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“I don’t hate you,” he said, rendering me speechless. “I’ve never hated you.” Something in his voice made it impossible for me to move, to look away. “Not for a single day.”
It felt like there was static electricity in the air between us. I didn’t realize I’d leaned closer to him as well until the textbook slid off the bed and clattered to the floor. I blinked back into reality and jerked away, clearing my throat. “Um...” I reached up with a trembling hand and tucked my hair behind my ear as my gaze bounced around Beau’s room. It was so much bigger than mine, everything in it so much more expensive, yet, mine felt homier. “Well, you could have fooled me,” I said with an awkward laugh, trying to infuse lightness back into the situation that suddenly felt extremely heavy. “You’ve been really good at pretending otherwise.”
He moved closer still, and a thought suddenly blinked into my head.Is he about to kiss me?
That thought was followed by an even more insane one.God, I want him to kiss me.
I’d never been more confused in my life. This was a boy I hated, my high school bully, my nemesis, and I wanted him to kiss me like crazy. I wanted him to kiss me the way I’d seen him kiss Larissa all those times. Like he couldn’t help himself.
“Presley.” I was so used to him calling me Bubbles that the use of my name momentarily threw me off guard. “I’ve never hated you. Not for a single day.”
It was going to happen. He was going to kiss me. And something told me it would probably be the best kiss of my entire life.
His eyes flew down to my mouth when my tongue darted out to wet my lips, that clear, pale blue growing darker than I’d ever seen it before. This was it. It was happening. He was going to kiss me. And that voice inside my head that should have been yelling at me to back away was nowhere to be found.
But then the door slammed downstairs, giving both of us a jolt, and just as fast as it had come on, the moment splintered before shattering into a million pieces.
“Beau,” a loud, deep voice called from downstairs, causing me to shoot up straight, my spine going rigid.
“Is that your dad?” I asked in a whisper, my own eyes rounding as the fire in his died out.
“Yeah,” he grumbled, the air in the room growing frigid.
“Should we be up here?” I continued to whisper for some inexplicable reason.
He returned his feet to the mattress, taking on a laid-back, casual position that didn’t match his sudden mood change. “Don’t worry about it. Just ignore him.”
That was easier said than done, especially since I could hear the man’s footsteps climbing up the stairs as he called for Beau again, his voice much closer this time.
A few seconds later, the door to his bedroom flew open, banging against the wall behind it hard enough to startle a gasp out of me.
“Boy, what did I tell you about answering me when I—” His rant cut off when he spotted me sitting cross-legged on his son’s bed.
I lifted my hand in an awkward wave. “Uh, hi, Mr. Wade. I’m Pres?—”
He looked to his son, dismissing me before I could even get my whole name out. “I need to talk to you. Outside,” he ordered to Beau before turning on his heel and storming out.
The door closed behind him and I glanced back to Beau as he pushed out of his chair, his jaw clenched so tight it ticked, and tossed his notebook onto the mattress angrily. “Be right back,” he grunted without sparing me a single look as he stomped out of the room, leaving me alone and feeling incredibly awkward.
Seconds ticked into minutes. The more time that passed, the antsier I got, like a million tiny bugs were crawling beneath my skin. At one point I could hear raised voices, but they’d moved far enough away that I couldn’t make out what was being said.
Finally, the door flew open and Beau reappeared, face red and eyes that all-too familiar chilling ice blue.
“Come on,” he clipped as he snatched his keys off the desk and stuffed them in his pocket.
“Uh, where are we going?” I sputtered as I made quick work of stuffing my things back into my backpack.
“I’m taking you home. Think we’ve done enough on that conversation for one day.”
“Oh.” My stomach sank as disappointment spread through my limbs. Despite everything I thought I knew about Beau, I’d actually had fun this afternoon and I was sad it was over.
The ride back to my place was made in silence. The fun-loving, funny boy I’d gotten to know was gone, but as he pulled up in front of my house and put his Jeep in park, that niggling of hope that we could stop being enemies for the first time in years was still alive in my chest, blooming into something.
“Thanks for the ride,” I said quietly as I reached for the handle.
“Sure. No problem.”
I tugged the handle and pushed the door open but something stopped me from climbing out. I wasn’t sure what had happened between him and his father earlier, but I hated that, whatever it was, it had upset him enough that he’d gone from joking and playful to broody.
