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And the select few in.
Without saying another word, Will uses his fingers and arm to turn me away, leaving Alisha’s chubby comment hanging there, uncontested. Tears threaten the back of my throat, stupid and childish.
Will leans in and says, “She can’t help herself, can she? Some people haven’t changed a bit since high school. She’s not worth another second of attention.”
“Hmmm?” Worlds are ending inside my throat and heart and behind my wet eyes.
“Attention. That’s what she’s seeking. That’s what that ludicrous put-down was about. The second she gets attention, she’s being fed. Good, bad–doesn’t matter. Her goal is to make us look at and focus on her. Not going to do it. Not when I have better objects of my attention.”
I glance at her, face tipped up, eyebrows knitted as it dawns on her Will is giving me his full attention in every way, shape and form. Publicly.
He squeezes my hip, but–that’s not quite my hip.
Did Will just cop a feel?
And did I just move… closer to him?
How can my body seek his touch at the same time my psyche thinks he’s rejecting me somehow by not following the rules of the game at which he was a master?
I let out a small laugh through my nose. It hits me.
Because my body is twenty-eight, but my mind is still a teenager.
None of those rules is real. Will just said as much. Alisha is stuck in a reality from a decade ago.
I don’t want to be in that club anymore.
“Hey,” he says, interrupting my thoughts. I welcome the intrusion. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
“Did her comment bother you?” He moves back a foot and looks at me appreciatively. “Because it shouldn’t.”
“I–”
“It really, really shouldn’t.” Warm eyes meet mine as I look up, caught in his gaze, too many discordant thoughts trying to occupy the same space as the whirling dervish of emotion inside me.
“WILL!” a man’s baritone calls out from behind us. Will groans.
“It’s going to be like this all night, isn’t it?” I whisper as I lean in, the scent of his aftershave and soap filling me, the press of his cotton shirt on my bare palm a kind of foreplay that gets me wet so fast, I blush.
He pauses. Blood pounds through me, my cheeks aflame as each breath closes the distance between high school and now, the way his fingertips brush the soft skin of my wrist an invitation that extends far beyond being his platonic date for a high school reunion.
“It doesn’t have to be, Mallory. We can decide how tonight goes. Just us,” he murmurs, hot breath tickling the outer shell of my ear, the fine fibers of his shirt turning my skin to a tingly pleasureland as I run my hand up his arm.
Only to be brutally shoved out of the way as a meat wall grabs Will and hugs him.
“LOWMAN!” Michael Osgood screams, looking as much like a pale version of The Hulk as anyone can. Many of the bulging muscles that made him a great nose tackle seem to have migrated to a spot just above his belt buckle. His hair, thinning already by senior year, is largely gone, shaved close to his scalp. He’s wearing a navy polo shirt, khaki dockers, and brown leather shoes.
“Ozzy,” Will chokes out, giving me a look that either says Hey, my friends love me or Call an ambulance because he just squeezed my spleen until it burst.
I seriously can’t tell which.
Ozzy sets Will down and turns his back to me, Will stretching his neck to peer around the mountain of a man in order to re-establish eye contact with me. Normally, I’d leave, but I’m standing my ground, instantly furious.
Because Michael Osgood is the one who threatened me.
Over homework.
