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“Yeah, well, I thought you weren’t interested. I didn’t realize that your divining rod just pointed in a different direction.”
“You’re killing me,” he said. But it sounded like he was smiling.
Quinn sighed. “So I’m back on the market. You should have left me on the beach with those guys.”
His voice sharpened right up. “Quinn, that was insane. You know that, right? After what happened with Becca—you can’t—you just—”
“I had nowhere to go!” she cried. “My mother threw me out again—”
“Next time, call me. Or Becca. This was crazy. Anything could have happened.”
“Becca was with Chris. And you—you weren’t—”
“I wasn’t what?” He pushed her off him so he could look down at her. His voice was fierce. “I wasn’t your friend? I wasn’t concerned? Jesus, Quinn, just because I don’t want to sleep with you doesn’t mean I don’t care about you.”
She stared at him. No one had ever lectured her like that.
She kind of liked it.
Nick ran a hand through his hair. “God, you’re crazy. Do you think people will only like you because you put out?”
“I don’t just think that,” she snapped. “It’s true.”
“It’s not,” he said softly. “I promise you. It’s not.” He paused. “You said it was nice dating a guy who was a friend. Why don’t you slow down a bit and take a break from all the . . . ah, extracurriculars?”
Quinn smiled. “You and your vocabulary.”
“I’m serious,” he said. “Why don’t you put all that passion into your dancing?”
“So you want me to hump Adam on stage? I’m not sure that’s the kind of audition he’s looking for.”
“Quinn.”
She squeezed her eyes shut. She was losing Becca to Chris. It was okay, and she got it, but now she was going to lose Nick, too. It was almost enough to force tears between her lashes again.
She opened her eyes and looked down at him. Her voice was choked. “Could we keep dating?” When Nick frowned, she rushed on. “Not like for reals. Just—just for a little while?”
“Why?”
Because she didn’t trust herself not to jump on another motorcycle the next time her mom was a raging bitch or a cheerleader called her fat or there wasn’t any chocolate in the house. Because Nick was still someone steady to lean on, someone who wouldn’t use her. Somehow this revelation made him safer, and for the first time, she wanted to cling to a boy especially because he didn’t want to put his Tab A into her Slot B.
was silent for a long minute. A weighted minute.
Then he said, his voice completely sober, “When I was seventeen, Quinn told me she had a crush on me. I told her I had a crush on the starting center of the football team. A few days later, someone slammed my face into the corner of my locker. I never saw who did it. But he broke my nose and two teeth. I had to have reconstructive surgery. I didn’t go back to school.”
Nick was looking at him now. “Holy shit.”
Adam shrugged. “It wasn’t that long ago. I’m surprised you didn’t hear about it.”
Nick frowned. “I think—I think I did. I remember something . . .” He shook his head. It was one of those high school dramas, the complete focus of hallway gossip for like five minutes, then gone.
Unless you were the center of the drama, like Adam.
Nick wasn’t entirely sure what to say. That he understood? He’d gotten in enough fights because of being an Elemental that he could relate—but saying so didn’t seem right.
He had to clear his throat. “I’m surprised you provoked those guys on the beach.”
Adam shrugged. “I’m not going to live in fear because of who I am. If that idiot who hit me thought he could scare me straight, it didn’t work.”
