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He gestured with his cup. “I have a sign-up sheet nailed to that tree. Now that you mention it” he glanced at his watch “we should probably wrap this up.”
Her eyes were intense, challenging, fixed on his. “Do you have a five-minute limit before you start getting mean?”
“I don’t know, Layne. Do you have a five-minute limit before you start getting defensive?”
She clamped her mouth shut and turned to face the darkness.
As usual, he didn’t know if he owed her an apology or deserved one.
He picked at the lid of his cup. “Nicky and I come out here sometimes,” he said. “I’ve never brought a girl here.”
“Never?” Her voice was some combination of skeptical and hopeful.
“What do you think, that I’m some kind of thug player who’ll screw anything in a skirt?”
She didn’t answer, and that was answer enough.
“Wow,” he said. “I can’t believe you think I’d beat the shit out of Ryan Stacey just to drag you to the middle of nowhere so I could ”
“Hey.” Her eyes flashed up to his. “Now who’s defensive?”
“Touché.”
They sat in silence for a while, until the crickets were deafening, and Gabriel began to wonder if he should just offer to drive her home.
“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?”
“What are you hiding?”
“I asked first.”
He looked out at the night again but his heart was running a marathon in his chest. “You already know Nick was taking my tests for me.”
She cocked her head to the side and gave a little shrug.
“That’s not even a secret. That’s like me saying, I have a deaf little brother.”
Gabriel shrugged. Truths were clawing at his lips, begging to escape. God, to tell someone.
No way. Like he could sit here, trapped on the tailgate, and spill everything. Gee, well, I can control fire. Oh, and those articles in the paper? They’re talking about me. And maybe I should mention that I’ve been thinking about your arms around me all day. Or how I’ve wanted to kiss you for days, but right now that would make me no better than Ryan Stacey . . .
Yeah, that would be great. He drew a choking breath and fought for words.
“How about,” she said, her voice careful, “I get a question, then you get a question.”
