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“It’s funny,” she said quietly. “You were the first person I talked to this morning, and you’ll probably be the last I talk to tonight.”
This morning. It felt like a lifetime ago. He wondered if she had any idea that Ryan Stacey had been trapping her little brother inside a locker after scrawling insults all over his chest.
I let him kiss me.
No. She couldn’t possibly know.
“Tell me your secrets,” she said.
He looked up. “My secrets?”
Layne drew her legs up to sit cross-legged on the tailgate, her hands in her lap. It put half her face in light, half in shadow, like a challenging angel trying to decide between good and evil.
“You said yesterday that any time someone comes close to figuring you out, you pick a fight. You did it this morning in the woods, and you’re doing it now. If you’re not this thug player who can’t pass math, then what are you hiding?”
usly.
Gabriel started the engine and drove toward town. He didn’t have a clear destination in mind, but she’d said she couldn’t go home, and he sure as hell couldn’t take her to his.
At the first stop sign he glanced over. “Did he hurt you?”
Her eyes didn’t leave the window. “No.”
A thousand questions burned his lips, but she was so closed off. She might bolt from the car if he pushed.
He could kill Taylor. He should have told Chris to throw her in the pool.
The air felt sharp, sparking with tension. Gabriel reached out and flicked on the radio, keeping the volume low. One of those guitar ballads rolled through the car, something that felt like it should have been a slow song, but really wasn’t.
Finally, her arms loosened, just a little. “I’m such an idiot. I should have known.”
Her voice had lost the wild emotion and now carried that core of strength he knew lived inside her.
“It’s not your fault,” he said.
“I know,” she said. “Believe me, I’ve seen all the after-school specials. That girl who helped me she kept telling me, too.”
“Becca. She’s my little brother’s girlfriend.”
Layne swiped at her eyes, looking more angry than tragic now. “Yeah, well, that guy can’t take all the blame. I was the moron who showed up.”
“What were you doing there, anyway?” he said. “I thought you hated Taylor and Heather and all those girls.”
“Oh, I do. Don’t worry.” She paused, biting at her lip. “They tricked me into going.”
“They tricked you? How?”
She looked out the window again. “It’s not important.”
Gabriel let the car drift to a stop at a red light on Ritchie Highway. He turned to look at her.
Layne very obviously did not want to look at him.
“You want a coffee?” he said.
She didn’t answer for a moment. “Sure.”
So he left her in the car in front of Starbucks, coming back with two steaming cups, a wad of napkins, and a few wet packs the barista had fished from behind the counter at his request.
