I couldn’t make sense of the change in her. I couldn’t begin to explain what had happened between us. Whatever it was, it had been intense but fleeting, and I was honestly starting to wonder if it had all been in my head.
I scrubbed a hand over my face as the sounds of the guys eating lunch around me broke through my angst. That’s what this was. I was angsting. Over a girl.
Oh crap, maybe I was brooding like a Salvatore. I sighed into my soda. I was a freakin’ cliché.
And it was all her fault.
I sighed heavily as I glanced over to her table in the cafeteria, but her friend Hannah was sitting with some of the other girls from the soccer team and Rose was nowhere to be found.
“How’s it going with Rose?” Ryan smirked at me from his end of the table.
My hands clenched into fists.
I wanted to punch that smirk right off his smarmy face. I never had been a big fan of Ryan’s. We shared the same friends, we went to the same parties, but I’d never really liked him.
I definitely didn’t like that Rose had chosen to date this turd. And the fact that he was the one who’d gotten me into this current brooding disaster? That seemed like reason enough to beat the ever-loving crap out of him.
The goon had the nerve to laugh in the face of my silence. “That good, huh? Funny, after you were all over her the other night, I haven’t seen her anywhere near you.” He looked to his friends. “Looks like I’m gonna be the winner, huh? You know she asked me to help her with the fair—”
“She asked all of us, Ryan.” Andrew kept his voice mild and his head down. “We’re all taking part in that…kissing booth.” The normally laid-back pitcher sounded so disgusted by a kissing booth that even I had to laugh.
“You’ve got to admit. She’ll raise a lot of money.”
“It’s smart,” Ryan said. He wore this little smile that was all proud boyfriend and yeah…I was absolutely going to have to kick the crap out of this guy. He leaned back in his seat and his gaze locked on me. “Poor thing’s just looking for an excuse to kiss me again.”
Rage shot through me at the thought of it. It was stupid jealousy, a possessiveness that, if I were being honest, I’d felt toward Rose ever since our brief fling two years ago. It was that voice that said mine every time I saw her strutting around these halls. It was the flare of anger that I’d gotten used to ignoring every time I saw her flirting with another guy or worse…dating one.
“You had your chance, man,” I said, forcing a calm I didn’t feel. I aimed for the sort of laid-back smirk I knew would drive him nuts, but judging by the stares aimed in my direction, I hadn’t quite nailed it. “You blew it.”
Ryan’s nostrils flared as his eyes narrowed in warning. “And, what? You think she’s gonna give you a second chance? You’re dreaming, bro. She’s just playing you. She’s gonna get you all twisted up, wrapped around her little finger, and then she’s gonna drop you…just like she did before.”
Andrew sighed, straightening in his seat. Ryan’s friends were watching us with barely concealed eagerness. They’d love nothing more than to see this turn into a fight, but Andrew… He was the peacemaker and he was shaking his head in my direction now. Giving me a look that said, drop it, man. Let it go.
I didn’t want to. But at the same time… Ryan’s words were getting to me. They were exactly what I was thinking about him. He was a fool to think he had a chance. And he was right, that’s exactly what she’d do if Ryan tried to get back in her good graces. She’d tease and flirt and make his head spin with her charm and charisma and…
It would all be an act.
My heart thudded painfully in my chest. It had all been an act, every second of her time with me at the party, all that laughter and flirting by the fire.
But in the car…that had been real.
Right?
I met Andrew’s stare evenly before turning back to Ryan. “You’re right,” I said, the words feeling like shards of glass in my throat. “That’s exactly what she’d do.”
And she had done that. To me.
It had all been an act.
My mind flashed back to that kiss. Oh, who was I kidding? There was a part of my brain that had never left that kiss ever since it happened nearly a week ago. I’d been stuck there, trying to figure it out, reliving it, trying to make sense of it…
But it was time to let it go.
I stared down at the table. Yeah, that was way easier said than done. What I needed was some sort of resolve. I needed closure.
Because apparently I was a pathetic little ball of angst and now I needed freakin’ closure. Man, I disgusted myself right now. No wonder Simone had opted to ditch lunch in favor of working on the fundraiser.
I lifted my head with a start. She was working on the fundraiser and…that was almost definitely where Rose would be right now.
I pushed my chair back so quickly it screeched against the floor making several people look my way. Let them look. I had a girl to see and answers to get and…
Hopefully lips to kiss.
But first, answers. And I sure as heck wasn’t going to get them by sitting here listening to Ryan talk.
A few minutes later I spotted Simone on the stage, along with some of her art buddies, painting a sign of some sort.
I didn’t have to search for Rose. The girl would stand out in any crowd,
