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His neck.
His jaw.
His mouth.
She stopped at his mouth.
“You want a ride home?” it asked.
“I was going to walk.”
“I’ll walk you.”
Probably she was supposed to say no. By her old, discarded codes of behavior, certainly she was. There were words for what Tony had done, none of them nice. Took advantage of you. Used you.
Words for what she’d done, too. For who she’d been. Spread for him. Slut.
He hadn’t even said hello to her earlier. He’d just nodded like an angry jerk, and his furious expression had burned up all the tender little shoots of hope she’d cultivated over the past forty-eight hours.
But here he was, and her heart was leaping again like a stupid puppy. Happy just to see him. To hear his voice.
She lifted her eyes to meet his.
His eyes said, I mean it.
Whatever that meant.
“All right,” she said.
She locked up, and they crossed the parking lot. At the road, she slanted to the left, and his fingers brushed her elbow. More fluttering in her heart, in her stomach. More hope.
She shouldn’t hope. He could hurt her again. He could hurt her even worse.
She didn’t know how to stop.
“Let’s go the long way,” he said.
“There’s a long way?”
“Through town.”
So they turned right and walked in silence past half a dozen small houses, spaced out in their patches of lawn. Then left, up the steep hill past the elementary school, three blocks from Camelot’s tiny downtown.
“I like that house,” Tony said.
She turned to look. Mrs. Everidge’s place. It had gray siding and big windows. An ordinary house.
“I used to want to build houses. I thought I could work for my dad and expand into home construction, instead of just commercial.”
“Do you still want to?”
“I’m not sure. I haven’t thought about it in years.”
“Maybe you should think about it.”
“I am.”
He reached out and took her hand. His fingers wrapped around hers, his grip solid and sure. His stride was like that, too. Like he knew exactly where he was going.
