AllFreeNovel
Share Us
"I'm not sure yet." My gaze locked on the recently healed cut on his bottom lip. "I guess you'll just have to owe me for now."
"For now?" Breathing hard, he stepped closer until there wasn’t an inch of space between our bodies. "I don’t like owing people."
"Well, that's too bad," I replied, snaking my tongue out to wet my lips. "Because you're not in control of this situation."
He tilted his head to one side and a ghost of a smile teased his full lips. "And you are?"
“Answers,” I blurted out then, feeling the heat of his stare entirely too much to handle. “I want answers.”
“If it’s answers to homework, then you’re barking up the wrong tree,” he drawled lazily. “In case it skipped your attention, Molloy, I’m far from a scholar.”
“That’s a lie.” Nothing to do with Joey Lynch skipped my attention, which was how I knew that he was far more intelligent than he led the teachers at school to believe.
“You think I’m a scholar?”
“I think you’re smarter than you let on.” He might have a horrible attitude and rarely turned in his homework on time, if at all, but he had a sharp mind.
“How’d you figure that one, Molloy?”
“Your work in class is never wrong, it’s your homework that’s lacking,” I stated unabashedly. “You never have a problem completing any assignment we’re given in any of our subjects. Maths, English, Science, Home Economics. None of it phases you. When you’re in class, that is.”
What he seemed to be lacking wasn’t brains.
It was time.
“Jesus,” he muttered, rubbing his jaw. “Stalker much?”
“Fuck-up, much?” I shot back before adding, “And it’s called being perceptive. So no, I don’t want to copy your homework, I have my swot of a brother to copy that from, but I do know what I want.”
“Which is?”
“I want to know why you’re so hellbent on insisting that you don’t like me when we both know you do. I want you to explain why I’m the only girl in our year that you go out of your way tonotflirt with. And while we’re at it, I want you to admit the real reason you blew cold on me in September?”
“Jesus Christ.” Rubbing a hand over his bruised face, Joey muttered a string of curse words. “You’re not back to this shit again.”
I shrugged. “Either tell me why you don’t like me or admit that you do.”
“I just don’t like you anymore, okay?”
“Anymore suggests that you once did.”
“Just stop, okay!” Throwing his hands up, he took several steps backwards, putting space between us. “I thought I liked you, but I changed my mind. I have zero interest in you. None. And last time I checked, that wasn’t a crime. So let it go – and stop watching me. Christ, you’re like my own personal little stalker.”
“And you’re like my own personal little fuck up.” I reclaimed the space he put between us. “So, let’s have it, huh? The truth, this time. Why’d you hit Paul if you don’t like me?” I cocked a brow. “He told me that you threatened to cut his fingers off and shove them up his own ass if you caught him talking about putting his hand in my knickers again.” I dragged that particular confession out of Paul when he was groveling and begging my forgiveness. “Well, Joe?” Blowing out a shaky breath, I added, “Why’d you do that if you have zero interest in me? Why bother fighting my battles, defending my honor, if you don’t care?”
“I did that for your dad,” he replied, jaw ticking. “Because he’s been good to me.”
“And because he told you not to go there with me, right?”
He shook his head but made no reply.
“I’m right, aren’t I?” I pushed, unwilling to let it go. “That’s why you don’t look at me at school. Why you’re so determined to pretend that I don’t exist. Well, I’m not going to make it that easy for you.”
Fury danced in his eyes as he stalked back to where I was standing. “Listen carefully to me,” he said in a deathly cold tone, as he walked me backwards until my back was flush against my garden wall again. “When I hit your prick of a boyfriend, I was defending your father’s honor, not yours.” Eyes narrowing, he leaned so close that his nose brushed against mine. The move caused a jolt of electricity to rock through my body, predominantly the parts of my body south of my bellybutton. “I was thinking that your dad’s a good guy, who doesn’t deserve to find out that his daughter is so—“
“Finish that sentence,” I warned, beyond furious, as I reached up and fisted the front of his hoodie. “I dare you.”
“Easy,” he spat, glaring down at me. “You want to know why I don’t like you, Molloy?” Narrowing his eyes, he added, “It’s because you’re too fuckingeasy. I could have had you likethaton the very first day.” He snapped his fingers for emphasis. “Do you know how boring that is? Do you know how incredibly uninteresting that makes you?”
