosenthal. The guy is a walking representation of everything I hate. He’s privileged, cocky, self-involved … I could go on forever listing the guy’s bad qualities. But he does something to me. He excites me. He gets my blood boiling and my heart racing. And there are those glimmers of humanity whenever I go too far when I’m chirping him. But the way he acted after I kissed him—that dampened the fire that burned while we were kissing. It might have been hot, but I don’t need to work very hard to remind myself that it was wrong.

The asshole pretends to sleep all the way back to campus, so I keep the radio on low and try to forget he’s even there. But it isn’t easy. It’s like he gives off these super pheromones. Douchebag pheromones.