AllFreeNovel
Share Us
My heart thuds as Dare stops kissing me.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
Batman got in the way and then Dare came over, so I never got to wrap up my message with Hannah.
“Was that your phone?” Dare murmurs.
My stomach does a somersault. “Maybe.”
“It’s late. Who’s texting you at this time of night?”
My blood runs cold, but I try not to let on how uneasy I feel. “It’s Halloween, Dare. It’s not a normal night.”
No longer as interested in mauling me as he is in seeing who the message is from, he sits on the seat beside me with our thighs touching and takes the phone out of my tiny pocket.
He’s going to check it?
Shit.
It takes every bit of impulse-control I have not to snatch the phone away from him before he can. I know that would be suspicious, but I also know the message is from Hannah from the knowing way his lips tug up the moment he looks at the locked screen.
“You were drunk-texting Hannah,” he states.
My heart pounds. “No. We weren’t texting at all, we were… DMing.”
He levels me a flat look since that is the worst argument of all time.
I want to tell him he was showing off for stupid Vanessa so he has no right to be jealous, but that would mean acknowledging Hannah is a reason for him to be jealous, and rationally I know they’re not remotely the same thing.
She might be attracted to him, but Dare doesn’t give a single fuck about Vanessa. If some dastardly villain dangled her from the roof of a skyscraper and asked what he was willing to do to save her life, anything that mildly inconvenienced him would be a no. He’d walk away, possibly step over her guts on the sidewalk below, and never think of her again.
If some dastardly villain dangledHannahover certain death, I would be on my knees sobbing inconsolably and begging for a chance to save her. If I failed and anything happened to her, it would haunt me all my life.
It’s just complicated because if I close my eyes and imagine such a scenario, the only villain my imagination can conjure is the man sitting beside me.Hewould be the one dangling her over certain death, the one I’d have to bargain with.
He’sthe danger. He always has been.
I don’t want to put Hannah in danger again, so I turn up the sweetness and try to distract him from that dumb idea of heading toward the skyscraper rooftopbeforeit occurs to him.
Sliding my hand along Dare’s muscular thigh, I lean close and rest my head on his shoulder. “I was just telling her happyHalloween. We literally talked about the weather. It was boring, really.”
“Mm-hmm,” he murmurs, unconvinced and not at all distracted by my hand on his thigh like I hoped he might be.
My stomach sinks as he swipes the screen and puts in my passcode. I hold my breath when he opens the app, trying to remember the last thing we were talking about before I got distracted by the guy at the party.
Hannah is much safer now that most of the country is between us, but if he sees those comments about my ass…
I can tell him we were just joking around—because we were—but he got salty over muffins, so I feel like her commenting on my ass would definitely trigger an unpleasant reaction.
Thankfully, when the message opens, most of the window is swallowed up by the picture she sent me. The line above it is just her saying yeah, she has a costume, she just wasn’t in the mood to post any pictures tonight.
She sent me one, though.
My heart contracts at the sight of her in her costume. She’s Sleeping Beauty, and she earns the name. Big, soft ringlets of blond hair hang around her bare shoulders. The bodice of her short pink dress is a corset that could definitely enhance her cleavage, but she wears it modestly, leaving plenty to the imagination. A soft tulle-like material is attached and draped across her arms to give it an off-the-shoulder look. The dress is gorgeous, especially on her, but my heart stops when I see she’s wearing the necklace I gave her to complete the look.
I’m so distracted looking at the picture, I almost miss the message she sent after it. “Not that you would, but please don’tshare this with anyone. I had to tell Anae I sold the necklace. Obviously, this would be proof I lied, lol.”
My heart sinks. I want to grab the phone and cover the screen in case by some slim chance Dare was also too distracted looking at the photo and hasn’t seen the message.
